One Tail at a Time

No Pain, No Gain - 1

It's been a few weeks since I released the little ship, but every day Fu Yu and I take turns at watching it winding its way around the rocks , bouncing off the edges and slinking through the early morning mists.   I think that this is my first real accomplishment, even more than gaining my tails, because this is something I consciously worked hard to complete.  And what makes it an even more real achievement, is that I have caught my brothers and even Shifu sitting quietly on the bench seats just to watch my little Ship leaving a trail of white water in its wake.

And it is to Shifu that I find myself sitting beside as he quietly contemplates on the mechanisms I have used to create my unusual rudder which he said he as never seen the likes of, in fact he is super impressed with it.

"What gave you the idea of creating a rudder Xiaobai?" he asks with a hint if disbelief in his tone, as if creating a rudder is the most unusual thing he had ever heard of.

"Promise you won't laugh?" I ask, seeing as I have not even shared where the thought came from with anyone, not even Liwei.

"I promise not to laugh." he replies raising his hand in oath and with a most serious face which makes me giggle.

"Well, it kind of started years ago, when I overheard Papa saying he wanted to build a fleet of ships seeing as we own most of the Eastern Seaboard, only, he didn't want to waste precious resources in running them.  At the time, he was deeply involved in discussions with my older brother Bai Yi on how they could bring a fleet of ship into being, and sometimes Papa would be up late into the night working on it, to the point of collapsing from sheer exhaution." I tell him which Shifu merely nods his head at but says nothing.

"Mama used to get so mad when he stayed up late night after night, and of course their arguing eventually had me becoming stressed out over it until I too was staying up late in the night thinking of a way to help.  After all I will one day be the Queen of Qing Qiu and any fleet of Ships Papa created, would also become my responsibility and because it came at the same time you were teaching me simple physics, like how wheels and axles move one part of a machine to create movement of the whole thing, I began to really pay attention." I remind him which he smiles at as the memory comes back to him.

"Well, not long after those lessons which then moved onto buoyancy, motion and inertia, I had a dream." I say slowly as it vividly comes back to me.

"A dream?"

"Yes.  It was so bright and detailed, that even now I can remember everything.  The cogwheels which activate the propellers were what I saw, clear as day.  Only I couldn't make out what it all meant at the time, but I did see a little ship that I had built along with the rudder and not only that, in the dream, I was actually a boy from a different kind of people and I got a strong feeling afterwards that I had been Mortal, only I know its not a past life dream, because I was born an Immortal, I've never known Mortal lives, so I still don't quite know what it all means."

"Still, I saw very clearly in my dream the little ship moving against the flow of a fast moving river and though I didn't really understand how it all worked, in my dream, it all made perfect sense.  In awake time, I only had the concept of a rudder to go by and importantly,  the cogwheels attached to elastic bands which made the ship move as if by magic.   Only the moment I tried to explain my dream to Papa, he wouldn't listen.  He merely patted my head, told me I was a good little Xiaowu, and to go and play with my dolls." I tell Shifu with a hint of the old disappointment in my tone which I seem to have also held onto.

"Of course, I was very disappointed and because he had not given me a chance to explain it, I decided that I would not share my good ideas with anyone else again.  It remained with me over the years and I have never forgotten the most important details, and that was the cog wheels and elastic bands, so ....." I say with a twinkle in my eye which he smiles most warmly at.......  "When you asked for a perpetual motion device, this was the first thing to come to mind, every detail I have held for centuries, came back thick and fast, I just had to try and make it and finally get it out of my head!"  I finish with a wave of hand at the ship that is slowly grinding it's way past us again.