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dropped, the moon filled and emptied, and Tiwu watched it all from the top of the tree. Nearby villagers, finding it easier to call up questions to someone in a tree than to climb a mountain, sent him baskets of food, which he hauled up using his rope. Soon, he began to bestow answers and advice to a steady stream of followers.
    On the ninety-sixth night, there was a terrible storm. The wind shrieked and screamed, and the thunder’s roars echoed for miles away. Lightning slashed the sky, and rain attacked like vicious arrows. The tree swayed and bent, but Tiwu, remembering his master’s teachings, did not panic. Even as nearby branches cracked and fell and rain and wind slapped his face raw, he sat silently, like a stone statue.
    The next morning, everyone crowded around the tree to see Tiwu sitting calmly up in the branches. “He is, without a doubt, a great sage,” they said to one another. “Only one who has achieved realenlightenment could be unmoved by that storm.” And they hailed and honored him from the ground.
    Tiwu heard their praises and felt quite satisfied.
I have truly proven myself
, he thought, and wrote a poem:
    Like a mountain of stone,
    The most powerful wind,
    The most thunderous noise,
    Cannot move me.
    Steadfast my mind,
    Deliverance my gain.
    This he decided to send to his master, the old man on the mountain. One of Tiwu’s admirers quickly brought it to the sage. The old man read the poem and smiled. Then he flipped the paper over and wrote in dark characters:
    BURP
    And sent it back to Tiwu.
    Tiwu quickly read the reply, expecting praise from his teacher. When he saw what his master had scrawledon the page instead, Tiwu was very insulted. “ ‘Burp’!” he said indignantly. “I speak of sacrifice and great knowledge, and he returns this? What does he mean?”
    Offended, Tiwu rushed down the tree and up the mountain. With every step, he felt more resentful of his master’s response. So when he finally saw the old sage sitting calmly, Tiwu immediately began to berate him. “What is this?” Tiwu said, waving the message angrily. “ ‘Burp’! What did you mean?”
    The old man waited until Tiwu paused for breath. “You said the most powerful wind and the loudest noise could not move you,” the sage said with a smile. “But it took only one burp to bring you here.”

    With those words Madame Chang finished the story and looked at Rendi. His mouth had curved, and a noise snorted out of his nose. It was only when the sound joined everyone else’s that he realized he was laughing.



CHAPTER
12
    After lunch, Rendi went to collect water from the Half-Moon Well. Ever since he had arrived at the Village of Clear Sky, all his time from lunch until dinner was spent doing this. Rendi walked back and forth on the twisting street between the inn and the well, until the sun sat right on the horizon like a balancing egg yolk.
    The Half-Moon Well was divided by a crumbling stone wall. It had been the wall of a courtyard, protecting a wealthy home when the Village of Clear Sky was rich and prospering. At that time, the owner must have beengenerous, for he had dug half the well beyond the wall so that poor peasants could use it too. To them, the split well had looked like the half circle of the midmonth moon, so they called it the Half-Moon Well. However, now, with the wall in ruins, the well looked more like a full moon with a scar down its center. Rendi cursed it daily.
    The Half-Moon Well was an awkward shape to haul water from, the dividing wall making the openings too small for buckets. Rendi was forced to use a small hollow gourd to draw up the water, which he emptied into the large buckets he carried to and from the inn. Every day, Rendi had to gather enough water for the garden and the inn, and he often felt as if he were trying to fill a lake using a spoon.
    Today, however, Rendi did not curse the well. He did not think of the wails in the sky that gave him no peace at night. He did not even