The Tale Never Ends Chapter 133 Chongxi's Conundrum

Old Man Chen stopped to take a heave from his cigarette. "That nitwit Shang Pei came to Tangshan immediately after the earthquake that year and Brother Hai a.s.signed him to serve at Wu Zhong, as part of a team that comprised of me and Old Xie here. He would spearhead any offense with his sorceries while we provided him our support. We depended much on him especially in duels!" "Quit trying to be humble, Blind Master," Lin Feng added, "Old Shang was full of praises for you both when we met him. He could not stop bragging about how powerful you were! You three were even known as the Triune of Wu Zhong!"

"Humph... The Triune of Wu Zhong..." Old Man Xie snorted coldly, albeit, with an apparent whiff of pride and melancholy. "Before long, we'd be the Tramps of Wu Zhong!" He must also miss his former brother-in-arms too, like Old Man Chen. It must have been years since they last separated.

An abrupt sigh came from Old Man Chen. "s.h.i.+yan," he spoke to me, "So, Old Shang is now almost an immortal, eh? He'd better do. Otherwise, my pair of eyes would have been sacrificed for naught!" His shoulders sank as he heaved a long and heavy breath. "I had already foreseen that woe would come seeking for him when he decided to leave Wu Zhong then," he admitted, "But there is only so many people I could speak freely to, Old Shang being one of the handful few. I could not sit still without doing anything! I was also young then; I could not watch a brother fall, hence I borrowed your father's sword and gave it to Old Shang, hoping it would keep him safe. But it did... And the price of my transgression came due... My sight was gone..."

Beside us, Mr. Zhang understood not a word that we said. Without the whole story, he could not comprehend what we were talking about. So I told him everything; beginning from the earthquake in Tangshan, how the Triune of Wu Zhong came into renown and their heroic derring-dos decades ago, ending with the tale that Shang Pei told me about how Old Man Chen lost his sight and his reactions when he received the news.

Through my recounts of the story, Mr. Zhang listened with great interest, chuckling whenever I reached points where he felt amused or enthralled. He had even raised a thumb to Old Man Chen, although the Blind Master could not see his reaction. At length, the blind old man snubbed his cigarette out. Then he remembered something. "s.h.i.+yan," he spoke to me again, "You said you met two of the Six Terrors of the Frontier? Who else did you meet other than Shang Pei?" "Yeah, there's another. The Fifth of the Six Terrors, Zhu Mei the Windchaser!" I replied with a grin, but what I uttered wiped the morose expression off the blind old man's face and he began roaring with laughter! Puzzled, all of us started to peer at him skeptically when even Old Man Xie was struggling to hold back his urge to laugh! We stared at them strangely, waiting for them to stop and explain.

It took them almost one whole minute before the two old men stopped laughing. Still sn.i.g.g.e.ring derisively, the old man finally said, "I bet the lot of you wishes to know why we were laughing, do you?" I nodded. Only then I was reminded of the fact that the old man was blind, and I responded with an "hmmm".

The Blind Master smirked and motioned for another cigarette to which Yuan Chongxi obliged. With a heave of smoke, he said, "Now whenever the name of Zhu Mei is mentioned, we'd always remember of something funny about him!"

And so Old Man Chen embarked on another tale: the Six Terrors had left their reclusive abodes in the frontier and heeded the call of the Underworld to come aid during the crisis of the Tangshan Earthquake. Being proud and grouchy folk, they were hardly willing to submit themselves to be captained by a young man looking barely in his twenties. Not knowing how powerful Father actually was then, Zhu Mei was the first to stand out and voice his displeasure, screaming loudly that why should Father give commands to them. As everyone would know, Zhu Mei was a short and stocky person with slits for eyes and long front teeth like a rabbit's. Hardly the most handsome of appearances. This was made no better by his fiery temper and venomous mouth filled with scathing remarks and expletives. But he did not know that Father too had a tongue that was no less vicious. Father shot back at him with a savage spat. "I am fitter than you because I'm more handsome than you!" It was the first time Zhu Mei had suffered such a stinging p.r.i.c.k.

But it did little to discourage Zhu Mei; adamant to defeat Father in a contest, he challenged Father to a duel of speed. The winner shall dictate over the loser. A woman who was beside Father, who could only be Mother, added with a sneer of her own, "All right, but if you lose, you'll not only have to submit yourself; you'll take three slaps from me!"

Zhu Mei was tremendously confident of his victory; his Windchaser magic had never once failed him! Without even a moment's thought, he agreed to the terms readily!

It was a simple compet.i.tion: whoever reaches the finish line first would be the winner. As soon as the signal was given, Father leaped onto his sword and took into the sky like he was riding on a skateboard. Seeing Father using his magic, Zhu Mei too performed his magic, using the Windchaser technique, hoping that it would give him an edge. What he did not realize, was Father had another trick up his sleeve, the Autumn's Decline technique.

The Windchaser magic allowed its user to manipulate and bend the continuum of s.p.a.ce on land to the will of its user. This allowed the user to affect the travel and speed of any other person on the ground. Similar to Father's Autumn's Decline technique, Father's technique controlled the movements of anything or anyone in mid-air. With his magic rendered obsolete before Father's magic, Zhu Mei suffered an utter defeat!

Old Man Chen paused and sn.i.g.g.e.red wickedly. Mr. Zhang's face was spirited to once again hear the name of "Autumn's Decline" for he had once felt the effects of this wizardry firsthand! Enraptured by what was going to happen next, he urged Old Man Chen to get on with the story. "What happened then? Come on, Old Chen! What happened next?" "What else? Zhu Mei lost so badly that he was huffing and puffing like a boar barely escaping from a tiger when he reached the finis.h.i.+ng line, before s.h.i.+yan's mother gave him three slaps on his cheek!" Across the table, everyone guffawed loudly again.

So this was why the Six Terrors of the Frontier admired Father greatly, I mused. It was all because of Zhu Mei's contest, that they were all immediate witnesses to Father's omnipotence!

It was a long dinner that stretched on for three hours; we sat and talk until the restaurant was about to close before we settled the bill and left.

And because of Edelweiss and I, Lin Feng and Chongxi began contemplating bringing their girlfriends home. Lin Feng began discussing this with Yuanyuan but there was no visible reaction from Yuan Chongxi and his girlfriend, Xiao Yu. It was only one day, I found out why. "Chongxi," I asked him, "Xiao Yu seems to be an honest girl. It's almost the end of the year now. Should you not be planning on a meet-together between your Teacher and Xiao Yu's mother to talk about you both?"

Oddly, Chongxi was hardly in his usually-dull self. With a morose sigh, he said, "Well, as you well know, my teacher has his weird eccentricities. I'm afraid he might frighten Xiao Yu's family. Moreover, look at me... She's from a wealthy family but I am merely a penniless fool..." For all their power and loftiness, the Blind Master and his student barely had much money. They simply could not afford a wedding. Although we had our share of generous patrons and benefactors at the Center, we were far from being prosperous. Money makes the world go round; without it, there were reasons for Chongxi to be worried. He would need money to survive the future with his betrothed, despite what Xiao Yu and her mother thought about him.

It was a blow struck to me strong and hard. The conundrum of money was something that hardly mattered to us, especially me for the past two years. Only now I began to realize the troubling gauntlet we found ourselves in. Hence, I decided to speak to Lin Feng alone about this.

It was about two months just before the new year, when Lin Feng and I quietly decided to talk alone when it was Chongxi's turn to be at the Center that day.

"s.h.i.+yan," he asked once we walked out of the Center, "What is it that you wish to speak to me about without Chongxi with us?"