01 – Chosen One

Li Yun suffered from middle school syndrome, a condition that everyone in the apartment complex was aware of.

It all started on one afternoon when a small rounded boy jumped in the middle of the courtyard and stomped his foot for attention. The ruckus caused all the neighbors to glance and focus on the little boy.

The little boy, Li Yun, puffed out his chest and pointed his nose toward the sky, loudly declaring, "I am the chosen one!"

All the adults smiled and chuckled thoughtfully at the little rounded boy.

"Oh ho, that's nice Little Yun," said his grandmother Lu Nai, who regularly sat with the other elders to discuss who was marrying whom and who had passed away. "What did your friend tell you this time?"

"This is different, grandma," Li Yun replied.

Whenever Li Yun caused trouble, he would blame it on his imaginary friends. However, after he made new friends from his elementary school, he stopped making up stories about imaginary friends.

Li Yun continued his proud posture and declared, "I have a mission to rewrite the Zhuangzi to a small perfection. In return, I will be rewarded with a heavenly reward."

His mother, Lu Suyin, raised her right eyebrow and then rolled her eyes in annoyance at his shenanigans.

"Maybe I should reduce the amount of time he watches those wuxia shows," his mother thought.

The family had recently finished watching The Legend of Hua Ying and The Smiling, Proud Warrior.

"Do you even know what the Zhuangzi is?" Lu Suyin asked.

The bright-eyed rounded boy shook his head.

Zhuangzi was one of the earliest known Taoist texts from the Warring States period. In common tradition, it was known to be written by Zhuang Zhou, otherwise known as Master Zhuang, or Zhuangzi. The most notable story from the text was the butterfly dream. A story about a man who dreamt about becoming a butterfly, and woke up wondering if he was a butterfly dreaming about becoming a man.

Many children had heard of parables from the Zhuangzi while growing up, but most were not familiar with the entire content of the book or were too young to understand its deeper meaning.

"Who cares!?" Li Yun did not know much about the Zhuangzi, but did it matter? All he needed to do was copy the book, how difficult could it be?

A week later...

Li Yun ran into his father's arms, drenched in tears.

"Daddy, it said my writing is ugly," Li Yun pouted with his puffy red cheeks.

His father, Li Fan, sat down by the table, and with some difficulty, lifted up the heavy Li Yun onto his lap. Li Fan flipped through the notebook riddled with scribbles that had little resemblance to Chinese. There were small characters, big characters, characters that took up an entire page, and even characters written in various shades of canyon color. It was indeed, ugly.

"It's not too bad Little Yun," Li Fan encouraged. "Why don't you practice keeping the characters within the lines?"

A few weeks later, Li Yun improved, but no reward.

"What am I doing wrong!?" Li Yun complained to his friends, Fatty Fang and Bufu in their school playground.

Li Yun pushed Fatty Fang, shouldering the back of the big boy to get any sort of momentum on the swing. From far away, the other children sniggered from what looked like two large dumplings pushing at each other in a crowded steamer.

Fatty Fang eventually managed to push forward with his short stumpy legs, and the swing moved slightly. His other friend, Bufu, had little trouble swinging on his own.

"Is the voice in your head a girl?" asked Fatty Fang, swinging back and forth. "That may be the reason. Girls are picky."

Fatty Fang was likely referring to Ning Xuxu, the girl everyone in school had a crush on.

Li Yun wondered, but there wasn't a specific voice in his head. He just knew what it wanted him to do. Every time he finished copying the Zhuangzi, he could immediately tell whether the finished copy was acceptable or not.

"It's hard to describe," Li Yun replied. "It's just a feeling. My latest copy looks fine to me, but it didn't seem to like it. Something about lacking beauty."

"What does that even mean?" Fatty Fang was also confused.

"I heard from Grandpa Liu that this dead guy calligraphy was sold for millions of yuan," Bufu remarked. "Everyone said the characters were so beautiful it came alive. Maybe write with a brush and ink?"

Li Yun nodded. It was worth a try.

During free time at school, Li Yun scoured through the library in search of calligraphy books. Some books were too basic while others were too complex. Li Yun's eyebrow arched in frustration as he encountered a difficult word.

"Miss librarian, what does this word mean?" asked Li Yun.

"Mo, it means beautiful eyes," the librarian replied. "Are you learning calligraphy?"

He nodded in earnest.

"Calligraphy is traditionally a master-disciple art. Books are great learning tools, but it cannot replace the knowledge passed down from a teacher. Since you don't have one now, I'll help you out for today."

She was amused to see a little boy reading on his own, so she had decided to help him. After the librarian taught him how to write the basic radicals, he thanked the librarian and returned home.

"Mommy! I want a teacher!" He begged his parents.

"This brat, I don't know what has gotten over him," Lu Suyin muttered to grandpa, Lu Yan.

"If Little Yun wants to learn calligraphy, then let him," replied grandpa Lu Yan. "It's a good skill to have. Elder Pei from downstairs knows quite a bit about calligraphy, we can ask him to teach Little Yun."

"Do you think Elder Pei will be willing? I thought he hated kids."

"What are you talking about? Elder Pei loves kids. He just has a scary vibe, so none of the kids dare to approach him."

Lu Suyin pondered and then nodded. As long as she didn't have to spend a fortune, it wasn't a difficult request. Holding onto Li Yun's hand, she escorted the boy downstairs to Elder Pei's unit.

Elder Pei lived alone, but often gathered outside with the other elders to play chess and reminisce about the good old days. Li Yun was not too familiar with Elder Pei, but he always looked like a grumpy old man.

As Elder Pei was preparing to start his calligraphy, he heard a knock, and then Lu Suyin's voice. He set his brush down above the inkstone, walked to the entry door to invite the mother and son into his apartment unit, served them green tea as Lu Suyin explained to Elder Pei the situation.

"Little Yun wants to learn calligraphy?" Elder Pei asked with a surprised expression.