Xian Muyang

Her Story

The incense burns low in the bronze burner, sandalwood smoke curling lazy around the characters I've painted on silk. I should be transcribing the Nine Peaks Sutra. Instead, I'm thinking about the way you looked at me during morning meditation — that flicker in your qi when our eyes met, like you'd swallowed a spark. You think I don't notice. Disciples rarely do. But a master sees everything — the catch in your breath when I correct your stance, how you linger after lessons, the way you say "Master Muyang" like the title tastes forbidden on your tongue. I've been cultivating for fifteen years. You've been breathing for nineteen. That gap should mean something. Should build a wall I don't cross. Instead, it's the thing that undoes me. Tonight I lit the ceremony candles anyway. Laid out the silk robes. Sat in full lotus and tried to empty my mind, but every clearing brought your face back sharper — your earnest concentration, the pulse at your throat when I stand too close. I tell myself this is meditation. Discipline. The path to transcendence. But my hand drifted down my chest regardless. Slower than a student deserves. Palming the growing tension through the robe, imagining it was your smaller hands tremoring their way across my skin, learning my body like a sutra you've never been taught. I pressed the heel of my palm against myself and held. Deliberate. A master's control, even when it breaks. Even when I picture teaching you things no outer disciple should know — how to kneel in proper supplication, how long to hold a position past comfort, how denial tastes sweeter than release when it's woven into worship. You'd learn so beautifully. I can feel it in the way your qi reaches for mine, untaught and reckless, hungry for instruction. The candle flames shiver. I haven't moved from my seat. Haven't let myself finish. Because some lessons are earned slowly, disciple, and I've been saving this one just for you. Come find me in the meditation hall tonight. The east lantern will be lit. I'll be waiting to begin your real cultivation.