The next morning, Shen's mind was still lost in his dream. During breakfast, he asked his mother, "Mom, did any blue trees grow in our field overnight?"
Mei glanced outside at the fields and said with a roll of her eyes, "Still just green, son. But if you stand out there wearing your blue shirt, maybe a bird will mistake you for one and come sit on you!" Shen looked down at his blue tunic and giggled.
Out in the field, Shen tried to help his father, but his attention kept drifting to butterflies and birds flying high overhead. At one point, he was chasing a grasshopper and landed flat on his back in a muddy patch.
Lin Fu helped him up, laughing. "Hey now! We're here to grow rice, are you trying to become the Mud King?" Shen wiped the mud from his face and gave an innocent grin. "But Father, the mud is so cool and fun!"
In the evening, Shen was the most excited for the village gathering. He plopped himself down on the mat closest to Elder Zheng, swinging his legs impatiently. When Zheng spoke of the cultivator flying through the air, Shen immediately turned to his friend and whispered, "If I learn to fly, I'll fly you to school first thing... straight to the roof!" The two boys stifled their laughter.
The next day in the woods, when he found the strange, star-shaped leaf with a faint blue shimmer, his childish mind immediately buzzed with excitement. "Whoa! This looks like a magic biscuit!" he thought to himself.
Instead of hesitating, he curiously snapped the leaf off. As the warm tingling sensation shot through his fingers, he gasped. He pressed the leaf to his cheek, then held it to his ear, as if it were telling him a secret.
"Oh wow!" his eyes widened, "It really is magic! It's alive!" He was so thrilled that he ran straight home, thinking he had found some hidden treasure.
Once home, his first move was to dangle the leaf in front of his pet goat kid, to see if it felt anything too. The kid sniffed it, deemed it unimportant, and walked away. A little disappointed, Shen placed it carefully in his treasure box, which housed his rock collection, a few broken bangles, and some dried flowers.
That night at bedtime, he tucked the leaf under his pillow and told his mother, "Mom, I'm going to try to dream on purpose tonight. If you see me smiling in my sleep, it means the dream is a good one!"
Mei kissed his forehead and laughed. "Okay, but don't fly so high in your dreams that you tumble right out of bed."
And sure enough, that night's dream was even more vivid and exciting. But this time, in the dream, he was laughing and playing tag around the glowing blue tree, as if it were a new friend.
When he woke up, there was a smile on his face and a new game in his heart—'catching' that Qi. He didn't know what it was, but he knew it made his dreams more fun. And for a seven-year-old boy, what could be better than that?