The creature and the boy had won their very first battle. As they returned to earth, their two minds slowly began to separate.
Down below, Jax could see the coastline and the rainforests, and beyond that, a mountain range stretching like a dinosaur’s backbone across the land.
Still full of questions, Jax asked Peng, Where will you go now? Will you go back to your own world?
You bind me to this world, Mingzi. I will live in the Land of the Immortals until we are needed again.
The Land of the Immortals. Jax had heard many stories about this place, but he thought it only existed in fairytales. Will you take me there one day?
Peng laughed. You have been living in it ever since you came to Whispering Cloud Monastery.
Jax smiled as he thought back to the first time he had seen the monastery, rising out of a bed of mist.
When will we see each other again? Jax asked.
Unless we are needed sooner, I will come and visit you once every year. For your thirteenth birthday I will come as a moth with black and white eyes on my wings. But whatever form I take, you will always recognise me, for we are a part of each other now.
Jax could now see the lake and the ancient banyan tree. As Peng neared the park, his body began to shrink – smaller and smaller – until anyone watching would have easily mistaken him for a leaf floating on the breeze or a small bird.
Two frogmouth owls, sitting in the branches of the banyan tree, watched in awe as the great beast shrank to the size of a tiny beetle. He landed on the ground beside Jax’s body, and as he touched the Peng Master, Peng vanished to the Land of the Immortals.