It was the height of summer when Mao tracked Keihan down (he was sweeping up fallen petals in the outer courtyards) to tell him some wonderful news: “I’ve just heard that Seiskein Monk is arranging an outing for some of us junior disciples. We will be going around the Western Provinces and then south to the city of Claymount. You must come along!”

  “Erm, I don’t think that is such a good idea.”

  “But why?” said Mao, rather taken aback by Keihan’s lack of enthusiasm and denseness at failing to see how wonderful it was. “Here, all they will ever see of you is a servant. It will be an excellent opportunity for the monks to see you in a new light and maybe then you can ask to become a disciple!”

  “Well, there is the fact that it is a great honour bestowed upon a few select junior disciples and they will take offence.”

  “Who cares what they think!” said Mao disdainfully. “Anyhow, you are my servant so it is only natural that you should follow where I go. I shall say as much to Seiskein if there is a problem. You will come along, right! I’m going to put my name forward and yours –”

  “But I have work –”

  “Hah! You don’t really want to be doing that! Think on it, why should you when you could come along on this expedition! – you won’t have to dirty yourself with these idiotic chores! Why, you should be sick of them. I know I would be!”

  “It isn’t so bad,” remarked Keihan.

  “Yes, well you would say that, wouldn’t you? If I had to go through all that I’d be screaming, I tell you! I wouldn’t put up with that sort of thing for anything! Do you know – I’ve never seen you complain –”

  “What’s to complain? It hardly matters. Why should I compare? I’d better get on with the work –”

  “But you will come along won’t you? I’m going to put my name forward and yours.”

  “Very well,” said Keihan, unable to deny his friend’s kind heart. “If the master allows it, I will go along.”

  “Of course Master Seiskein will allow it!” said Mao confidently.

  Keihan shrugged and the two boys made their way back towards the temple buildings while Mao spoke with animation about the many wonderful things they would see. It was Seiskein’s habit to take a group of junior disciples on expeditions around the kingdoms once a year. But this year he had hinted that there would be an especially unprecedented event that the boys will get to witness –

  Hing knocked on Mao’s door, early on the morning in the following week, the day before they were due to leave. Mao and Keihan were busy sorting through stuff Mao wanted to take with him on the three-month expedition.

  “Hey! Mao! You are going on Seiskein’s outing, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Of course. And so is Keihan.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Hing dismissively, with hardly a glance at the servant standing respectfully by the door. Hing then perked up as he thought about this wonderful opportunity to travel and practise the languages and regional dialects he should hear along the way, and said, “I’ve asked Seiskein Monk if I could go as well when I heard about it, and he said yes, as long as Wai Sihfu allows it, even though I am a senior disciple. Also, since there is going to be an extra special event, he is taking along Master Cragon, and of course, Cragon’s protégé, Junho.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Mao.

  “Ah, don’t worry. I know you two don’t see eye to eye, but he’d hardly do anything with his sihfu looking on, right?” said Hing. “Are you done packing?”

  “Yes, there isn’t much.”

  “Great, let’s go to breakfast. I’ll eat with you today.”

  “Great!” said Mao. He beckoned Keihan to join them. Greson Monk had generously allowed Keihan to leave his numerous chores and not worry about them until he returned from the trip.

  The three of them walked to the junior breakfast hall. Hing continued his talk about this and that, affecting Mao with his enthusiasm. Keihan remained glum and trailed listlessly behind them.

  The dining hall was full of black jacketed juniors who immediately noticed when a brown-garbed servant dared to sit down amongst them, never mind that it was Mao’s companion-servant and it was Mao who had gestured for him to sit next to him. Hing showed no concern, but the buzz around the hall was not kind. Lingmon happened to pass their table at one point and aimed to kick the bench from under the young master and his servant, but Keihan was expecting it and held it with his foot such that Mao didn’t even notice. But Mao did notice that Keihan wasn’t eating –

  “I’m not hungry,” said Keihan in reply to Mao’s comment.

  “But you have to eat something! Hey Lingmon, what do you want?”

  “Nothing,” said Lingmon and hopped away. When he got to the hall entrance, he slumped by the doorpost and clutched his foot in agony. This cheered Keihan up momentarily, and he ate a few mouthfuls of barley stew and mustard-greens.

  After breakfast, Hing suggested that they go to the training yards where he could show them what he had been learning as a senior disciple under Wai Sihfu’s tutoring. Mao agreed. The three of them went off. The brown, the black and the grey. As they left, the buzzing of the junior disciples increased.

  Mao was vaguely admiring as he watched Hing go through the three Forms he had learnt; The Sweeping Willow, The Snarling Tiger, and The Steel Scorpion. Keihan looked the other way stifling a laugh as Hing went through the moves, some of which were dangerously out of sequence, some were plain out of balance. Luckily, Hing did not have much Qh’i so there was no harm done.

  “So what do you think?” said Hing when he had finished going through all that he knew. “Are you impressed?”

  Mao laughed, “If you think that is impressive you should see some of the things my father wanted me to learn! That’s nothing! The things he can do if he –” Then Mao cut himself short as he remembered some of those things … and the unfortunate rebel leaders.

  “Well, I won’t compare myself to the Great Duke,” said Hing touching his moustache. He turned to Keihan, and said, “What do you think?”

  “Oh! I’ve never seen such skill displayed in all my life, sir. You are really good but I am not qualified to say, sir. But you are absolutely brilliant, sir,” said Keihan, stopping short of applauding with his hands. That would be laying it on a bit thick.

  “I’d say,” said Hing, preening back his hair. “I am the best. After Junho that is. He has mastered ten of the Forms already, I think.”

  “Ten?”

  “Yes, he’s the fastest disciple I know.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  They walked around the temple until meditation hour, and lunchtime. At the lunching hall, Junho came looking for them. He had heard from Lingmon about the little servant daring to sit amongst his betters, and that Mao was encouraging it and snubbing propriety. He decided to see if this was true for himself.

  Junho caused quite a stir when he showed up at the junior hall. As a boy he had been handsome. Now he was imposingly handsome with a muscular, well-proportioned and powerful figure. Quite the star grey disciple! Normally he would have disdained to return to the halls of the little disciples but he just had to come and teach those two high and mighty wastrels a lesson –

  He saw the two boys just as Lingmon had described, sitting on the same bench. They could not see him as he approached, but Hing, sitting opposite saw him, and rose to greet the senior disciple. Junho wanted to use the element of surprise to strike Mao a blow at once –

  Hing shouted a warning. Mao turned around and – as he got to his feet, the bench toppled over – lifted his arms in defence. One fist met Junho’s palm absorbing the force, and then turning it back. The other fist landed on the grey disciple’s chest. Junho flew backwards and upset the table and benches and junior disciples there. Mao looked at his hands in astonishment. Not one of them could have guessed that before Keihan stepped out of the way, he had touched Mao’s shoulder briefly with his palm and transferred a powerful blast of Qh’i to Mao, protecting him and coursing through his arms to repel Junho.

  Junho picked himself up, wiped a spot of blood from his nose with a thumb and snarled, “You caught me off guard you snivelling worm! Now I’m going to really let you have it!”

  “Oh yeah!” said Mao.

  “Yeah!”

  And so Junho did. Mao was an excellent junior fighter. His control of the basic stances was perfect, but against Junho, who was fast becoming a master, he was out of his league. It was obvious to everyone. And Junho teased as he blocked and thrashed the smaller boy. Keihan stood aside rather frustrated, hating the way the grey disciple made a mockery of the unequal fight, hating the way the black jackets were lapping up what they saw to be their champion upholding their idiot notion of proper respect.

  He could so easily put an end to it, but that would mean revealing himself –

  He saw the blow that Junho intended to be the last. He knew Junho meant to do serious injury from the gathering of his Qh’i. He had no choice but to step between his friend and Junho’s aggression.

  The clawed epitome strike of The Mercurial Panther failed to land on Mao’s unguarded chest. Junho could not believe his eyes as his Qh’i ripped through the brown jacket. Keihan landed on his side with a rather messy wound on his shoulder. He fainted from the effort of controlling his own Qh’i so that it protected him just under the surface of his skin. The wound looked much worse than it really was.

  “There! See what you have done!” Hing said, shaking off the group of disciples who had kept him back from trying to end the fight earlier. “Master Greson will not be pleased. Come on Mao, let’s get you some medicine for your bruises.” Hing helped Mao to his feet.

  “Don’t think to blackmail me!” said Junho. “I’ll give you what for if you go snitching on me … that goes for the rest of you!” he projected to the rest of the boys in the room – not that they would have done in any case.

  “What about Keihan?” said Mao, as he staggered to his feet and leant on Hing’s supporting hand.

  “Don’t worry, one of the servants will help him.”

  “But, Junho –”

  “His grudge is with you, Mao. Let’s go.”

  “Lay off,” said Mao, but he could not shake off Hing’s firm grip to see how Keihan was faring.

  “Look, Junho is not going to beat up your servant, alright! If he does beat him up again then we’ll just go and tell Master Greson and Master Seiskein all about it.”

  “You would not dare!” said Junho.

  Hing dragged Mao away after giving Junho another warning that he was not going to get away with it if he continued with this idiocy, and he had better conduct himself in a more scholarly fashion if he still wanted to go on Seiskein’s tour of the kingdoms.

  Junho made no move to go after Mao and Hing. He blew off some of his steam by kicking Keihan who was still on the floor and yelled, “Oi! Have you managed to die yet? If not, get up!”

  Keihan picked himself up and said, “I am not your enemy.”

  “What?” Then what are you? A dead man?

  “Neither is Mao,” said Keihan.

  Then what is he?

  Keihan turned away to exit the hall. Junho put a hand on his injured shoulder to stop him. A feeling of unease slammed into his heart and he removed his hand hastily.

  “Then what are you?” Junho bluffed.

  “There are things in this world more evil and deadly and hurtful than you could possibly know,” said Keihan before he disappeared from sight. “You have proved nothing.”

  Huh? What the crap! This last remark confused Junho so much that it was fully two minutes before he collected himself enough to run after the little servant. And see if he meant to snitch to Greson Monk.

  But Keihan only went to the medicine room where he bandaged his shoulder and put on a new jacket. Then he went to find Mao to check he was all right, and to say, “Do you still think it is a good idea for me to go with the Shaolin disciples on this tour?”

  Mao was still determined that it was a good idea.

  Keihan sighed. “I fear one of us will not survive if Junho continues to behave as he just did.”

  “He’s a fool, but surely he won’t do anything with Master Seiskein and Master Cragon around.”

  “That is not what I am afraid of, Mao. It’s just that – it would be better to avoid conflict. I’m quite happy for you to go and have fun with Hing and the others. And I am quite happy to stay here and avoid being the cause of bad temper.”

  “Fine, if that’s what you want,” said Mao, at last.

  If Seiskein Monk was surprised at this change of mind the next day, he made no comment on it. Greson Monk knew Keihan was hiding an injury that was not acquired in the course of doing chores. He guessed it was the result of bad feeling amongst the boys. He remembered his own days as a child disciple: the taunting and the scuffles that sometimes went around the halls out of sight of the serene monks. Keihan said nothing about it so he had no choice but to let be. He decided, in his generosity, that Keihan should have a holiday from his chores until his little master returned. He could even go for walks outside the temple just as long as he was respectful of living creatures and their right to life – even fish might have rudimentary souls.

  Given this freedom (within moral boundaries of course), Keihan spent much of his time wandering the forest deep in thought as to where the secret scroll could possibly be hidden, and its likely shape and Form. He already knew it was not among the general section of the library; and it was not in the uncatalogued martial art reference section. He had even checked for hidden nooks and false walls – nothing.

  After a few days, he plucked up the courage to sneak into Seiskein’s room. A thorough search yielded nothing likely, except a plain wooden box full of papers.

  He decided to take this with him to Mao’s room where he could study it with less fear of discovery.

  After an hour or two, he ascertained that the papers covered with Seiskein’s tiny handwriting were nothing more than referential notes on facts of history and essay drafts on Seiskein’s thoughts concerning those facts and their relevance to the course of history.

  Other papers were letters. Compilations of facts and opinions of many notable individuals from around the middle kingdoms, in response to Seiskein’s questions.

  The only thing of mild interest to him was the first letter –

  Venerable Master of Shaolin,

  … Prince-Governor Bao is a man who admires foremost the achievements of people of wulin. He places these great heroes above humble men of letters, such as myself. For this reason he has decided to host a momentous Wulin Gathering inviting the best people of gongwu society to take part in a tournament, the prize of which is a treasure beyond monetary considerations …

  Keihan flicked through several pages listing the many heroes and martial art masters who had been sent invitations.

  … It is widely known that the Masters of Shaolin do not concern themselves with matters of the world but the Prince is anxious, as am I, that you (Famed Scholar and Historian, and Master of the Shaolin Martial Arts) would see fit to honour Claymount with your distinguished presence. It is my lowly opinion that should you grace us with your illustrious presence, it will be too much honour for His Highness to countenance on this occasion, which I hesitate to suggest, could be wulin history in the making …

  Humbly yours,

  Rendalhart, Scribe to,

  Jutlin Po, Secretary to

  His Highness Prince-Governor Bao [The letter was stamped with the five-centimetre-square red seal of the Fourth Prince’s imperial lineage and office]