Ji Xuanlin stepped out of Toronto Pearson International Airport into a wall of humid summer air that smelled vaguely of wet asphalt, car exhaust, and something suspiciously like sweetened dough. At thirteen, he was already taller than most boys his age, lean and precise from endless qi forms and sword drills, but right now he felt like a lone bamboo shoot dropped into a blender. *The elders said this would temper the dao heart,* he thought grimly, clutching his plain canvas backpack. *They failed to mention it would also temper my dignity.* He had argued—respectfully, with perfect bows—that he was already fluent in the secular world's dark arts: he'd been coding since eight, maintaining the sect's encrypted servers, routing traffic through ghost nodes so the mortal authorities never traced the mountain's IP. "Precisely why you must go," the head elder had said with infuriating calm. "You treat technology like a servant and ignore the human side. Now you must live with both and come back from it."
He'd spent his childhood in secluded compounds, screens over people, lurking in forums without ever posting, treating social media like a necessary poison for sect logistics. City life—even the brief, dizzying stop in Kunming—had felt like stepping into a badly scripted illusion array. Toronto, he suspected, would be worse.
He scanned the arrivals crowd with narrowed jade-green eyes, hair neatly tied back. *Stay vigilant. Distractions lurk everywhere. Like that man screaming at his luggage as if it betrayed his ancestors.*
A cheerful Chinese couple waved from behind the barrier, holding a sign with his name in neat English block letters. Uncle Wang—broad-shouldered, third-generation trading family linked to the sect—grinned like he'd just closed a very profitable deal. Auntie Wang had kind eyes and the calm aura of someone who could keep a century-old secret while folding laundry.
"Xuanlin! Welcome!" Uncle Wang called in warm Mandarin, pulling him into a hug that was far too enthusiastic for proper decorum. Xuan stiffened, then bowed deeply out of reflex. "Uncle Wang, Auntie Wang. This junior is deeply grateful—"
"None of that 'junior' nonsense here," Uncle Wang laughed, clapping him on the back hard enough to test his root stance. "We're Canadian now. Call us Uncle and Auntie. And this—" he gestured to the boy beside them, "—is Zihan. Or Ethan, if you want to sound like you belong."
Zihan—Ethan—stood with artfully messy hair, a bright graphic tee featuring what appeared to be a cartoon raccoon eating pizza, and sneakers that looked like they'd survived several wars. He gave Xuan a cautious once-over, clearly cataloging the loose cotton tunic, the practical pants, the complete absence of logos or brand names.
Xuan returned the stare: *He moves like someone who plays team sports. Probably shouts a lot.*
Zihan thought: *This kid looks like he time-traveled from a kung fu movie. Does he even own jeans?*
The drive to Markham was a masterclass in cultural whiplash. Uncle Wang pointed out landmarks with the enthusiasm of a tour guide on commission. "That's Costco—holy land for bulk tofu and free samples!" Auntie Wang offered a bag of shrimp chips. Xuan accepted one politely, bit down, and nearly ascended on the spot from the sheer volume of artificial flavor. *This is what mortals consider 'snack'?* he thought, face carefully neutral. *No wonder their qi is so scattered.*
Markham itself was surreal: wide, clean streets lined with brick houses, every second sign in Mandarin or Cantonese, yet everything felt… wrong. Too orderly. Too polite. Too many lawns that looked like they'd been trimmed with spirit shears.
The first week was a parade of quiet bewilderment laced with accidental comedy.
Xuan rose at dawn for forms in the backyard. The neighbor's golden retriever barked hysterically every time he flowed into White Crane Spreads Wings, as if Xuan were summoning demons instead of circulating qi. Zihan watched from the kitchen window one morning, cereal spoon frozen halfway to his mouth. "Dude… are you doing tai chi or trying to scare the dog into therapy?"
Xuan paused mid-form, perfectly serious. "This is the Twenty-Four Form. It harmonizes yin and yang."
Zihan snorted milk. "It harmonizes the dog with a heart attack."
Venturing out alone was an education in absurdity. He walked into a T&T supermarket expecting something like Kunming's markets. Instead he found aisles of imported snacks labeled in three languages, a hot-food counter serving sushi burritos, and an entire refrigerator case dedicated to different brands of tofu. He stood frozen in front of the bubble tea kiosk, staring at the menu like it was an ancient, cursed scroll.
"Uh… what is 'Tiger Sugar Brown Sugar Milk Tea with Cheese Foam and Crystal Boba'?" he muttered.
The cashier, a bored university student, shrugged. "It's sugar with more sugar, and then cheese on top."
Xuan blinked. *Cheese. On tea.* He ordered the plainest milk tea available and nearly choked when the first sip hit like liquid dessert. *This is not tea,* he decided. *This is treason against Camellia sinensis.*
Pacific Mall was worse. He wandered through the indoor labyrinth of stores, marveling at claw machines, food courts offering Korean tacos and Japanese-Italian fusion pasta, and teenagers clustered in groups, laughing at phones. He could hack their Wi-Fi in seconds if needed, but the social current? Utterly incomprehensible. He watched a group of kids his age take selfies with duck-face poses and felt like an anthropologist studying a lost tribe.
Zihan found him later standing in front of a bubble tea stall, looking faintly betrayed by humanity.
"You okay, mountain man?" Zihan asked, grinning.
Xuan turned, deadpan. "I have just witnessed a beverage topped with salted cheese foam. I believe the dao has been profaned."
Zihan laughed so hard he nearly dropped his own cup. "Welcome to Canada, bro. We put cheese on everything and call it culture."
The wariness between them started as teeth-baring glances—Zihan teasing the "ancient wardrobe," Xuan raising an unimpressed eyebrow at Zihan's endless TikTok scrolling ("Is this how you cultivate attention span?")—but the barbs soon turned playful.
Basketball at the park became a battlefield of styles. Xuan's shots were eerily precise, every dribble a controlled kata. Zihan stole the ball with a flashy crossover and crowed, "Boom! Too slow, kung fu kid!"
Xuan retrieved it with a single, flowing pivot that left Zihan gaping. "Your form is… enthusiastic," Xuan said dryly. "It resembles Drunken Fist. Without the drunkenness. Or the fist."
Zihan doubled over laughing. "Okay. You win. You're savage."
Video games were next. Xuan, who'd once cracked sect-level encryption for practice, dismantled Zihan in every strategy title with terrifying efficiency.
"CHEATER!" Zihan yelled, throwing the controller.
"Pattern recognition," Xuan replied calmly. "Also, you press buttons like you're angry at them."
Zihan stared, then grinned. "You're a demon. A polite, disciplined demon. I respect it."
By the end of the week, the ice had fully thawed. They shared late-night snacks—Zihan sneaking in chips, Xuan pretending to resist before quietly eating half the bag. Zihan taught him Canadian slang ("'Eh' is not optional, it's law"). Xuan showed him a basic breathing technique that somehow made Zihan's homework focus sharper.
Lying in the guest room that night, Xuan stared at the slowly turning ceiling fan. School loomed like an unknown tribulation realm: group projects, gym class, the pressure to "blend in" without revealing he could probably qi-blast the vending machine if it ate his dollar.
*How does one 'hang out' without losing the Way?* he wondered.
But as sleep finally came, the knot in his dantian loosened just a fraction. The secular world was loud, sweet, chaotic, and occasionally blasphemous against tea.
Still… it had Ethan.
And somehow, that made the ten years ahead feel slightly less like punishment.