The Tale Never Ends

Big Sister looked blankly at Mu, utterly lost for words as to how she should respond to the question. But she was hardly the only one speechless; around the table, Lin Feng, Chongxi, as well as the others, were all equally speechless.

Mu inhaled his cigarette so quickly that it was burnt right down to the stub in just seconds. He was just crushing it when Big Sister finally shook her head in dismay. She had no idea how to answer his question. Mu chuckled and nipped at his Coke. “There’s no need to feel troubled,” he said, “You’re not the only one. It’s normal. Nobody has the right answer to this question. There is no such thing as fully differentiating good from evil, for there is no such thing as being absolutely good or infinitely evil. No clear line that borders good and bad. The definition of good and evil is subjective, they are just matters of perspective and angle.”

Big Sister took in a long, deep breath, finally understanding Mu’s words. “That’s Mu for you,” Zhang Er’ge chucked and quipped, saying, “Whenever he speaks, he sprouts teachings and enlightenment like a monk or a rabbi. Even I fail to get half the things he says.” That made me giggle, although I smiled knowingly at Mu. I had indeed learned much just by listening to him.

At the table, everyone mulled in contemplative silence. Mu spoke again, breaking the pall of gloom, “Well, there’s no need to so be so opinionated about good or evil. Everyone has their goals and pursuits, and that’s all. That prince wishes for his empire to return. So let him be. You wish to stop him. So, just do it! The way I see it, there’s hardly any need to differentiate if anything we do is actually good or evil.”

I exhaled deeply. Indeed, why does it even matter anyway? Why should I even be wondering on whose side Jin Qichen will be at after this? Na San is asking for me help. So I should. Helping Na San is not contradictory to my goals anyway. So what if Lu Shengnan is the enemy? What if she is a friend? She needs my help and so I should help her.

I looked at Mu again. Nothing about him seemed rough and vulgar anymore. What I felt from him was not the vile and nefarious presence thugs and ruffians often had, but rather a spirit of freedom. An air of unbridled sophistication.

For years, we had been stuck in the past. I reflected quietly, yet none of us had met anyone near our age with such transcendence in perceiving the nature of the world around us. Perhaps this was what he had been doing; living in the city, immersing himself in the midst of the hustle and bustle of society while working to maintain a true and objective view of the world like how a blade was sharpened with a whetstone. Closing off oneself like a hermit was by no means any way to study and achieve enlightenment. Perhaps this gaunt, bespectacled man that looked so mundanely ordinary was actually a true sage of this era.

Big Sister looked at Mu no longer with any hint of disdain, but rather with renewed respect in her gaze. The lesson he just gave us was a simple one. But one that none of us had ever delved or thought about.

Mu extinguished what was the last cigarette from his pack and stood up. “Well, it’s time now,” he said, “We should be going.” He waved goodbye and all four of them left the restaurant.

We watched them leave, silent and brooding. None of us said a word, even Xiao Yu and Yuanyuan, who were still oblivious at what was happening.

It was very late when we got back. I had Na San arranged to stay temporarily at the upstairs of the Center and supplied him with some fresh set of clothing. The Shaman was tearing with gratitude, mumbling inscrutable words of thanks when we left him. In truth, I had never seen Na San as a slave or any lowborn creature. Perhaps that was why I always felt uneasy whenever he expressed his thanks in his overtly-modest way.

The next morning, we met at the Center as we prepared to go to the site of the building team that Yuanyuan told us about.

Chongxi came down the stairs, chewing a fried dough stick. But he was not alone. Xiao Yu came down with him. All of us gawked with wide eyes and Xiao Yu’s face was blazing red by the time the pair reached the bottom of the stairs. Edelweiss and I held Chongxi with a knowing grin, nodding furtively at him, but not before I flashed him a thumbs-up and that made Xiao Yu blushed even more furiously.

To Edelweiss and I, the fondness and desire that a couple had for each other were normal. We ourselves got together when our passion burned the hottest.

Na San was also hardly bothered by this. Ji Qichen must have had no lacking of female companionship that even Na San had grown indifferent.

Once we were ready, we embarked on our journey to Linnancangzhen Town. It turned out to be a rough and bumpy ride. A coal mining company once operated in the area and the terrain was left with many craters and crevices, where once we found my Forest Sprite from.

We passed through the sprawl of sinkholes, troughs, and ponds, pushing towards West until we finally reached the settlement situated at the further outskirts of Linnancangzhen, where there was this school just beside. Lin Feng yelled from the wheel, “Ah! Look, that’s my old school!” I stuck my head through the space between the car seats to look front, saying, “Wow, Lin Feng? That’s where you finished high school?” Lin Feng nodded tacitly before he lamented with melancholy, “To think that so many years have passed… I used to love…”

But he did not finish his sentence. Instead, his voice turned into a song. Harlem Yu’s Qing Fei De Yi that he had always loved so much. The song first came out when Lin Feng suffered his break-up and he could only be singing this song now because the memories of that former heartthrob of his weighed on his mind once more. It was in this school where they first met, although he could never say it out loud. Not with Yuanyuan sitting just beside him.

Chongxi and I sniggered quietly behind. Yuanyuan jabbed a finger at a little bridge that loomed just up ahead, saying, “Turn left here.” Lin Feng followed her instructions and maneuvered the vehicle. Then Yuanyuan said again, “Go straight from here. Yep, there should be a junction just in front…”

Before she even said it, I saw our destination. A humble settlement comprised of tenements and cottages, all fresh or old, with some even archaic and medieval which had large enclosed compounds. The alleyways which weaved through the little village were all small and narrow that some were too small for our car to pass through.

Yuanyuan raised a finger, pointing down on a remarkably cramped pathway between some buildings that stretched long and out of sight. “That’s the way,” she said, “Go in through there!” “But it’s too small!” Lin Feng grumbled saying, “It’s not even large enough for three persons walking together! The car will never make it through.” “Let’s walk in then!” Yuanyuan said, opening the door and she got down first. She pointed the way for Xiao Yu’s benefit, whose car stopped right behind ours and down came Chongxi and Big Sister.

We came out of the alley only to find that there were actually two other ways that we could have used to reach our destination. But these alternative routes had been clogged up by the machinery of the building team in charge of the demolition. We could be stuck without any way to even reverse our way out if we had come through either one of them.

The people of the team were huddled around one of the older residences with an earthen-wall enclosed compound that looked oddly queer with only a little hut in the middle of the grounds. Nevertheless, the view of the surroundings looked no less strange to us; the residence remained the only one still standing with the rest of its kind fully bulldozed to the ground.

We wade through the crowd of the people of the building team and found an old man at the little hut, gazing morosely at the monstrosity that was the track-hoe just outside his wall and the building team who were jeering at him.

Lin Feng looked around. Then he walked to a middle-aged laborer and asked, “What’s going on here, old man?” The man studied us all and asked dourly, “What are you guys doing here?” His tone was hard and unfriendly as if we were a bunch of good-for-nothings here to cause trouble. Lin Feng smiled and replied, “We’re plainclothes officers.” That answer made the older man snapped to attention and he smiled—this time looking more friendly—and said, “Ah, you’re the police.” And Lin Feng nodded.

The foreman would never have believed me if I was the one to announce ourselves as officers of the law. But Lin Feng was a wholly different matter. He once served in the army and he still retained that stern face and poise that convinced the middle-aged foreman well. “Well, it’s all because of this house, sir,” he explained, saying, “The family of this house has been paid their compensation and the old man’s children have given us their green light. Yet none of us seem to be able to do anything. We can’t even drive our excavator into the compound! The place looks like it’s been cursed, and a stranger told us that this house is old, so it must be haunted. Look, there’s the priest we found. He’s erecting an altar for a ritual!” He hugged himself, nudging with his chin at the direction of the house.

Lin Feng and I stood on our toes and we looked inside. There was another cluster of people, standing around a man dressed in the garb of a Taoist priest who was carrying a three-foot-long sword as he adjusted the items on the altar.

He took up a luopan which was lying on the table when he was satisfied, pointing his sword at it as he muttered some incantations. With my Spirit Sight I observed and saw a whiff of aura, pure and divine, bunching around the luopan as it glittered with flashes of gold. This Taoist priest… He’s certainly not a fake, that’s for sure!

Chongxi realized my expression shifting and asked hurriedly, “What’s wrong?” “That Taoist priest… him with the luopan… He’s not a fake… He has powers too.” “God!” Chongxi yelped with fear, “Get in there and stop him! We cannot let him hurt them!”

“Patience,” I waved him off and said, “Let’s look a little bit more.”