Chapter 41: Race in the Night

Shibi moved like red blur in the night. Zen was struggling to keep up as the Scorch Ape increased the gap between them.

Zen had to thread his way through a group of people. “Yikes! Sorry! Excuse me!” Zen said as he tried to avoid crashing into them. Once he was away from the group, he began sprinting at full speed again. They entered the wide greed grounds. Zen had hoped that with the change of terrain, he would stand a better chance at catching up.

He was wrong. Even without trees and buildings to run on, Shibi was still ahead. The Scorch Ape looked back at Zen and ‘ooked’ in triumph.

Zen’s eyes widened, “Wait! Shibi stop!”

Shibi almost crashed into a man carrying a stack of papers. The man almost fell but regained his balance before he was knocked over a moment later when Zen crashed into him.

“What is wrong with you, kid?” the man said before he saw Wang Zen. “Oh, Wang Zen, the pain in my side.”

“Teacher Lu Daomeng!” Wang Zen said as they both sat up. “Why would you call me a pain in your side?”

“Because you crashed into me!” he snapped. “Now I have a pain in my side.” He rubbed his ribs.

Zen rose to his feet, picking up the stray pages into a messy stack. “Shibi, come back!”

“You look more at ease than the last time I saw you,” Lu Daomeng said as Wang continued to pick up papers. “You’re even playing with your monkey.”

“I wasn’t exactly playing,” Wang Zen said as he picked up the last paper. He treid to hand it over to Lu Daomeng who shook his head.

“Carry them for me,” Lu Daomeng said, rubbing his side. “I still have a pain in my side.”

“I don’t see how that affects your ability to carry your own papers,” Zen said under his breath.

“What?”

“I said, I’m happy to help, Teacher Lu Daomeng!” Zen smiled.

They walked through the dark. Shibi eventually re-joined Zev, breathing heavily in exhaustion, so he climbed to his favourite spot on the humans shoulder where he rested.

“How has you training been going, Young Wang?” Lu Daomeng asked. “I suspect it’s better, considering your improved spirits.”

“Yes,” Zen said. “I’m actually at the Intermediary level now.”

“Intermediary? So you were able to find your inner peace and break into Intermediary.” Lu Daomeng said. “Wow, I’m a good teacher.”

“Actually, breaking into Intermediary is what gave me my inner peace.” Wang Zen said. “But still, I don’t think I really have inner peace, although my cultivation technique is working normally again.”

“What is inner peace?”

Zen opened his mouth and then shut it, realising he could not actually give a statement on what inner peace is. It was a term he and people had been throwing around but he never actually took a moment to think what it truly meant.

Lu Daomeng laughed at Zen’s reaction. “I think inner peace does not necessarily mean one has no problems or lives their life in some kind of happy, oblivious stupor. I think inner peace is about awareness and acceptance of whatever problems exist in the world and making peace that some problems, you may not be able to solve easily or even at all.”

“So that’s what it is?” Zen reflected on this deeply.

“It’s only what I think.” Lu Daomeng said. “If you live long enough in our world, Young Wang, you will come across psychopaths who, with a snap of their fingers, can calm the chaos of their mnds and justify any action they take, no matter how unnecessary or evil it is. And in the next moment, you see them cultivating quietly as if it was nothing. So if you want inner peace, you will have to define it, your way and you’ll have to genuinely believe your definition for it to mean anything.”

Zen nodded.

“Ah, we’re here.”

Zen stopped along with Lu Daomeng. “Where is here exactly Teacher Lu Daomeng?” Zen looked at the carriage they stopped at.

A man exited from the carriage, “Are you Master Lu Daomeng?”

Lu Daomeng nodded. “Young Wang, give him the documents.”

Zen handed over the documents.

“Everything seems to be in order,” the man said after flipping through the messy pages. He walked to the back of the carriage and opened the cage.

Shibi stood straight up and Zen stiffened when from the darkness of the cage, two yellow eyes glinted out. Zen did not have a chance to react when the hound from within leapt out at him and knocked him to the ground. Drool fell on Zen’s face and into his mouth as the hound growled at him, its white, sharp teeth barred with a terrifying growl.