Read Online Heaven to Wudang by Kylie Chan - Free Book Online

King of Vietnam was rowing for pleasure on the lake, Father surfaced andgave the King an enchanted sword that helped him to defeat the invading force.’
    â€˜Good Lord, he’s the Lady of the Lake,’ I said.
    â€˜Straight up,’ Simone said.
    â€˜Did the King throw the sword back into the lake when the battle was done?’ I said.
    â€˜Yes,’ Martin said. ‘It was Dark Heavens — of course Father wanted it back.’
    â€˜The parallels are crazy,’ Simone said.
    â€˜No wonder he did his PhD thesis on Arthurian legends compared to his own,’ I said. I shivered; the damp was seeping through my clothes and the long period of inactivity wasn’t helping. ‘Can we go back up? Do any of you want to stay here with him?’
    â€˜We can leave him; if he wakes the fish will tell us,’ Yue Gui said. She linked arms with me. ‘I hear you’ve had a busy day. Since we’re here, we will definitely take you up on your generous offer of a Wudang Mountain luncheon.’
    â€˜How many times has Daddy nearly been thrown from Heaven anyway?’ Simone said as we made our way back up the stairs. ‘It seems to happen every ten years or so.’
    â€˜Sounds about right,’ Martin said.
    Â 
    â€˜Come to the Northern Heavens later this evening,’ Yue Gui said over lunch in our private room attached to the officers’ mess. ‘Allow us to reciprocate by providing you with dinner, and you can inspect the rebuilding work on the Serpent Concubine Pavilion.’
    â€˜I can’t tonight,’ I said. ‘Simone and I have a charity art auction on the Earthly. But I’ll come in the next few days to have a look at the work on the Pavilion.’
    â€˜The Pavilion is gone and the gardeners have already moved in,’ Yue Gui said.
    â€˜Do you have space for another gardener?’ I said.
    Martin unfocused, talking to the staff of the Palace, then snapped back. ‘If he is strong and talented, then yes we do.’
    â€˜I have a Buddhist monk, a full Shaolin master — he fell from grace and worked as an assassin for a demon for a while,’ I said. ‘He’s trying to return to the Path and needs employment.’
    â€˜Then the garden in the Palace is perfect,’ Martin said.
    â€˜An assassin?’ Yue Gui said with disdain. ‘He should be incarcerated.’
    â€˜Kwan Yin has favoured him,’ I said.
    â€˜Oh,’ she said. ‘Very well then.’
    â€˜He is sincere about redeeming himself,’ I said. ‘I can just see him attaining Enlightenment and then doing what they all do — coming straight back down to help the sorry rest of us, raking the gravel in the garden and imparting really cryptic koans.’
    â€˜How many Buddhas are there anyway?’ Simone said.
    â€˜You have not studied the different Ages and their Buddhas?’ Yue Gui said with surprise. ‘Perhaps you should talk to Kwan Yin … No, perhaps not.’
    â€˜Exactly. She says that numbers aren’t meaningful and that I should find the Universe within myself,’ Simone said. ‘And that once I have embraced Unity, I will achieve Oneness with all of them.’
    â€˜They are pure thought when they are not assisting us,’ Martin said. ‘And thoughts cannot be numbered. They exist outside of this reality and are uncountable. So the answer to your question as to the number of Buddhas is: the answer is not meaningful.’
    â€˜I became more interested in the whole thing when Emma came back and told us about the Second Platform,’ Simone said. ‘But right now, I think coming to terms with the Tao is more important anyway.’
    â€˜You are lucky. You have Grand Masters on theMountain who can teach you in the ways of alchemy, internal energy work and self-cultivation to achieve Immortality. All of the different paths are laid out before you.’
    Simone looked down at her