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  When I was seven years old, I would get up at dawn and stand in the middle of the courtyard. At some point, someone would throw a broom from somewhere, and I had to catch it without letting it fall to the ground; otherwise, I would have to do handstands for an hour. I was terrified of doing handstands. When sweeping the yard, I couldn't let any dust fly up with each sweep of the broom, so as soon as I swept, I had to turn around and press down on it, repeating this process over and over again. It was very tiring. Master must have been trying to get me to move faster. Most of the time, I thought I was clever, but ten years later, a single sentence from Master woke me up. Master said, "You don't need to be so tired; if you sweep slowly, the dust won't fly up."

  Day after day, it's all the same, but I've been thinking about life outside the temple. Shaolin's surveillance of me is very strict, wherever I go, there are people following me, and they're always in large numbers. Actually, whatever moves they make or techniques they use, I can see them clearly, I just want to go out and have some fun on my own for a while, and then I'll naturally come back.

  But what did I do before the age of five? I asked my master, and he said that I had played enough before the age of five, and it was time to learn things. It's strange, why are my memories blank for five years.

  When I was seven years old, Shikong and I were finally allowed to go outside the temple grounds to take a bath. The temple was on a mountain, and not far away there was a small river with many jujube trees along its banks. That time thirty-one jujubes fell from the tree while we were bathing.