“Fine, fine, fine!” Meng Mo interrupted before he could finish, at the end of his patience. “This elder won’t demand the titles of master and apprentice, is that enough?!” Had any extraordinary master ever come away with a worse deal? He was falling over himself to teach someone his people’s techniques, yet he wouldn’t even get to hear his student call him “Shifu.” How was his plight any different from that of an absolutely devoted yet bitterly suffering concubine who couldn’t gain official status?!
