"Hmm..."
Yang San Shu pondered if he'd been rash. He'd already been unhappy recently due to his peaceful days getting disturbed over and over. And not long ago a particularly troublesome girl had visited him.
Troublesome people were troublesome less so because they themselves are trouble (although this is also often the case), rather they are troublesome because trouble follows wherever they go.
Mighty as this old flame might be, he wouldn't be perching by the garden outside of time if he wanted a troubled life.
The old man did not expect that - he did not expect that the feisty girl would burst out in her injured state and start a rampage. While her present state could not truly pose a threat to him, he was in no mood to stop a rampaging conceptual being.
"Why is it that... no trouble exists when I'm seeking for it, yet in my retirement there seems to be no end of it?" He wondered if he should relocate to find a more peaceful home.
'Well, even then I still prefer these instead of the dry profundity the 仙 xian (Immortal) crowd is so f*cking fond of'
".."
*sigh
The old man realized the irony of his own thoughts. His sigh however came from a different source.
There was once a child that sought to sail the world.
He built his first vessel at the tender age of six, and foolishly took it to the open ocean. He drowned and washed ashore back to his home island, unconscious for days until the tender dragon in the sky woke him with a bite.
The child woke a couple days after he was bitten, and felt himself filled with ever more vitality and excitement. He did not know why, but the child felt he had an urge only greater upon being drowned by the mighty seas.
He saw great woods of mighty spiders and webs sailing the far horizon, and he had a burning will to sail as they did.
He began looking for mightier wood to build it from, and learnt from the elder villagers who would burn the wood after carving the center to the shape the boat.
Days passed. He had not found a piece of wood which satisfied him.
Weeks passed, he finally found a mighty tree. Yet, he knew not how he would make the tree his sea bound home.
Months passed, and only a bright blue star in the sky accompanied the lonely night.
Years passed. The child had grown into a robust youth, brimming with an active mind, a burning gaze and a strong, youthful body.
He had learnt to rely on the strengths of the 'way' where the strengths of 'man' could not suffice. The mighty tree would never have been felled by the arms of 'man', yet against the might of the 'way' it followed a natural course in felling.
He had learnt of 道 Dao. Of the natural course. The way things are. The operation of the heavens. Of the destined end of all life. That eventually great trees shall fall and nourish the land from which it once drew from, and from it would rise new life.
As time passed, he had learnt of these things.
He understood, that in felling the great tree, he had taken an excess of the land and given to a deficit in himself. That now he had obtained a 道 (dao) 'Way', a way across the sea which he still sought to sail.
Decades passed. The bright blue star still accompanied the now aging man, lighting the lonely nights, saying goodbyes to the embracing dark that would cover the the world come night time.
And the man had built a great vessel. That over the years, he had come to take more and more to fuel his own pursuit. That he had taken, but would be unable to give back as he would soon leave.
And that his way was now distant from him. All that accompanied him was 'man'.
Heaven, one who takes excess and gives to the deficit. And Man. One who takes the deficit to further the excess. In his heaven, he saw only the bright blue star.
Beneath heaven, he now knew only himself.
天下 All the world, was now only himself and the bright blue light.
And the bright blue light - sailed east.
And the man sailed east. The traveler sailed east. Sailed and sailed, the barren, darkened lands left far behind. Sailed and sailed, the fractured landscape now forgotten by time. Forgotten by memories. Forgotten by space.
And the man still sailed east, following the bright blue light.
And once more, the traveler cannot return. He must cross the last horizon. He must forget all lights of home. There is a sea paler still, a horizon vaster still. Yet the traveler was at it's end and still the light kept heading forth, and still his journey must continue.
-------------------------------
An old store from a time long forgotten, where all travelers who try sail east would eventually return. For no one sails east.
Travelers will return. Wherever they sail, to whatever distant north the flow, whatever scarred west they turn to. Whatever great mountains they voyage; far above the sacred golden mountain at the center of the world.
The light at the south where immortality was first born, the old chaos. Where the tips of the roots shroud, at the edge of space and time where the great roots of the great many worlds converge... yes, even at that vast green where the word 'time' itself has been forgotten.
Yet, the heavens itself would seek futility in seeking the end of your journey. Yours is a traveller who cannot return.
Old soul, where are you going?
The Dao has no end. The bright blue star will forever head east. The traveler will seek it eternal.
He had fished the light reflected on the endless oceans, rippling the bright star on the waters, vanishing it like a distant dream.
He had fished the seas, the skies, the stars. The endless sail has crossed the nine heavens and beyond.
The tug of the line had not once grasped the bright blue star that even now heads east.
Fisherman, the traveler who does not return. He who sails the endless sea.
A vast road, a lonely road. For the first time in eternity, he saw the shores following the road of a nascent soul.
For the first time in eternity, a little seedling's strait had strayed his voyage.
For the first time in eternity, he was in touch with the light he had been forever seeking, forever pursuing, forever in possession of his wayward heart 道心 (Dao heart).