The Urban Dao Child

Yang Dao was standing in the center of what looked like a decorative circle. His eyes were dim. It was as if his body was only a shell made up of flesh. In his mind though, something beyond comprehension was going on.

...

Yang Dao felt himself being pushed out by a force that he could not resist. He felt his whole body being squeezed to the limit before he was washed over with a wave of relief. He opened his eyes with difficulty and sensed his body being bitten by infinite ants. He could not help but cry as the sensation hurt him beyond anything he had ever experienced.

The pain only passed away after a few minutes and he sensed warmth around him. He opened his eyes and found that he was being gazed down by a beautiful woman, but her face seemed a bit too big for his vision. He could understand that the lady was happy to look at him.

He wonder what was happening. Suddenly a man walked over in his peripheral vision, Yang Dao tried to turn his head to look who it was but his neck did not listen to his command. Perhaps the lady registered the movement of his eyes and turned his body to face the man. He heard a soft voice, "Ian, look your son wants to see you."

Yang Dao was hit by a bolt of lightning. His body was shivering, and his vision was clouded with tears. He realized that he has been sent back in time and this was his parents. The boy began to cry, it was as if his sanity had begun to dim. His emotions were running out of control. The man smiled and took him in his arms. He coaxed him to not cry.

Gradually Yang Dao felt his strength to stay awake failing him and he fell asleep. Yang Dao woke up after a few moments and he found a toy hanging over his head. This toy had four animal cut-outs hanging from it as it spun slowly.

Since then, the boy began to live a normal life. His parents were both different from how he remembered. They were teachers but not scientists. They loved Yang Dao a lot and gradually the boy forget who he was. He was walking away from his path of dao and near to the rat race of life.

...

The big turtle sighed as he sensed something going at the place where Yang Dao was standing. The body of the young man had begun to disappear. This was the corrosion of the samsara wheel. Atsuji Kurogame never had anyone take a test, the wheel of time will send you to a space where you can comprehend a lot of things, but if you lost your way in that illusion, the wheel of time will begin to consume you.

He wished he could go in and wake up Yang Dao but he was not allowed to. His body was the carrier of the wheel of time, he could not meddle with it. He could only guard it. Atsuji Kurogame helplessly saw Yang Dao's body slowly being consumed by the wheel of time.

...

Yang Dao did not know about anything and his life passed slowly and smoothly. It was an average life, he grew up to be a white-collar worker, raised in ranks, married a wife, had kids. However, he was not placed here to enjoy vanity. Time showed its cruelty.

His parents passed away, he was hurt but still able to stand on his feet. His wife contracted a terminal illness, his children grew defiant, in the end, slowly his life became a tragedy. In the late forties of his life, the man found himself with no reason to live.

His wife passed away and their children had left, so after the funeral of his wife. He left the city and began to wander around the world to seek himself. He met a guru, who told him what the reality of life was. Influenced by the preaching, Yang Dao began to cultivate himself and began to look inside himself.

He was told that all the answers one sought, lied within themselves. Yang Dao meditated daily and lived a minimalistic life. One day when he was cleaning his house, he came across the storeroom where his childhood things were placed. The strong emotion of longing for the old happy days made him step on the memory lane. The man fiddled and cleaned the things.

His eyes fell on the cradle that he used to stay in his early childhood. Suddenly he froze, after a few seconds he woke up from his daze. He mumbled, "Time, the journal of the universe. It will see everything and never forget it. I forgot myself, yet the time remembered me. Time is more than just age, and experience. Time is..."

As Yang Dao began to recall his life and began to comprehend the laws of time, his memories began to clear up.

...

Atsuji Kurogame sensed something. He smiled as he mumbled, "Thank the great Dao. He got a  grip."

The body that was beginning to crumble was now being reconstructed. It was because, before time to completely erase Yang Dao, the boy had grasped it. He was slowly gaining control over time. The pattern on the wheel of time was changing slowly and it was becoming more and more mysterious. The pattern now had the colors it never had.

Slowly, the light came back to Yang Dao's body. Inside the river of time, he had not lived just one lifetime. After he completed his comprehensions, he did not hurry to come back and carried on to live more parallel lives. All the lives taught him things that he never expected. He spoke, "Elder, I am back."

The soft voice sounded, "Master, now you need to comprehend the laws of space. This time, I will not give you any tip."

Yang Dao nodded and sat down on his spot with his eyes closed.. He said, "See you soon, eldest."