'Walk the dreams alone,
Walk this trail alone,
Wander the scape of burned self alone,
Traversing the Karma etched upon the thousands alone,
Shall you walk longer, I ask thee?
Shall you suffer longer, I ask thee?
Altruism is your virtue,
Yet you bear this weight alone'
......................................
"…"
Nanming wakes up in a weird building overgrown with moss, its entire structure was made of stone and not a single wood is in sight, and moreover he could tell that the stone is ancient.
Nanming slowly stood up, feeling intense sore all over his body, feeling a warm light on the doorway of the ancient's structure where the soft glow of moonlight and flickering orange light coexist as one.
He walks towards the door, and as he rounded towards a corner, he saw the same woman with a Rabbit mask looking down on her campfire.
Nanming flinched, his hand instinctively reaches for his sword only to find that it's not there.
"I've taken your sword…"
She said, cradling her black staff as she uses it to play around with the charcoal of the fire.
"You must've heard my promise with the Demon King, so unless you're a dumbass, I assume you know what kind of shit you just got yourself into…"
"…"
Her words are rough and filled with malice, it's clear that she didn't enjoy having to take care of Nanming. But his silents serve to irritate her more as she throws charcoal towards him using her staff.
"Are you deaf? Or does that mouth of yours just a decoration?"
"…Where am I?"
Not answering her serves to irritate her further as she was about to swing her staff towards him, but a calm and gentle voice stopped her before she could with mere words alone.
"Stop it Yi Ling, is that how we treat guest?"
As Nanming shifted his attention to a man with extremely long hair that pools on the ground as he sits in a lotus position, both his hand coming together to form an O shape as he muttered some sort of mantra that he cannot hear.
"Guest? This milksop is a fucking Asura"
"This is my temple; I get to decide who's an Asura and who's not"
The Rabbit mask woman who is called Yi Ling can only click her tongue as she stomped her feet in frustration.
The long-haired man then regards Nanming, beckoning him to sit right in front of him. Nanming complies but he chooses to sit quite a far distance away from him.
"Boy, what is your name?"
"…Wu Nanming"
The long-haired man then chuckle.
"The Wu clan, a family whose Sins is as deep as the blood and cruelty they draw…"
He speaks in riddle and crafted metaphor.
"Yet it all stemmed from their desire of being happy, but Hate and Happiness cannot coexist no matter how many Roses they planted"
Nanming can only nod before his thought wanders about how his brother and his big sis react to his disappearance.
"So, your name is Wu Nanming, being the prince of the Wu Clan will surely attract ire of those who wished upon their downfall. I suggest you make a different name for yourself"
The long-haired man then produces a potato; it was already boiled and peeled off its skins. The man then chomped lightly upon its yellow flesh and speak once more.
"As for me, my name is Mantai. A monk of this old temple called the Yanguang temple"
Mantai said, eating on his potato for a while… He really savors the potato given he took a long time chewing on it.
"You're not that old Bush-hair, stop eating so slowly!"
Yi Ling suddenly chimes in, stomping her feet once more.
"Oh? I didn't know you are listening in to my rambling"
"Fuck off"
Mantai laughed at Yi Ling frustrated action, that is stomping her feet so much that she started to gather dust in the air.
"Yi Ling has a fierce temper, much like the flame that she warmed herself with"
Mantai said while smiling.
"Shut up! I'm doing this so that I don't have to deal with beast and Jiangshi!"
"Hahaha"
Nanming can't help but feel anxious and uncomfortable around these two people who exude an entirely different atmosphere.
"Well, Nanming… I let you sleep and rest here for a while"
Nanming looked towards Mantai face, his face has mark of severe burned scar around his left cheek, yet such fierce wound didn't hide his soft eyes and mouth.
"Don't worry, Yi Ling won't kill you in your sleep"
THUD
Yi Ling stomped her feet again.
But Mantai didn't care and stood up while still eating his potato.
"Tomorrow, I will listen to your story and your wishes"
And with that, he walks away into the darkness of the night, leaving Nanming alone with Yi Ling.
And even when Mantai said that she won't kill him, its still unsafe and awkward for Nanming to sleep around Yi Ling.
So, he decided to sit on the ground, letting silently dominate them both as the only sound on that night is the crackling of the campfire.
.
.
.
"…"
Nanming is inside a white scape where there is nothing, just him.
He remembered this feeling so vividly, back when all he knew was how to swing and thrust with his sword, back when that torturous voice haunts him and told him to do things he didn't want to do.
Thanks to the poem he remembered that voice rarely resurfaces as a wicked whisper, a maddening call inside of his mind where Nanming knows that it is not him, yet he cannot shake the feeling that it's him.
And just like that, 'he' appears.
'Myself, why do you seek this place?'
"Who are you?"
'I am you, and you are me'
"…That is a textbook manipulator thing to say"
'…'
Nanming finds it ridiculous that he was so troubled by 'him', where his voice would manage to rile up his instinct to kill so easily.
'…Why do you trust this world so easily?'
"Because I want to?"
Now he had enough knowledge to face himself, and to ask him the deeper meaning to his life. Whatever 'he' is, 'his' presence is no longer needed.
'Myself, you killed yourself once… Just to avoid killing others?'
"…"
And yet those words seem like they were uttered towards him countless times, the syllables have been carved inside Nanming's mind due to its repetition and yet he still failed to answer it.
'Why are you content with this life? Your Karma that is not yours…'
…
"My fate that I didn't choose…"
Nanming woke up and was greeted by Yi Ling Rabbit mask who looked down upon his laid form, Nanming instantly dashed away like a startled Raven.
"…"
She stays silent,
"…"
And so is Nanming, none were willing to speak first.
After a while, Yi Ling left towards the inner temple that Nanming didn't realize even exist. Maybe it was shrouded by the dark last night.
Nanming decided to follow her, Yi Ling pace is quite slow given how fast she moves when she massacred him.
Talk about the gap between her nature, her gaits are unusual since her arms didn't move when she walked. Nanming was too busy observing that he forgot to maintain distance and ended up catching up to her.
"Why are you following me you milksop?!"
She shouts, stomping her feet as she turned her entire body to regard him, Nanming was stunned in his track before he dashed away considerable pace away.
"…Is this some kind of game for you?"
Yi Ling then produce her black staff from out of nowhere as it manifests its form in her arm.
"Where is my sword?"
Nanming decided to try and twist the flow of the conversation to avoid getting beaten.
"You won't get it until Mantai said you are safe"
"…Where is he then?"
Yi Ling turned her body away from Nanming and walks away, but she takes her time in throwing insults at him.
"I don't fucking know, just kill yourself and maybe the next you will be smarter and search for Mantai himself"
How petty, but Nanming can only watch as she walks away into a small building that is a lot cleaner than the one he was detained last night, not to mention that she presumably decorates it with a lot of paper cut-out of various objects and animals.
It feels lived in, but Nanming decided to focus on the matters at hand and search for Mantai. Along the way, he noted how most of the buildings in this Yanguang temple are well kept.
The courtyard is clean; the vegetation was kept in check and the building stood tall despite its age.
But he then stumbled into a bald monk, he wears a heavy brown robe as a bead was hanging from his neck.
He closed his eyes, presumably meditating as he uttered a chant foreign to Nanming.
"Panatipata veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami"
He repeats that chanting over and over again, even when Nanming approach the monk he didn't break his concentration and continued to chant that mantra.
Finding that it's useless asking him about Mantai, he decided to walk away.
"Young boy… Mantai is in the main temple"
He suddenly speaks, before returning to his repetition of the same mantra. Nanming bowed and headed to wherever the main temple is, it must've been big.
And sure enough, there is a building larger than the surrounding one. It was well kept and pristine, Nanming could even see incense burning on the entrance towards the main temple.
As he went inside, he couldn't fathom what he sees, the interior is larger than the exterior. The walls and floors were made with textured stone of various colors creating some sort of circle-like pattern that formed into a unified lotus.
Not even the Crimson Palace was this intricately designed, in the moment of his observation Nanming could hear the sound of wood being chipped and a sound of hammer hitting chisels.
Heading towards the room where the sound permeated from, he sees Mantai carving a statue from the wood. It was half finished but the shape started to resemble a figure.
"Oh? You've come Nanming"
Mantai continued to carve the statue while he regards Nanming.
"Sit… We'll talk about your wishes after this"
Nanming sit on the floor in a lotus position mimicking the bald monk and Mantai, assuming it was appropriate in this temple. Mantai smiled at his action, but he continued to hit the chisel with his hammer.
"Do you have any hobby Nanming? The kind of action that filled you with satisfaction that the mere act of doing it engrossed you so deeply in the activity to the point where the world is merely a background"
Mantai said, his voice was soft and yet the sound of the wood being carved didn't overpower it.
"Reading, I like reading"
"Ah yes, the act of chasing knowledge… Virtuous and dangerous at the same time"
"How so?"
Nanming was confused about why Mantai said that reading books is dangerous, his head tilts as his entire body edged forward in intrigue.
"Reading requires comprehension, comprehension requires a healthy mindset. If one were to interpret a book in their twisted mind, won't it become dangerous?"
There is certainly some right to that, Nanming often encounters ambiguous prose and line that requires some thinking to be understood.
"Therefore, the act of reading is dangerous… If they were not balanced by the act of finding things out naturally"
"-!"
Nanming shoot his head up in surprise at such a claim, isn't reading is a form of finding things out? Then how come it was different to the latter?
"Let me put an example then, if I were to read a book about carving statue all my life. I would know its theory but not its practice, I wouldn't know how much force should be applied to the chisel, how thin can I carve the wood without it snapping and what kind of wood is good for carving"
Mantai then puts his tools aside and sits in front of Nanming, his long brown hair pools to the ground as he shifts his head to meet Nanming's gaze.
"Because I only know how to read book about carving, not carving itself"
He then continues,
"The same goes for book of other kind, if One were to read a book about morality when they themselves is a criminal and a murderer, wont they interpret their actions as 'correct' in relation to the book? Because killing is all they know"
Nanming nods, now it makes sense. Just because he reads a lot of books doesn't mean he was knowledgeable in that book, he just knows the concept and not its usage
"Therefore, you should seek knowledge by way of understanding this world, the Way of the World"
"…But I seek knowledge so that I can understand the people around me"
Nanming said, casting his gaze downward as he did so.
"I know I am inhuman, therefore the only way I can be human is to learn how to be one"
"…I see, did you know about proverb Inhumanity hides the Humanity?"
Nanming shakes his head, a foreign proverb to him since the book he read didn't contain that phrase at all.
"Of course you don't, I made that up after all… Hahaha"
Nanming felt like he was being played for a fool.
"But my point still stand…"
Mantai then points towards his chest, to where his heart is.
"You should ask yourself, does your Inhumanity the absent of Humanity? Or is your Inhumanity simply hides your remaining Humanity?"
"…My Inhumanity… hides my Humanity?"
Mantai nods, he then points towards his own heart.
"I am a human, am I so different from you?"
"…I am a Demon"
"A Demon is a disease of heart inside of every Human, therefore you are still a Human"
Nanming shakes his head, disagreeing with Mantai words. He is not human, what kind of human cannot feel any emotion? What kind of human cannot understand another human? What kind of human kill another human?
"So, you wished to become Human for real then?"
"Yes"
Mantai nods, he then stands up and grabs a sheet of paper as well as some brush and inkstone. With that, he writes the words Ren for humanity.
"What makes a human, human? How they look?"
"No"
Nanming looks human, but he is not human, therefore it's not look that determines One humanity.
"So, it's something deeper than that, it's their heart"
Mantai then writes four more characters underneath Ren. Yi, Li, Zhi, Xin.
The Five Constant Virtue as stated by Confucianism, Nanming knows about this.
"Confucianism defies this character as Human wholeness, if one were to be absent then they are not human… Or is it? The truth is, what makes a human, human, is their Sins and Virtue"
"Sins and Virtue?"
Mantai nods at Nanming's repetition, he is delighted that he is not as stubborn as Yi Ling in terms of speeches like this.
"Just like how the dark exist because of the light, and how the light symbol of existence is the dark. Human is symbolized by their evil and their ability to overcome said evil"
He later continues,
"Therefore, if you wished to be 'human' you must overcome your Sins"
"…How?"
Mantai then put the brush and paper aside and started to point his fingers towards his head.
"To be Wise and Hopeful"
Then his heart,
"To be Prudence"
Continued to his hand,
"To be helpful and charitable'
Then to his leg,
"To be courageous"
Before Mantai regards him as a whole, stating the last thing he thinks is the making of a human.
"And to be Kind"
Nanming listens to this with all his mind dedicated to remembering each of his words. Before he thinks about what he meant by listing all of them repeatedly, tying it to his understanding.
"Seek that virtue, yet not be blinded in their chase… And if you can, I'm sure that you can discard your evil"
Mantai smiles, the radiating comfort he exudes is… awe worthy. Nanming knows that he had a hard life given the massive scar in his face, but even then, he continued to be this kind.
Is Mantai the perfect sculpture of the things he listed? Should Nanming become like Mantai if he wished to attain Humanity?
"By the way, have you created a new name?"
Mantai suddenly said, then with a mischievous grin he presented his suggestion.
"How about Xue?"
"…That just means snow isn't it"
So straightforward, given the philosophy he just imparts, it seems shallow in retrospect.
Nanming then stand up, readying himself to seek that virtue right now.
"No one knows my real name, Nanming anyway. So, I won't change my name"
Mantai looks dejected at his refusal to use Xue as his name, but he didn't press his suggestion, merely accepting Nanming's decision.
"If you wished to obtain that virtue, might as well learnt about the Way of the World. Go towards a village named Kuxin, you will learn a lot there"
Nanming nods before he bowed towards Mantai who smiled in response, before Nanming walks away out of the large temple.
"…"
Seeing his form going away, Mantai can't help but remember his own son. Should he still be alive, would he grown to be the size of Nanming? Mantai was sure that he would be his best friend… Should he be still alive.
Mantai then busied himself carving the statue he left unfinished, the sound of hammer hitting the chisel echoes the empty temple where there is only himself…
And thousands of statues left unfinished.