My Little Shifu

Counting Smiles

Arriving much earlier than expected, Mo Yuan stood looking at the empty hut in disappointment having hoped to catch Zhe Yan before his next lesson.  The man rarely left the Grove so he was actually quite suprised to find him missing along with his energy having thought he had perhaps merely gone for a walk.  He had hoped to question him on his Little Shifu for at least her name, but it seemed he was not going to learn it that day.

Its no matter.... he thought to himself.  He could use the extra time to gather a little peace before the storm seeing as he could feel the girl jumping about in the northern end which was their meeting place.  And as the flutter of excited energy wafted back to him, an idea came to mind.  He really did need to meditate, cultivating energy was highly important to him because wars broke out without any warning at all so keeping his cultivation high meant he would always be ready.  He was also a High God and a revered one, loss of cultivation would not serve the people in their time of need.

So making his way towards a different tree this time, he wondered if she would notice his arrival having already begun to pull his energy inwards before he even found a suitable spot.  He still wasn't sure of her rank or even if she had reached High Immortal yet, but if she had, she should be able to feel his presence though going by the amout of excitement in her energy, he didn't think she'd notice an earthquake seeing as her energy was far too scattered, which he could feel even though he was still some distance away.

Then seating himself, he quietly and very slolwy began to draw the rest of his energy into his core which just as slowly forced his heartrate to slow down and from there his mind also closed down.  It wasn't a deep meditative state, because he could still discern movement around him, but it was enough to bring himself into a calm state in order to let the entire morning go, along with that Queen while also finding the peace he had not felt in the Grove for over three days.

And so for an hour he completely lost himself to the feeling of peace that washed over him until eventually, that internal clock of his had him slowly reentering the world again until he was once again back in the Grove with the sun high in the sky above him.  In meditative state, no thoughts passed through his mind, only the soft inhale and exhale was where his thoughts centred themselves, and his breathing was in the exact state the moment he came back to himself.  He figured an hour had passed and with a lesson to now attend, he just as slowly opened his eyes only to almost leap into the air when she suddenly came into view.

Hunched down directly in front of him with her elbows on her knees and her face resting in the palms of her hands, the eyes peering at him from beneath the wide floppy hat gave away nothing as she watched him quickly pull himself together having managed to startle him.

"What are you doing?" she asked genuinely curious seeing as the other tree was meant to be their meeting place and he looked to be taking a nap when he should have been making his way towards his lesson.

"I was meditating." he replied with the same blank look on his face while his mind struggled to regather itself having felt nothing of her energy approaching which he knew he should have.  If anything, her sudden appearance in front of him merely suggested he had gone in a little too deeply.

"Ahhh." she smiled at him.  "I've heard of that before, Zhe Yan is always suggesting that I meditate because he says my mind is too cluttered with unnecessary thoughts." she mused though more to herself than to him.   "So why do you need to meditate?" she asked genuinely interested.  After all, he was her Disciple, if there were things about him she needed to know about, then she would outright ask.  

"For the peace.  It keeps me calm and centred." he replied with a short nod of his head before tensing when that smile of hers grew a little wider.