The Tale Never Ends Chapter 109

What should I do, I asked myself. Should I share a room with Edelweiss, or should I bang on the doors of Yuan Chongxi's or Lin Feng's room and sleep with them instead? I might be in for a terrible and excruciating night if I indeed suggested to Edelweiss that we share the room together…

A taut silence fell upon us both as I peered at her, hoping to detect any reactions that would help my decision, only to find myself the first to falter into shyness after we stood there, staring at each other for minutes. Finally, she said, “What are you waiting for, Young Master? Open the door.” “B-but…” I muttered drearily, “W-we only have one room… H-how should we…” To my amazement, she bellowed as-matter-of-factly, “Why, you, of course!” I was stunned by her reaction and stammered, “B-but what about you?” Only to regret my probity. She began to realize what I was thinking of and began blus.h.i.+ng herself. “I'll sit out here. Someone has to guard outside here so that you can rest easy. I was also usually the one who watched the door of the Chief during our struggles against the Creed, remember?” She squealed with a fl.u.s.tered voice. “But you were watching the doors of Aunt Ulan from your own cabin,” I said to myself, “Can I really allow you to sit out here in the corridor when I am in a room?”

Through gritted teeth, I stomped my foot and decided finally! “You'll come in too,” I spoke with as much courage I could muster, “There's no way we can allow you to sit here alone outside while we boys are sleeping indoors. My face and reputation would go into the s.h.i.+tters.” “If the worst comes to the worst, I could just spend the night in the toilet and rid myself of any shame while escaping the fate of being pummeled by her when anything goes wrong,” I thought. Without waiting for her to reply, I swiped the card and pushed the door open, pulling her with me.

But what country b.u.mpkins we were, I realized, when we entered the room! It was a presidential suite! The largest and most luxurious suite in the hotel that had an area larger than my house! What a generous arrangement by Mr. Zhao, I wondered, the conniving fellow must have made quite a great sum of profit with Yuan Chongxi's advice! Not only the entire suite was s.p.a.ciously large, we also discovered that the suite had two bedrooms!

With shades of pink still flus.h.i.+ng on our cheeks, Edelweiss and I shuffled uneasily to our separate bedrooms like wary little cats. I did not sleep well that night, knowing that a young, pretty girl was just next door. What was more, she was also a horse brigand who had shared some embarra.s.sing moments with me.

I got up from my bed and drifted to the sitting area of the suite. I stood quietly in the dark, embellished by the illumination from the lights that came from the bar area as I beheld the extravagance and affluence I was drenched in. I went to the bar and took a bottle, the name on its label was nothing which I could recognize, and unscrewed its cap. I filled a gla.s.s with its content and took a gulp, feeling the rich, woody aroma of the drink in my mouth after drinking it. But it was something alien to me, a liquor that I had never tasted before, although the pomp of the presidential suite itself was enough to tell me that this must be something expensive. I emptied my gla.s.s and laid it down on the wooden surface of the bar, taking in the surrealistic sensation now flooding through my senses. Still without any hint of sleepiness, I went back to my room and sat on my bed and began training the methods that Father taught me to channel Qi.

Time seemed to pa.s.s quickly when I was busy with my training. It was only near the morning when I finally succ.u.mbed to sleep, only to wake up two hours later to the repeated bangings on my door. It was Edelweiss. I dragged myself off, with the last vestiges of drowsiness trying to lug me back to the folds of my blanket. After was.h.i.+ng up quickly, we left our suite and went downstairs. Mr. Zhao was already there, with Yuan Chongxi and Lin Feng with him. But to my intense annoyance, the three of them were sn.i.g.g.e.ring at me from afar, seeing how tired I was and how Edelweiss was following!

Mr. Zhao seemed to have observed our anxiety; without any further banter, he handed us a set of car keys and told us that the car was already waiting for us at the hotel entrance and promptly took his leave. I looked at the sleek black key and noticed the name on it. Mr. Zhao must have had a look at the car we used before when we returned it. He must have known that we had used the car on off-road terrain, hence this time, the vehicle that he prepared for us was a Landrover.

We journeyed as fast as the car could carry us, reaching Aunt Ulan's camp in the evening. My heart raced even faster as I saw the sign of Aunt Ulan's camp and I willed the car faster through the sandy dunes as its engine roared. As soon as we came to a stop, I leaped off the car and bolted for Aunt Ulan's cabin. Many of her girls were standing at her bedside, and there she was, lying on her bed with her lifeless eyes closed. With my Spirit Sight, I studied her and found that her soul was not in her body; it was only an empty husk lying on the bed.

A person would die if his soul were to leave his body for extended periods. It was a cruel and brutal way to murder someone like this! Aunt Ulan's forehead was creased into a deep frown even though her soul was absent. Anger was boiling within me. Trembling hard with rage, I growled, “Where is this man!” There was only silence. No one knew where he was. I fidgeted for a cigarette, lit it without looking away, and smoked in jerks, trying vainly to calm myself. It took a few quiet minutes before I was finally able to ask again, “Where are the ropes used to tie the man?”

A girl scurried off quickly and came back with some thick ropes. I held the rope in my hand and unstoppered my Spirit Gourd, waving its mouth around the rope. I went outside and whistled. Immediately a spectral form sprouted from my Gourd and took the form of an eagle. With a screech, my spirit eagle took into the air.

The spirit eagle circled for one round in the sky before it began vectoring East. From the worried and terrified look on my face, everyone began to fully comprehend the peril their chief was in. Immediately everyone saddled up their horses and prepared themselves to follow me on the crusade to exact vengeance for their currently incapacitated leader. The din of the female bandits c.o.c.king their guns as they clambered up their horses filled the air of the encampment with a rising crescendo of the tenseness of what was to come. Edelweiss appeared suddenly and handed me the reins of another horse with an encouraging nod. My faithful companions, Lin Feng and Yuan Chongxi, were already riding on horsebacks, ready to get on the pursuit. No one uttered a word in the grim silence and everyone looked at me for leaders.h.i.+p as if I was indeed the lordling of this bandit garrison. I climb onto the saddle of my horse and immediately darted out the camp with a host of seething women, all armed to the teeth, following behind me. We rode towards East, following the spirit eagle, leaving only the deafening gallop of hooves and the battle cries in our wake.

It was fortunate we were riding on open fields, for the eagle was flying in a straight course towards its quarry. For the whole afternoon, the cavalcade of bandits thundered on and the eagle flew on tirelessly. “This mongrel has fled so such great distance,” I wondered. It was already five in the evening and the sun was already sinking in the horizon, slowly robbing away what was left of the sunlight. Edelweiss called at me from behind suddenly and she tossed to me a cloth bundle when I looked back. With a quick swipe, I caught the bundle and unfurled it to find some dried meat jerkies with a flask containing k.u.mis drink. Only then I realized, I had not eaten anything the whole day, my companions and Edelweiss too! Night was approaching and the stinging chill of the desert dusk was following too. But I steeled myself, reminding myself that this was no time for compa.s.sion; we had to go on.

I gobbled on the dried rations quickly and took a few gulps of k.u.mis, feeling the warm sensation seeping back into me. Along with it, came the heavy weight of fatigue that reminded me that we had been riding for almost the whole afternoon. But there was no time to stop. The girls were looking up to me as their leader. There was no way I could stop for a rest!

We rode on for another hour in silence until we finally caught sight of my spirit eagle hovering around a man-made structure in afar. Finally, I gasped with joy. I raised my riding crop and pointed it forward at our long-awaited target in the distant. Edelweiss gave me a knowing nod and drew her sidearm. She fired once into the air as a signal, and the host of female warriors spurred their horses forward to full-speed.

As we grew closer, we discovered that it was not a single structure, but a cl.u.s.ter of Mongolian yurts grouped together. There were tens of horses tied outside of the camp while close to twenty people were singing and dancing around a huge bonfire. The entire camp was enclosed by makes.h.i.+ft fences and barricades with a sign hanging outside bearing a few Mongolian words. From the looks of it, the whole camp looked like a group of horse caravans functioning as mobile lodgings.

My spirit eagle was still flying in loops overhead when the female brigands swiftly had the whole camp surrounded! I leaped off my horse and whistled again, conjuring my spirit wolves from my Gourd. With another few left-hand seals, my sword, the s.h.i.+yan Blade, came to life and sprang out of its sheath and flew into my grasp. “Let it come,” I said to myself, “Let the showdown begin!”