82. A force for freedom

Jing Tao could not remember her father and her mother. She knew what they looked like, she had seen the photographs. But she had no memory of them. She knew the humiliating story of their fall from grace during The Hundred Flowers Campaign. But she could not recall their touch, or the sound of their voice. She felt this loss keenly.

As she held her pose, she was transported by the hum that coursed from her voice box to the tips of her fingers. The hum that signified to her the three jewels of compassion, moderation and humility. She had long tried to determine how to live in harmony with the universe, and had realised that, for her, inaction could not achieve action. She struggled with this apparent contradiction.

Sensing an interruption, Jing Tao re-entered the bustle of Queen’s Square, and stepping slowly down, handed the young man a pamphlet.