A Chronicle of aWandering in the Dao
A Chronicle of aWandering in the Dao
had a knack for solving intricate and difficult problems, and at times, you were sought by
others in your village to lend assistance. Despite your precocious youth, you were illiterate
until age sixteen. fallen ill and would soon die.You were struck by grief, yet thanked Gao for telling you.You
took your leave of him to rush home, running day and night until you reached your family's
farm.
At sixteen, your family mourned your conscription by the imperial army.Your eldest brother
could not be conscripted because of a broken arm, your older brother faked having the plague
to avoid being taken. By contrast, you reassured your crying relatives as you left with the
army, as though the day was like any other. Upon your arrival, you found your family in a state of grief: your grandfather had passed away
the night before.You wept with them, even as you were welcomed home. It relieved you
greatly to see your parents and your siblings; you were comforted to see how your family had
grown and changed in your absence.
Within the army, you performed many menial duties without complaint.You learned to read
and write, developed a burgeoning interest in literature, and quickly excelled at calligraphy.
However, your real passion lay with the martial training that all soldiers in the emperor's army
must undergo, though it was not the martial nature of these exercises that captivated you.
Through your training you became aware of Qi, both inside and outside your body. For a time,
you thought perhaps you had become a wizard by learning the fundamentals of breath control. Though you were grateful to be home again, restlessness that could not stilled leapt about
inside of you. Reasonably, you attributed your restlessness to the grief of losing your
grandfather. After all, many of your family members were also out of sorts due to grief.
However, it was something else that made you feel ill at ease.
Your preoccupation with your breathing was noticed by your superior. He, himself a follower
of the Dao, shared with you some of the wisdom of the masters in the form of aphorisms.
These phrases repeated in your mind during your waking hours, and eventually found their
way into your dreams as well.The movements of the world around you were laid bare because
you could sense the Dao at work.
After a few years, your service was no longer required by the army.You took your leave, and
began you journey home. On the way, you baffled and delighted onlookers by swimming into
and out of a whirlpool without drowning. Further along on your journey, after only a handful
of attempts, you suspended yourself from a tree by a single thread of spider silk. Closer to
home, you split a boulder that blocked the mountain path before you with a mere slap of your
hand.
Of these displays of mastery, only the first was witnessed by others-- or so you thought.When
you were only two days from your home, you came across a small hut where an old man lived.
His name was GaoYun, and he bade you to come inside. He told you of all three of your
previously mentioned masterful deeds, and revealed that he knew about them because he
himself was also a student of the Dao.
Gao asked you if you had ever heard of the Xian, the immortals.You had not, and you found
such a concept difficult to believe, and yet his words had the unmistakable ring of truth. He
imparted to you all of his knowledge about the various kinds of immortals that exist. His most
detailed and accurate description was of the Shijie Xian, those who become immortal by
placing a false death certificate, or other proxy, into the casket of the recently deceased.
You were fascinated and curious if such a thing were truly possible. Gao reassured you that it
could be done.After a few moments, the old man suddenly told you that your grandfather had
Eventually, you realized that you couldn't settle back into the life of a farmer's son. Doing so
would require you to shrink in ways you no longer could, to forget things that had become as
natural as breathing.Your consciousness had expanded along with your understanding of the
world. Everything you learned and experienced while you were away was too much a part of
you to give up, even for your family.
You knew what you had to do.
The night before your grandfather's funeral, you sneaked out of the house and visited your
grandfather's casket.You opened the lid just a hair's breadth and slipped in a death certificate
with your name on it, which you had forged.Taking care that everything was as you left it, you
returned to your family's home and slept.
The day of the funeral, many arrived to pay their respects. Indeed, your grandfather, though a
simple and cantankerous man, was well liked by those in your village.You grieved with your
family and neighbors for your grandfather, and you grieved inwardly for your imminent
separation from all of them.
Later that evening, you wrote a letter saying that you had to return to the army, and left it
where your family would find it.You knew that they would not be able to read it themselves,
but that your absence would be noticed.They would find someone to read it to them, and they
would believe that you had to return. Some months after that, you sent a second letter, written
in a different hand and manor, saying that you had been killed during a skirmish.You thought
it cowardly and cruel, and yet you could think of no other way to walk your path and provide
closure to your family.
Presumed dead, with no ties to anywhere in particular, you were free to wander the land and
study the Dao as you saw fit.You observed the austerities required of a Xian, and doing so
deepened your knowledge in all ways.Your immortality began."