Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4 - 7 2018 | Page 163

Pilgrimage
St. Mary's Canossian College, Tam, Celine - 15
The scorched sand shimmered in the intense white rays of the sun. Heat rained down on the young monk
and his three followers like the breath of hell. Their hats cocooned their heads in warm sweat, the arid heat
burnt at their lungs. Steps became heavier and heavier. At the point before they collapsed, they saw traces of
flames ahead of them; and when they looked up, they saw an inferno, sweeping across the Flaming
Mountains. Looking to their leader, the three followers desperately asked for instructions, with one of them
demanding a detour. However, with the unquestioning belief that the Buddha would protect them, the
monk insisted on continuing their scheduled journey by trekking through the mountains. As the heat rose
dramatically, their dehydration became so severe that they had no choice but to take refuge from the heat
inside a cave. Unfortunately, the heat had taken its toll on the monk. As his consciousness faded, Tang
Sanzang couldn’t believe that his mission had to be aborted unwillingly.
A lone Yixing clay teacup sat in the middle of piles of documents and books, slowly cooling off after being
there for hours. An assistant professor in his early thirties took a sip of the cold Pu-er, and realized that he
had been reading for far too long in his office at Stanford University. The moment when he looked up,
there was his lifelong passion hanging on the wall – a gigantic map of the Tang Dynasty, between 500 A.D.
and 700 A.D. Dr. Wallace Wang Baker was reminded of how his interest was originated from his mother’s
enthusiasm as a historian in Peking University, before she married his father in California decades ago.
Feeling accomplished that he had managed to turn his interest into his career, he turned his gaze to his
graduation portrait, framed and propped up on his desk. He recalled that the portrait had been taken upon
his receiving a doctorate’s degree in history, and he smiled, recalling that feeling of pride he had felt at that
time. He had also remembered feeling blissful, as he had made his family proud. With his eyes darting to the
large family portrait that hung adjacent to the map, he noticed the wide grin his grandmother wore, yet
another proof of that he had done his family proud.
His latest research focus was an extension of his doctorate studies, in which it examined the timeline of Tang
Sanzang’s pilgrimage to the West. Across his 5-year doctorate training, the aspect of this 16-year pilgrimage
that fascinated him the most was the year of arrival of Sanzang from Turpan. It has always been a
controversial topic in literature: originally, it is established that Sanzang arrived at the city in 630 A.D.,
however, newly-discovered scriptures and documents suggest that the year of arrival was earlier than
historians had thought.
Dedicated to finding out the truth, Wallace spent a whole day on a plane and 2 hours of driving to get from
Stanford, California to the Flaming Mountains, located east of Turpan. The main area of his expedition was
the 77 rock-cut caves in the Bezeklik Caves . Knowing a bit of Turkish allowed Wallace to interpret the
religious art and the ancient writing on the caves with no difficulty. The caves varied in size, but most of
them had rectangular spaces with rounded arch ceilings full of murals of the Buddha. After 10 days of
explorations, Wallace came across an undiscovered location, whose location was not marked on the existing
maps. The entrance of the cave was largely obscured. As a historian dedicated to discovering the unknown,
he eagerly stepped into cave with great caution, knowing perfectly the dangers lying ahead. After four hours
of getting past the obstacles, “enlightenment” was the only description he had in mind when he saw the
faded Turkish writing engraved in stone, spanning across the entire wall. His eyes scanned rows and rows of
text until he realized, to his great excitement, that the information was connected to the years in which
Sanzang had spent in Turpan. Unfortunate for him, the most important portions of the text were too faded
to the point that he had not been able to decipher them. All of a sudden, a beam of light shined from above,
and Wallace collapsed instantly.