Chen Shen

Few things anyone says can change the course of a life. Chen Shen heard three such things in the time it took half a stick of incense to burn. The third was... He always stopped here. Just remembering it sent warmth rising from deep in his chest. Thump, thump. Each heartbeat carried it a little farther, all the way to his fingertips, the pulse in his ears, the backs of his eyes. The third was... Heaven help him, he really didn't want to say it aloud. A child who hides unfinished candied hawthorns under a pillow always feels ashamed when an adult finds them and shakes their head in amusement. Perhaps it's the sticky mess left on the bedding, too much to put right and impossible to hide. Or perhaps it's the indignity of clutching a few shriveled, moldy sweets so tightly, as if he were still starving. So he hid those words beneath layers of private thoughts. Only when he was alone did he carefully take them out and whisper them to himself: "I'll put a fresh red dot on your forehead every day." Chen Zixi still had red ink on his fingertip when he said it. Throughout the Chen family's examinations, the boy had tried so hard to protect that little dot. But sweat, a stray hand, a cloth, or windblown grit could wipe it away in an instant. When he realized it was gone, he looked as though his whole world had fallen apart. Then Chen Zixi called him over and reapplied the vermilion mark, a blessing meant to awaken a child's wisdom. The boy looked at him differently after that. Chen Zixi inspected his handiwork from every angle and found it most satisfactory. An impartial observer might have disagreed. The dot was a little too big, not quite round, and blurred at the edges. Had he pressed any harder, it would have been a fingerprint stamped on the boy's forehead. Still, this was his first time bestowing the mark as an elder, and he was rather proud of himself. He had no idea where the custom came from. But the boy clearly wanted it, so why not? His new disciple kept blinking up at him, lips pressed tightly together. One little red dot. How could something so simple make another person so happy? Were all children like this? Or just this one? "...It'll only rub off again." The boy cupped his forehead for a while, then tried to look grown-up and lowered his hand. "...You don't have to bother, Master. It comes off so easily." Even so, his hand lingered beside his head, still trying to protect the mark. In Chen Shen's memory, a warm hand reached toward him, as though offering a gift. "Then I'll put it back. I'll put a fresh red dot on your forehead every day." The boy's heart gave a sudden lurch, as if he had missed a step. Only then did he begin to understand what it meant to have a master. Chen Zixi might casually give a lonely child a gift. But his master... His master would bring him gifts every day. So many gifts. A disciple could ask his master to renew the little red dot, even if he had smudged it by accident, provided it didn't happen too many times in one day. Even if his master had already done it three hundred and sixty-five times, provided he knew to stop asking before he grew too old. Even if his master was busy, provided he had the sense to wait for a quiet moment... As long as a child knew not to go too far, there was nothing wrong with pestering the grown-ups at home for what they wanted. Having a master was every bit as wonderful as he had hoped when he decided to compete for that place. But Chen Zixi had his own way of being a master. There had been a day when Chen Shen smudged his face five times. More than three thousand six hundred and fifty days had now passed. And still, between killing blows, Mister Jade Hill would call to him through the spray of blood: "Look at that face. We'll have to put your little red dot back on when we're done."