I had mulled over Elder Lao’s words, to live with decency. But what was it to be a decent man? I did not know, for I was barely old enough to fish with my father, let alone reach manhood.

I asked him the question, and he answered, “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to yourself, Drinn. Follow this and you will live in decency.”

I knew his words but did not know his meaning. In my lack of thinking I asked, "If I wanted to be a Tsun, would I treat everyone as a Tsun then?”

Father cuffed the back of my head. “Don’t be glib, boy. Now get your fishing gear. A fisherman needs no thoughts on matters past his world, just the tide and his catch. Learn this and you will know happiness.”

I was a young boy then, and his words had passed through my ears as water in a bucket with no closure. The days passed by to years; my skin soon tanned, my hands and feet soon callused and worn, and I could hold my breath for more than a whole moment underwater. I admit, the beach was my home, more often than my own house. My parents would find me resting on the stretching sands and drag me away from my friends.

One sunset, my friend Natsu told us in his deepened voice, and was determined to make it known, “Did you hear about the Shenshu monk that just arrived in Giaju?”

I said, bored, for Natsu was full of boasting and I was tired from a day’s haul, “We have a Shenshu monk already here, Natsu. He’s probably just visiting Elder Lao.”

“Maybe he is, but he’s not like the old man.” Natsu’s dark eyes glittered with excitement. “I tell you, this monk is different.”

“Different how?” the oldest boy, Tadaki asked, son of boatmaker Shun, his arms already thickened with muscle at just thirteen years’ span.

Natsu leaned forward, knowing that if Tadaki was interested he had the group’s attention. “He stopped a fight between Baro and Gintoki, at the tavern.”

“Something Elder Lao would do just as well,” I said.

Natsu shook his head. “No, no. He stopped their fight with his hands. Hand, I mean. Like this.” He poked and clawed at the air with one hand. “Made them go still, as if they were statues!”

“You’re a liar, Natsu,” the only girl in our group, and who we all vied to sit beside, Chitose, scoffed. “The heat from your pa’s kiln has gotten to your head.”

Natsu’s face turned bright red, and he said, “Yeah, well, you’re too boyish to be with the other girls.”

Chitose stood up to her bare feet. “Take that back, before I make you, kilnhead!”

“Boy-girl!”

Tadaki held his beefy arms out between them.

I stood. "Let's see this monk, then."

Natsu grinned. “He’s holed up in the tavern with Lao. Ever since the monk arrived it’s been quiet there.”

“Let’s go then,” Chitose huffed. Whether it was a lie or not, a wandering Shenshu monk was not someone you saw every day, or any day in Giaju. So we made our way to the village tavern. Though Giaju was a village, it held more than three-hundred souls, squared wooden houses with circled openings for the horizontal sliding doors as the old way, some half open to let out the summer heat.

Sour-faced Jingu sat upon his rocking chair atop his porch as the days before, yammering after us, “Go help your mothers, you rascals!”

Our bare or wood sandaled feet slapped upon the ground in our haste, for fledglings could not enter the tavern past sun’s end. Bamboo poles beside each sand-covered street held hanging paper lanterns, casting our shadows in their soft amber glow.

The village tavern was owned by Elder Lao, though his wife and daughter were the ones who ran it. His daughter, Miuli, was known as the village beauty, and just of marrying age. Men from Giaju to the neighbouring villages often lined the tavern for her hand.

Today however, as we crept through the faded cloth curtained entrance, the tavern was near empty, its round tables scattered with just its regulars, beautiful Miuli gifting us her smile from the bar. We spotted Lao sitting at one corner, another man sitting across his table.

Natsu beamed, whispering, “That’s him. That’s the monk!”

We walked over to their table, a group of children staring at the man beside Lao. His eyes were brown as all Shen-Lan, but there was a keenness to his glance upon each of us; judging for what reason I did not know. His head was shaven as Lao, though his tan face was shaven as well, sharp and gaunt, long bridged nose as the Haolan traders I’d seen, his thin mouth curling to a slight smile. He looked over two decades in span, but not over thirty, his skin smooth to the cracked face of the Elder.

“What’s this?” Lao asked. “Leave my guest in peace, now. Shoo shoo.”

“It is alright, Elder,” the man said. His voice was soft-spoken, yet there was a hint of steel, a quiet confidence to his words. “What brings you here, young ones?”

“Natsu said you stopped Baro and Gintoki with just a touch,” Chitose said first while Natsu glared at her. “He says you made them still as statues.”

“A statue?” the man raised one eyebrow. “I merely halted the movement of their arms before they could seriously hurt each other.” He drank from his long cooled cup. “Only temporarily, of course.”

There was a moment of silence, low murmuring of the grownups coming and going as the waves.

“Who are you?” Chitose questioned for all of us.

“I am Wei, a wandering monk of the Shenshu Order, from the Monastery atop Daosung Mountain.”

I stepped forward. “Do you know the meaning of decency?”

“Ah.” Wei smiled, flicking his eyes to Lao. “Now that is a question many have pondered throughout their lives. How old are you, youngling?”

“Ten years span.”

“Ten years,” the sharp man took a sharp breath. “To live a decent life is different from living decently. The answer is in doing both.”

Our blank faces made Lao chortle. “Do not use our teachings on ears not yet grown to hear, brother.”

Wei nodded. “Perhaps.”

The old man shooed us away, to which we stood in silent rebellion.

“Aya,” Lao tutted. “Leave us in peace before I tell your fathers to beat some respect into you all.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Wei said. “If any of you have more questions, I will be training at the cresting hill by the morning. Perhaps I shall meet you all there.”

I nodded and turned first to leave, the others following.

Training? I thought. What did monks do for training? To fish one simply fished, there was no teaching besides father’s occasional order.

“I bet he’s gonna show us how he stopped Gintoki and Baro,” Natsu gloated.

Chitose sighed, “You’re still a liar. You said he made them still as statues, not just their arms.”

“You’re just mad it’s true.”

They continued arguing until our paths divided us away to our homes. We waved our farewells, the indigo night sky glittering clear with the stars.

As I trekked back to my home I wondered what such a monk would be doing in such a village, one who could stop a man with one hand, if his word was true. My parents scolded me for my lateness, though my mother had still saved a bowl of shaved carrots in rice porridge.

Once I settled into my bedding upon the floor, I found myself restless with excitement for the coming day. At last, something different for my resting days from fishing, when the tide was fiercest and we were free to do as we pleased. Something not yet known, not of my sleepy village. Little did I know, the coming day would change my life forever...