The Gatekeeper walked back to his house. When he entered the courtyard, the Traveler nodded in his direction then his eyes darted around the Gatekeeper and up the mountainside path. “Where is Yin Su?”

The Gatekeeper hung his head. He looked up at the Traveler and opened his mouth to explain, but only silence came out.

“You have learned nothing.” The Traveler spoke softly. There were tears in his eyes. “I leave you with the sum of my knowledge.” He nodded toward several small bundles of bamboo with beautifully detailed characters neatly placed on the writing desk.

“Perhaps you can review the teachings in your Wife’s hand. She comprehended well and put the teachings in her heart.”

The Gatekeeper nodded and stared at the bamboo piles. He had no words.

“Be like water.” The Traveler walked out to the road and through the repaired Hangu Pass gate.

>>>>><<<<< 

The people of the village speak often about the day the Gatekeeper and the Traveler met and how the earth shook violently breaking the large wooden gates at the pass forcing them to spend time together. They often relate the Traveler’s wise words written on slender pieces of bamboo and tell how the Gatekeeper took those writings and spread the words around the countryside. The villagers told their children, then their children’s children, then their children’s children told their children until no one could recall the face of the Traveler or the Gatekeeper. Only the story.

The Traveler, a wise man even in his own time, began to be called Lao Tzu, the Old Master. No more is known of his life. He walked out the gate at Hangu Pass and was never heard from again.

The Gatekeeper, who became known as Yin Hsi, walked the countryside as a wandering philosopher who lived the philosophy he spoke. His sincerity and his humbleness were never in doubt. The bamboo writings he carried were copied from town to town so that all would have the words of the Old Master. He took no credit himself and in doing so elevated his own standing. He made pure his thoughts and his actions eventually becoming immortal.

The bones of Yin Su and her five babies remained on the mountain ledge until many, many years later when another shaking of the earth dislodged the ledge and the six piles of stones went tumbling down and scattered among the trees. No one noticed. Yin Su is not mentioned in the stories that have survived history. No one knows of the part she played in the writings and the sacrifice she made. After all, she was only a woman.

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