Chapter 196 — Merit

Little Wan shot him a glance. "Grandpa, why so worked up? I think the Daoist makes a great deal of sense. The way you have been these past few days, I fear you really have gone a bit senile."

Zhou Yixuan seemed especially unable to bear the words "gone senile," and grew angrier still. "What do you two know? How old are you, how much of the world's ways do you understand? This is not—"

Little Wan cut in. "Is that so? Then tell us, why are you so bent on raising the price?"

Zhou Yixuan snorted, swung the Immortal Points the Way pole in his hand, and gestured toward the sparse passersby around them. "Look at these people, and at all the people we have met along the way—are they not all refugees?"

Little Wan nodded. "That is right, everyone is. Ourselves included."

Zhou Yixuan choked for a moment, his old face reddening slightly, then he pretended not to have heard. Little Wan went on, "Since they are all refugees, far from home, I doubt there are many at all thinking about having their fortunes read. I was even thinking we ought to lower our price, but you, Grandpa, insist on raising it higher and higher."

Zhou Yixuan clasped his hands behind his back, putting the pole behind him, and said with a cold laugh, "By your reckoning, then, I am in the wrong. But look at these past few days—have the people coming to us for readings grown fewer or more?"

Little Wan paused, frowning, but the Wild Wolf Daoist chimed in from the side. "Come to think of it, there do seem to have been more people seeking readings these past days."

Zhou Yixuan snorted again, a look of satisfaction on his face, and said to Little Wan, "What would you know, at your young age? Let me tell you. Ordinarily, in the midst of great disaster, when everyone is fleeing far from home, they may not be inclined to have their fortunes read. But this time is very different. A calamity so vast, unmatched in ten thousand years, has left all the living creatures of the world in ruin, each man fearing for himself, none knowing whether he will live to see tomorrow. In such strange times, with an immortal like me to point out the way for them, would they not all flock to me?"

Little Wan bowed her head in thought. After a long while she slowly shook her head and sighed, a trace of bewilderment on her face.

The Wild Wolf Daoist, still somewhat puzzled, could not help asking, "Then why do you keep raising the fee for a reading?"

Zhou Yixuan rolled his strange eyes. "Would I teach you such profound learning?"

The Wild Wolf Daoist, rebuffed, mumbled and drew back, and then heard Little Wan beside him sigh. "This much I think I understand now."

Both the Wild Wolf Daoist and Zhou Yixuan were startled. Zhou Yixuan said, "Oh? Then tell us."

Little Wan shrugged and said mildly, "It is simply that you reckoned everyone in the world is in a panic, with no thought to spare for their own lives, so who would begrudge a little wealth? On the contrary, the higher you set the silver, the more ordinary folk take it to mean this man's cultivation runs deep and he is no common sort. I never believed in any of this before. I thought such a petty trick would be obvious even to an idiot. But—but to my surprise, so many people still cannot see through it."

Zhou Yixuan shook his head. "You are wrong, Little Wan."

Little Wan was taken aback. "What?"

Zhou Yixuan said, "All that you said before was right. Only the last part—it is not that they cannot see through it, but that they cannot let go of it themselves."

The Wild Wolf Daoist, listening from the side, was baffled. "Cannot let go of what?"

Zhou Yixuan glanced at the people shuffling along around them and said, "Are all the living creatures of the world fools? Of course not. Only at the threshold of life and death, who knows how many cannot bring themselves to trust in themselves, and would sooner listen to another's comfort. When I point out the way for them, most of what I say concerns the latter half of their lives, and how much better it will be than their lot today. With words like these, they pay their silver and their hearts are set at ease."

Xiao Wan suddenly said, "Grandfather, did you really read that from physiognomy, or were you just making it up to fool them?"

Zhou Yixuan smiled faintly. "I made it up."

Xiao Wan and the Wild Wolf Daoist exchanged a glance, and for a moment neither could find a word to say.

Zhou Yixuan lifted his head and gazed at the sky, at that vast and drifting firmament, and after looking long he said leisurely, "A calamity such as this may come once, but never twice—otherwise even the Heavenly Dao would not permit it."

Having said this, he turned back and laughed. "That being so, the days to come will surely be far better than these present days, when we know not whether we live or die—so I can hardly be called a liar. On the contrary, all along the road I have comforted and counseled countless folk tossed about and driven from their homes; who knows how many were reborn to hope, how many dead ashes flared again, at a word from this old man. Can those monks and priests, cooped up in their temples all day chanting sutras and invoking the Buddha, ever match such merit as this?"

He reached out and patted Xiao Wan on the head, his face all immortal air and righteous dignity, bearing the full look of an old man's compassion for the world and his resolve to save it—the tragic grandeur of one who would descend alone into hell to deliver all living things. Even the fact that he had pocketed so much gleaming silver was a matter of great righteousness: not to take it would be to fail the saving of men, and to take it was the act of utmost mercy—such was the weathered, upright air about him as he sighed and said:

"Life, truly, is lonely."

For a time no one made a sound; all around fell into utter silence.

Zhou Yixuan frowned, drew his gaze back down from the high, distant firmament, and lowered his head to look about him.

"Hey, you two—what are you walking so fast for?"