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There was no one who could call his name.
He shared his home with a woman that sometimes lulled him in her arms, but usually she left him crying alone. He desperately asked her to come, to see how bad he felt when they were divided by several feet. She used to bring home vessels with bad-smelling liquid, which displeased and scared the child, but those times she used to become more cheerful and talk to him more willingly. The kid didn’t need more than that—so he put up with it. She used to stroke his head and embrace him when she managed to get food for them both, or that disgusting liquid for herself. Everything went its course.
Until he found her lying on the street. She reeked of alcohol, but snowflakes didn’t melt on her face. He tried to wake her, shook her and shouted, but couldn’t help it.
Their house was taken by other people.
She used to call him somehow, but too rarely and too long ago for him to remember. He slept under walls and fences, sobbing, and opened his eyes with an outcry full of hope, wishing to see the poor ceiling, turn his head—and find that woman bustling around the stove.
But the dream didn’t come true, so he had to adjust to his new life among thousands of indifferent pairs of legs, angry packs of dogs and rats. He guessed it was his fault: it was he who shook her not hard enough, called her not loud enough. Maybe, he didn’t want her to come back enough, in a word—he didn’t save her.
A ferocious eagle is hovering above mountains, looking for prey, and Baoshan Sanren is flying her sword, gazing into the mortal world. She’s also searching—not for victims, but for those whom she can save.
There’s no one who can call her name, though she had ‘embraced a mountain’ with neither a name nor a point on a map. However, she of all people should know: a name that can be called is not a constant name. Written on bamboo, scraped on stone—all will dissipate like ripples on a pond, melt like bizarre mist between slopes.
Only Dao does not change itself—the only one immutable, never-ending—it’s more than the beginning and the end. She came to it, the origin of all beings, to possess none of them. She left the vain mortal world to let the emptiness into herself, to learn De and inaction.
But emptiness doesn’t mean uselessness, inaction doesn’t mean turning a blind eye, and serenity doesn’t mean callousness. A cultivator shouldn’t alter the natural way of things, yet the harm shouldn’t be done. Heaven and Earth are not humane, but the world isn’t secure, if children live on the streets.
There was time when a girl was sitting under a wall likewise, dressed in rags and hungry, her eyes dim like those of an elder—they shone only when street vendors with mantou or loquats walked past her.
Now the Duanwu festival was in full swing, all the people were busy watching boat competitions and eating zongzi. No one noticed a boy who sat near the garbage pit. It was full of leavings thrown there by the tavern servant. It seemed that something edible was found—the boy, though looking pitiful, smiled subtly.
Baoshan Sanren came closer. The boy noticed her immediately and tilted his head, expressing curiosity.
“Where are your parents?” she asked.
He just shrugged his shoulders, “I’m alone,” and put out his index finger.
“Do you have a family name and a name?” the cultivator asked.
The boy got confused, as if he was shown unknown characters.
“How do people call you?” she clarified.
“Some say ‘Hey, you’, others say ‘Out’!” he responded seriously.
The immortal lowered her head and closed her eyes. This world was too weird—why do people love their kids and despise others’ ones? She regretted one thing: there are hundreds and thousands of those children under Heaven—there would always be those whom she wouldn’t pick up, and only Heaven knows, whether they will choose to follow Dao or create havoc.
“Where do you live?”
“Here,” the boy said, “And there,” he pointed his finger at a dead end, “And sometimes there.”
“Do you want to go with me?”
The boy pondered for a moment, then jumped up so abruptly he almost splat on the ground.
The immortal decided she shouldn’t board the kid on her sword straight away—he might get scared and fall. Baoshan Sanren took his hand, and he clang onto it, as if he was afraid that the woman was just a dream and could easily disappear.
“Where are we going?” he pulled her sleeve.
“On the mountain, to little brothers and sisters.”
“That’s it.”
The cultivator lifted the corner of her mouth in response to such seriousness—for sure, this boy will laugh when he grows up and learns about how he used to alternate seriousness with smiling, how he rejoiced at things Baoshan Sanren would cry at, hadn’t she spent several hundred years cultivating and calming her spirit.
She thought she should give him a name, as light and plain as he himself was. As Dao is, which softens its glare and unites itself with dust.
They left the city and went further to the slopes with paddy fields. Beneath the bright sun, flooded rice resembled polished emerald plates. They turned onto a lonely road to the sound of cicadas’ chirring.
“I was waiting for you.”
The woman tilted her head and looked closer at the boy. “Do you know who I am?”
“I know,” the kid smiled, “Mom.”