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know exactly how many people are sweating for hours and hours just so you can have your chat with him. I just want to tell you this-- you are being given an extraordinary honor, and I urge you not to look down your noses at him and listen to him with some sort of academic or scientific superciliousness. I've met a lot of famous people, some of them even rather smart, but this is the wisest man you'll ever know, and if you find yourself getting bored just keep this in mind: Malu isn't stupid enough to think you can isolate facts from their context and have them still be true. So he always puts the things he says in their full context, and if that means you'll have to listen to a whole history of the human race from beginning to now before he says anything you think is pertinent, well, I suggest you just shut up and listen, because most of the time the best stuff he says is accidental and irrelevant and you're damn lucky if you have brains enough to notice what it is. Have I made myself clear?"
Wang-mu wished with all her heart that she had eaten less. She felt quite nauseated with dread right now, and if she did throw up, she was sure it would take half an hour just to get it all back out of her.
Peter, though, simply nodded calmly. "We didn't understand, Grace, even though my partner read some of your writings. We thought we had come to speak to a philosopher, like Aimaina, or a scholar, like you. But now I see that we've come to listen to a man of wisdom whose experience reaches into realms that we have never seen or even dreamed of seeing, and we will listen silently until he asks us to ask him questions, and we'll trust him to know better than we know ourselves what it is we need to hear."
Wang-mu recognized complete surrender when she saw it, and she was grateful to see that everyone at the table was nodding happily and no one felt obliged to tell a joke.
"We're also grateful that the honorable one has sacrificed so much, as have so many others, to come personally to us and bless us with wisdom that we do not deserve to receive."
To Wang-mu's horror, Grace laughed out loud at her, instead of nodding respectfully.
"Overkill," Peter murmured.
"Oh, don't criticize her," said Grace. "She's Chinese. From Path, right? And I'll bet you used to be a servant. How could you possibly have learned the difference between respect and obsequiousness? Masters never are content with mere respect from their servants."
"But my master was," said Wang-mu, trying to defend Han Fei-Tzu. "As is my master," said Grace. "As you will see, when you meet him." ***
"Time's up," said Jane.