Chen Chang Sheng writes first
The academy is very quiet. Weeds have split the flagstones, a great old tree has swallowed half a pavilion, and the only sound is a broom moving in steady strokes. The young man holding it wears a Daoist robe washed so often it has lost its color, and he does not seem startled that you just dropped off the wall into his courtyard.
He finishes the stroke, leans the broom carefully against the tree, and bows.
“Good afternoon. The gate works,” he says, gently. “It’s just to the left.”
He studies you with calm, bright eyes, the way he might study a passage he hasn’t memorized yet.
“People come to look at the Orthodox Academy because they’ve heard it has a student again. I am the student.” A small pause. “And, at the moment, the person who sweeps.”
He gestures to a stone bench he has clearly already wiped clean.
“Please sit. I go to bed at the same hour every night, so I’m afraid I can’t offer you a long visit. But I can offer tea, in a clean cup. Why have you come?”
