"I am Shixing. By the time you read these words, I will have already died."
Li Ang nearly dropped the stone tablet when he saw the first sentence.
What mysterious resurrection.
He shook his head and continued to read the tiny script.
"I was born in the second year of the Xiande era in Linshui Town, State City, to a father named Qu Twelve and a mother named Jiang Banmei, who ran a ready-to-wear clothing shop in the town.
I was much more precocious than other children my age, able to copy and recite scriptures at the age of three or four. Because I could recite the Buddha Sutras that were kept in the house, the monks thought I had innate wisdom and took me to the White Horse Temple in Chang'an.
Time at the temple cannot be described as either happy or unhappy. Regardless of Zen doctrine, Magic, painting, music, the tea ceremony, or poetry, I only needed to see them once to learn. I gradually grew accustomed to the praise and adulation, or the envy and hostility, of others.
