Everyone in the car could not help feeling puzzled. Why was she coming back with a photo album? As she came near, she showed one of the photographs in the album to Uncle Quan, “Is this your teacher?” Uncle Quan looked closely and gasped, “Ah! He is, even though I have never once addressed him so! How is it possible that you have the photograph of my teacher!” The woman smiled mischievously and revealed, “Your teacher and mine were husband and wife!” Surprised by this, Uncle Quan said immediately, “I see! Where is he now? Is he well?”

“They have passed on…” The woman said somberly. “Huh? Was he also buried at the same graveyard? Stop the car! I must pay my respects!” But the woman stopped him and said, “No. They were buried at Shanxi!” Uncle Quan stopped short and asked, “But how did you know? How did you know that I was the student of your teacher’s husband?” The woman sighed before she said, “Many years before after our first encounter. I went to my teacher and showed her the wounded part on my leg. She studied my wound and asked about your movements and technique. After which, she told me confidently, ‘There’s no mistaking it. It’s the Ten-Round Kicks. It is the wushu discipline used by that lout of a husband of mine. For countless times he had been boasting about his student! Could this really be him? Impossible! What an embarrassment this would be!” When I was on the ground during our second meeting, I did not mind about losing the jade pendant. But your skills had really impressed me. I went back to my teacher and spoke to her about your skills again. What you did not know about the dinner before the wedding was that there were actually two tables of guests that night. You saw me at the table outside, but you did not notice that there was another table in the house. My teacher and her husband were just sitting inside! But it was dark that night, and everything had taken place too suddenly; therefore no one really had a proper glimpse of you! I told her everything about your maneuvers and techniques, and she said, ‘You can only evade that move by leaning backward!’ But her husband scoffed and retorted, ‘No! All maneuvers are futile! Lean back, and he will land another kick at your abdomen, forcing you to evade and roll onto the ground. But there are still various countermoves that he can use to force you against the wall! It will be impossible to evade this move cleanly!’ My teacher, annoyed by his pride, hissed, ‘Hmph! You speak as if you were the one fighting!’ But her husband exclaimed in return, ‘No one in this region uses this particular technique but my student and me! No one else!’ It was only then I realized that you were my teacher’s husband’s student! The one that he had always reserved so much pride and hope in! I was so sorry that we have encountered each other under such circumstances! If only I knew you were the bearer of the jade pendant! I would never have reneged on my mother’s vow to marry you! God knows how many times I have traveled to the city in search of you! I even paid extra attention to anyone in the streets who was in sports attire, hoping it was you! What cruel fate that you had to leave with such hurry and haste! If only my teacher and her husband had seen you, we could have been husband and wife!”

Uncle Quan, now loss for words, stammered, “But there was this young man with you that time…” The woman slammed the album shut and snapped, “Hmph! The difference between you and him is like Heaven and Earth! I would never have chosen him if you were present!”

I was so flabbergasted by now! The entire story was so surreal that I would never believe that it could be true! Both teacher and student had missed each other because one was indoors and the other was outside! The two sisters had broken their mother’s vow to marry the bearer of the jade pendant because they thought they want to pursue their own romance, only to fall for the very same person who was in fact the actual bearer of the pendant itself!

Still, there were questions about their tale that I wished answered and I chipped in, “Since you knew that Uncle Quan was the student of your teacher’s husband, and you had been infatuated with him then, why did you not ask his teacher to lead you to his home in search of him, Auntie?” She sighed in reply and answered, “I should have gone directly to his teacher instead of mine. I was foolish to overlook the fact that my teacher and her husband would quarrel over even the most trivial matter. I implored to my teacher for help. But rather, she got into a bitter spat with her husband that they even fought over this matter! As a junior and my teacher’s disciple, there was nothing I could do!” I asked again, “Did you not try again once their quarrel was over?” She drew a deep breath and spoke again, exasperated, “I guess we’re not destined to be lovers. I had failed to notice that the true reason my teacher’s husband refused to help me was due to a misunderstanding! He was afraid that my true motive was the jade pendant and he was worried that his student might end up in jail for that fiasco! Some time after their quarrel, I had wanted to speak to him again about the matter and confess that I wish to marry his student, but suddenly, he suffered a seizure after that quarrel and fight with his wife, and since then he had gone insane!”

I asked again, “So how came by you the idea of looking for Uncle Quan by reporting to the police?” The woman replied, “It was also my idea. I knew some people who had their children sent to the National Studies Insitute to learn wushu. They had a photo taken at the end of their course; one that I suddenly came upon one day and saw that the instructor here looked very similar to the person that I have been searching for all these long years, although I knew neither his name nor the conditions here. Most importantly, he knew nothing of me! Without no other ways, one of the parents of the children who works at the police station gave me this suggestion. He would be pleased to help mediate this matter on our behalf. Moreover, since the matter of the jade pendant was too old to be taken into account, the police will have no problem with him.” The woman wrung opened her bottle of iced tea and took a swig before she continued, “Alas, my teacher and her husband! For their entire lives, they have bickered non-stop! In truth, he was driven away by my teacher’s tantrum when he had gone off to your village to live on old trinkets and trash. God knows why did they ever got married with so much sourness between them both!”

“That is also a demonstration of Love,” Uncle Quan quipped. The woman was puzzled, and she asked, “How can this also be Love?” Uncle Quan asked her, “He was missing from my village immediately after the earthquake. Tell me if I’m wrong, was not your teacher the first and foremost of his concern?” The woman was stunned by this revelation! For so long she had remained by her teacher’s side, yet, she had failed to notice this!

Uncle Quan then asked her again, “Did they not have any children?” The woman said, “They do. In fact, it was because that they had lost a child, hence they have quarreled and fought for the rest of their lives!” She paused for a moment before setting off on another tale.

There was a practitioner of martial arts once upon ago who one day enlisted into the military. Before he left, he sent his disciples home. There was a pair of fellow disciples who traveled together; a young man and woman. The girl was smitten with her senior brother, although the young man was aware of her affections. But he did not reciprocate her love, knowing the girl to be a petty person, hardly the ideal wife he wanted.

Together they journeyed back to their homes where they passed by another town. There was a sandy promontory outside the town, before which was a patch of wooded grove. When the young man and woman were walking by the sandy mound, they came across a mob of infuriated villages chasing behind another man, brandishing their pitchforks and shovels! Frantically, the man was running as fast as he could! Moved by a sudden chivalrous desire to save the man, the young woman threw herself in the middle of the seething riot and barked, “How can you all bully one single person!” Seeing his chance, the man slipped into the woods and disappeared. With their quarry escaped, the leader of the angry villages demanded that the young woman be responsible for her actions. It turned out that the man was a hanjian; a race traitor who had caused the deaths of 300 women and children! He had first disguised as a beggar. Pitying his plight, the villagers took him in and offered him food. During the great war, the militia and all able men in the village were all called upon to help repel the Japanese invaders. The womenfolk and children of the village then took refuge in the caves nearby, and the race traitor had followed along then.

But the hanjian later fled and sent word to the Japanese that the children and womenfolk were all hiding in the caves. The Japanese set fire to the caves to flush everyone out and shot anyone who came out. 300 people perished that day, bloodying the hands of the hanjian who had sold them out. No one knew what happened at first. But there was also animosity and discord among all hanjians and race traitors that word of this incident began to leak. Everyone who heard the story could not help feeling angered and spiteful of this hateful act that everyone wanted a piece of the traitor. But he had hidden himself well. When the war ended, and the Japanese surrendered, the hanjian tried to escape, knowing that bitter retribution would surely await. Hence the villagers came up with an idea to surround his hiding place and left only one route open: the route to the sandy promontory. They had three men lain in hiding, waiting to shoot the man when he appeared at the sandy mound. But when they were trying to drive him to where the trap had been lain, little did they expect that the young woman would leap out and protect the man, placing herself in the middle of the shooters’ line of sight! This allowed the race traitor to escape. In their rage, one of the villagers opened fire and tried to shoot the young woman. But before the shot was fired, the young man could have stopped the incensed person. But he did not do so, for he could not stop the person without killing him! This, however, made the mean, young woman sore and angry at her senior brother for not killing the person and putting her life at risk. Hardly a person good with words, the young man tried explaining himself, but his words fell upon deaf ears, doing nothing to melt her frosty coldness towards his predicament. His junior sister had just cost the villagers their chance to avenge their 300 dead friends and family! There was no way he could deal any more pain to them! But as compensation, the young man made a promise to the villagers. He gave them his word that he would recapture hanjian. With this, the young man managed to reconcile with the young woman.

The woman stopped for a brief lull and gulped some water. She said, “By now, surely you know who the young man is! He’s none other than the husband of my teacher! He later met my teacher, and they got married. They moved to my teacher’s place, and they had a baby; a plump baby boy. Life was so full of happiness and love then, until one day, the baby boy was stolen…”