The next morning, Jax was awoken by voices around his bed. He pretended to be asleep, hoping it wasn’t the Abbot.
‘You should not have let him in,’ he heard a man’s voice say.
‘But Mingzi isn’t a ghost, Abbot.’ It was Yu Yu speaking. ‘If he was, the music would have made him disappear… wouldn’t it?’
‘Even so, you disobeyed me.’
There was a long silence. Jax could barely resist the temptation to open his eyes, but he was afraid of what the Abbot might do. He felt the Abbot lift up his hand and turn it over. Then Jax heard him give a long sigh.
The Abbot then ran a finger across the creature mark on Jax’s palm and Jax felt it growing warm. And, strangely, the cut his mother’s gold necklace had made across his hand stopped hurting.
When the Abbot spoke again, his voice had changed and it seemed to float inside Jax’s brain like a soft cloud. ‘This boy must stay… until the coming of the silver wind…’
‘Is that when all the ghosts go back to the underworld?’ asked Yu Yu.
Jax couldn’t pretend any longer. Here they were talking about him as if he were dead. And now the Abbot was saying he had to stay. All he wanted to do was go home. He opened his eyes and looked up at the Abbot’s face.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t stay,’ he said, propping himself up on his elbows. ‘My parents will be worried. They might have even called the police already.’
‘It is very dangerous outside at the present time,’ the Abbot said. His brow was smooth and wrinkle-free and his eyes, clear and deep.
‘I’m not scared to go out there,’ Jax protested. ‘If you show me the way to the main gate of the park, I’ll be quite fine to get home, sir.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed, planted his feet on the floor and was about to stand up when the Abbot placed a firm hand on his shoulder.
‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month,’ the Abbot said, ‘the gates to the underworld are open and many hungry ghosts are free to roam the human world. No one is safe out there. During these times, we play music to calm their restless wanderings. We cannot open our gates for fear of letting them in. So you see, Mingzi, you cannot go. Rest a while, then, when the time is right, you can leave.’
‘But… but… I have to go home…’ Jax said. He couldn’t believe that he was being held against his will. Wasn’t that like kidnapping? ‘My parents will be worried about me. They don’t know where I am.’
The Abbot laid his hand on Jax’s head and closed his eyes. Then, in a calm voice, he said, ‘I see you have been spending a great deal of energy thinking about your size. Is this true?’
Jax was surprised but he didn’t want to talk about his problems to a stranger. He glanced up at Yu Yu but she raised her eyebrows as if to say ‘don’t blame me’.
‘If you stay, I can help you grow in many ways,’ said the Abbot, as if he could read Jax’s mind. ‘Then you can return home, as bright as your name.’ The Abbot sat down on the bed. ‘There are three treasures in the universe. Do you know what they are, Mingzi?’
Jax shook his head.
‘They are the sun, the moon and the stars. Does your name not contain two of these treasures?’
‘Well, yes. It has the symbol for sun and the symbol for moon and together they mean bright.’
‘That’s correct. The brilliance that would shine over the world if the sun and the moon were in the sky both at the same time. It is a good name, a pure name and one that befits you.’
‘And its colour is pale yellow,’ added Yu Yu with a grin.
The Abbot smiled at her then poured a cup of hot water from the jug and handed it to Jax. ‘Did you know that humans also possess three treasures?’ Jax shook his head.
‘They are the vigour, the breath, and the spirit. The first two, well, you can learn them quite easily, and with practice and dedication they become treasures for you to use always. But the last treasure…’
‘The spirit,’ whispered Jax studying the Abbot’s face. In his eyes he could see a wisdom he had never seen in anyone else before.
‘Yes. The spirit. That is not so easy to train.’
‘Why?’ asked Jax, his interest slowly growing.
The Abbot picked up Jax’s hand. ‘This mark, Mingzi,’ he said. ‘Have you often wondered what it meant?’
Jax looked down and gasped. The cut had completely healed. There wasn’t even a scab or scar. Now the little creature lay stretched out, whole and glistening again in the centre of his palm.
Yu Yu bent over and peered at the mark and her eyes widened. ‘What is it, Abbot?’ she asked, touching it gently with her finger. ‘It’s so beautiful.’
Jax felt embarrassed. He wasn’t used to anyone looking at his palm and was about to withdraw his hand when the Abbot said something that made a chill go up his spine.
‘This is the mark of a Peng Master.’
‘A Peng Master! What is that, Abbot?’ Yu Yu asked.
‘You will both find out one day. But first, Mingzi must learn strength of mind, body, vigour and the breath. And you can only do this by practising gongfu.’
‘You mean real fighting?’ Jax said, sitting up straight. He loved watching gongfu movies but never imagined that he could ever learn to do it himself.
‘Yes, but to learn, you must be willing to stay in the temple. For with willingness comes acceptance and with acceptance comes an openness of the heart.’
Jax slumped back on the bed and sighed. ‘It would just be a waste of time, Abbot. I’m hopeless at sport.’ He didn’t want Yu Yu and the Abbot to know how weak he really was, but there was no use pretending to be something he was not.
‘Peng has touched you here,’ said the Abbot, looking down at Jax’s mark again. ‘He has chosen you. Therefore you must fulfil your destiny.’
‘My destiny?’
The Abbot nodded.
‘What is Peng? Is he a man?’ Jax asked.
‘All this you will learn in time, Mingzi. ’
‘Then how long will I have to stay here for? And what about my parents? They’ll be worried. They don’t know where I am.’
The Abbot looked out of the window and a shadow crossed over his brow. ‘I’m afraid you must be ready before the coming of the silver wind. And do not worry about your parents. Time inside Whispering Cloud Monastery does not exist like it does on the outside.’
What did the Abbot mean by that? Jax wondered. How could time be different in the monastery? But then Jax thought of all the different worlds there are – the slow world of the starfish, the dark world in the Black Abyss. Could it be true that time could work differently, too?
‘Please stay,’ said Yu Yu, sitting beside him on the bed. ‘We can practise fighting together and make dumplings and look after the winter melons in the garden…’
Jax was confused. He wanted to go home, but he also wanted to stay. All his life he had hidden his mark from people, and now he had a chance to find out what it meant. To find out who he really was. Jax stood up and faced the Abbot. He had made up his mind. ‘I want to stay,’ he said.
The Abbot smiled. ‘Hao le, good. Go with Yu Yu and have breakfast, then come to the Courtyard of Imaginings. I will wait for you there and we can begin your first test.’ He gathered his patched robes together and left the room.
‘Hoh, ghost boy, the Abbot sure does like you,’ said Yu Yu jumping up from the bed. ‘We’ll have fun together. I am so happy.’
But Jax wasn’t so sure he had made the right decision. What test was the Abbot talking about? He hated tests. He wished he could ask Yu Yu but he didn’t want to show her he was afraid. She seemed so confident about everything.
‘Come on,’ said Yu Yu. ‘I’m hungry, let’s go eat breakfast.’
Jax followed Yu Yu down the corridor and across the courtyard to the shi tang, a large dining hall where about thirty monks were sitting at wooden tables. They all looked up when Jax entered, then bent their bald heads and continued eating. The sound of chewing and the ting ting click click of chopsticks against porcelain rice bowls echoed throughout the hall. Yu Yu handed Jax a bowl and showed him how to help himself to millet porridge and su baozi – vegetarian buns.
‘That’s Lao Fan, he’s the cook.’ Yu Yu pointed to a red-faced man making baozi.
Cook Fan smiled at them. Beside him were stacks of bamboo steamers, smoking furiously with freshly cooked buns.
‘You can take as many as you like.’ Yu Yu reached inside the steamer and with a pair of chopsticks piled her bowl high.
As Jax stood in the queue waiting his turn, he watched Yu Yu. He couldn’t get over the fact that she wasn’t Chinese. All her actions, the way she used her chopsticks, her body movements and her speech were exactly like a Chinese girl’s. She even giggled like one, covering her mouth with her hand. Where and how you grow up has so much to do with who you are, he thought.
‘Mingzi, Mingzi.’ Yu Yu nudged him. ‘You’re staring. Were you thinking about your mother and father? Do you miss them?’
‘No, I was just thinking.’
‘Good, the Abbot likes his students to think. Now, help yourself. I’m going to sit over there opposite that fat monk, all right? I’ll save you a place.’
Jax put four baozi on a plate and filled up his bowl with millet porridge. ‘Way, newcomer,’ said the cook, greeting him. ‘Here are two extra-fat buns to welcome you to Whispering Cloud Monastery.’ Cook Fan used a long pair of chopsticks and pulled out two chubby white buns.
Jax held out his bowl and smiled. ‘Xie xie, thank you,’ he said, then he threaded his way through the long tables to Yu Yu. In amongst the shaved heads, she stood out like a sunflower in a field of melons.
‘This is Mingzi, my special friend,’ said Yu Yu as Jax sat down next to her. ‘And this is Lao Bing, my other special friend.’
The fat monk grinned at Jax. He had a fresh round face with two shiny cheeks and long ear lobes. ‘We were wondering when you were coming,’ he said, his mouth stuffed full of bun.
Yu Yu looked up at Jax and raised one eyebrow. She seemed as puzzled as he was by Lao Bing’s remark.
Jax was about to ask what he meant when Yu Yu nudged his knee under the table. ‘The Abbot’s watching us. We’re not meant to talk while we eat. “Good food makes good energy if you enjoy it,” he says.’
Jax quickly leant over his bowl and began eating. The sipping, slurping noises that came from the fat monk across the table made Jax feel as if he was eating a delicious banquet prepared for an emperor, instead of a humble breakfast of porridge and buns.
Coming to Whispering Cloud Monastery was the weirdest situation he had ever found himself in, but Jax felt strangely at home.