Chapter Fourteen: The Art of Balance

The lively atmosphere from the kangaroo race had yet to fully subside when preparations for the second event—the “Cooperative Ball Relay”—were already underway.

The rules were simple: each parent and child held a soup spoon, and together, in relay fashion, they would carry a small ping-pong ball to the finish line. It was not speed, but steadiness and teamwork that mattered.

Li Yue immediately slipped back into her “head coach” persona. From her bag, she produced two soup spoons brought from home, each with a longer handle and a deeper bowl, handing them to her husband and Shitou. She was clearly prepared. Lowering her voice, she quickly imparted instructions: “Remember, keep your arm close to your body, use your waist and abdomen for power, don’t let your wrist shake! Keep your eyes on the ball, and take each step steadily!”

Her husband nodded repeatedly, while Shitou imitated his mother’s serious expression, as if he were about to take part in a delicate engineering project rather than a game.

By contrast, Yi Yi and I seemed much more “amateur.” We received two of the most basic white plastic spoons provided by the kindergarten. Yi Yi’s small hand gripped the handle tightly, a bit nervous, while the light ping-pong ball wobbled in the spoon, her heart wavering with it.

“Dad, it... it looks like it’s about to fall,” she whispered, glancing at me for help.

I didn’t teach her any “techniques.” Instead, I simply reached out and nudged the ping-pong ball with my finger, letting it roll once around the spoon before settling calmly at the center.

“Don’t be afraid of it,” I said gently. “Treat it like a friend—a little one who needs your gentle care. If you walk steadily, it’ll sit steadily. If your heart is calm, it won’t try to run away.”

I took her small hand and walked with her a few steps. I didn’t ask her to clamp her arm to her side, but encouraged her to relax her shoulders and feel the rhythm of her own stride. My steps were small, yet exceptionally stable, as though I were treading not the rubber track, but the moss-covered stone steps of Yingshou Fairy Isle, worn smooth by countless passages.

Yi Yi quickly understood. She no longer tensed her body, and her little face took on a look of quiet concentration and serenity.

The whistle for the race sounded once again.

The first leg belonged to the children. Under Li Yue’s loud guidance from the sidelines, Shitou strode forward rapidly. Yet the faster he tried to go, the more his arm wobbled. The ping-pong ball bounced wildly in his spoon, like an unruly heart. Finally, just a few steps from the handover point, it leapt from the spoon with a sharp smack, landing on the ground.

“Oh no!” Li Yue cried out in dismay. Shitou snatched up the ball and hurriedly placed it back in the spoon, but now moved much more slowly.

Yi Yi, on the other hand, walked at a measured pace—so slow, in fact, that she was the slowest of all the children. Yet each of her steps was as precise and steady as if measured by a ruler. The ping-pong ball rested quietly in her spoon, perfectly still.

She was the first to deliver the ball securely into my hand.

Now it was my turn. I accepted the small ball, feeling every eye in the crowd turn toward me. I sensed the somewhat nervous attention of Li Yue’s family.

I didn’t rush. Instead, I stood there for a moment, adjusting my breath.

In that instant, the surrounding clamor seemed to fade away. In my world, there was nothing but the spoon in my hand, and the small ball resting within it—a symbol of my daughter’s trust. I completely withdrew the power of my golden core, allowing not the slightest trace to leak out and “stick” the ping-pong ball in place. What I employed was pure, mortal skill—a mastery of the body at its finest.

This mastery was born of two thousand years spent wielding swords, refining elixirs, plucking the zither, and painting. It was a “way of balance” etched into my very bones.

I began to walk.

My pace was not fast, even slower than some of the more hurried fathers. But my movements were exceptionally smooth, my body’s axis unfaltering in its vertical steadiness. My arm seemed to meld with my body—not rigidly fixed, but dynamically balanced. The ping-pong ball, as if drawn by a magnet, rested quietly in my spoon, almost unbelievably still.

Gradually, the spectators on the sidelines fell silent. Many parents stopped shouting, watching me in surprise. Perhaps they saw no trace of magical arts, but they could clearly sense a kind of pleasing, reassuring steadiness.

At last, I was the first to reach the finish line, placing the unharmed ping-pong ball gently into the basket.

“We won!” Yi Yi cheered, running to me and throwing herself into my arms.

This time, we were the undisputed champions.

Li Yue and her husband brought Shitou over, their expressions a mix of emotions. Li Yue’s husband, an honest man, gave me a thumbs-up and said with genuine admiration, “Mr. Jiang, that was amazing! You must have trained in circus arts!”

I smiled and shook my head. “It’s just that looking after my child has made my temperament a little more patient, that’s all.”

Li Yue said nothing. She looked at me deeply, then at Yi Yi, whose smile was as bright as the sun in my arms. The sense of “elite” superiority in her eyes quietly faded, replaced by a more profound, inquisitive confusion.

She could not understand why all the methods and techniques she used in pursuit of “victory” could be so effortlessly surpassed by my nearly “effortless” approach.

She began to realize that within this seemingly ordinary single father might be hidden a depth of wisdom—not only about parenting, but perhaps about life itself—that she had never imagined.