The atmosphere turned strange and awkward and Chen Yixuan failed to summon any courage to further ask any more questions. Master Six was busy filling their cups, bellowing loudly for toasts after toasts with a reckless abandon to get drunk and wasted. After drinking for some time, Master Six’s hand slipped into his pocket and took out the small bundle wrapped with his handkerchief. Only now Chen Yixuan finally saw what it was: a bullet round, one which had been a dud. There were scorch marks at its end, the sign of being struck by a firing pin when the bullet was fired from a gun. Master Six handled the opened bundled to the old man. “Grandfather, look! Is this one of ours?” The old man took the bullet and peered at it closely. At last, he handed it back, saying, “Indeed. It is one of ours; my cousin’s in fact!”

“Your cousin?” Master Six blurted loudly, as he quickly remarked, “Is he not at the cotton factory?” “He is,” said the old man, nodding. “He has been there for years!” Master Six smiled. “I’ll visit him in the afternoon!” He quipped. The three young men sitting looked at him with approving smiles hung across their faces. If they did not believe that Master Six was a relative of theirs before, they certainly did now, especially after hearing Master Six’s blunt remark.

“Ahhh… This grand-uncle of mine!” Master Six howled, “He is a great lover of stinky tofu! In fact, vendors fear him; for he is a most impatient person and does not tolerate sluggishness. His skills with the chopsticks were so good that he could instantly swipe a piece of tofu and munch on it before anyone could notice! Hahahaha!” The old man and the three young men burst into laughter too. “Alas, this cousin of mine! For many years, he still retains this poor habit!” The old man wailed hilariously. “But he is an honest man with such candor that he would never shortchange anyone!”

Master Six took the box of coins from Chen Yixuan and squeezed it onto the hands of the old man. “Grandfather, please take this as a gift of me. As a grandson, I have nothing more but these to offer to you. Buy something for yourself; food and drinks perhaps! But do not buy houses or lands!” The old man flipped opened the box. To his amazement, a cascade of dayang coins gold poured out from the scarlet-red wrapping in the box before everyone especially the three young men, who stared at it with awe! A chestful of dayang coins! The old man could hardly believe himself, managing only to stutter, “T-this… T-the…” Master Six flipped the lid and closed the box. He gently pushed the box into the old man’s arms. “This is a token of appreciation from your grandson, Grandfather. Please accept it!”

Still, the old man did not allow his bumbling fumble with the chest of coins to addle his otherwise sharp mind. He realized that it was the cue for them to take their leave as he said, “It is time for us to go! We have kept you for so long!” Master Six raised the curtains and peeped outside. He turned to Chen Yixuan. “Fetch the other two items!” Understanding what he meant, the investigator rushed outside to his horse and rummaged through his saddlebag before returning with the two pistols and ammunition. As the investigator passed the items to Master Six, the immortal spoke modestly to the old man, “We have long delayed your journey, Grandfather. I guess it would already be dark when you reach Fengtiewo Town (A place now known as Fengdengwuzhen, Hebei, China). For your safety, please take these!” The youngest boy came forward immediately and took one of the pistols. With skilled dexterity, he opened the ammo box, slid the magazine into the pistol and locked the magazine in the well before flipping off the safety and returned the gun to its holster, which he hung over his back. Such was his skill in handling the weapon, that even Chen Yixuan, a police officer himself could only watch in awe at his proficiency. The old man took the other pistol and got up the donkey cart. The young boy, now armed, flailed a whip and urged the donkey to move. As the cart slowly moved away, Master Six stood at where he was, waving to them, shouting his goodbyes, as the three on the cart too waved back to him…

Thus ended their morning engagement; one which was yet so bizarre and surreal to Chen Yixuan that, still, he could hardly sleep that afternoon despite being exhausted! The two days had been a trip down the rabbit hole for him. Was it possible that Master Six indeed has relatives here? From the way, he spoke to them, they seemed to be his senior. But it was evident that the men did not know him prior to their meeting! Moreover, Master Six was an immortal; how could he be younger than these men? What of the boy they had met at the sorghum fields? And why did the sorghum plants had such strange fruits in their buds… He spun and writhed restlessly in his bed, and yet the questions throbbed in his mind incessantly like flies over a corpse. Watching from his bed beside him, Master Six giggled. “What’s wrong with you?” He asked with an amused expression on his face. Chen Yixuan sat up, and Master Six too followed suit. He took out a cigarette, passed it to Master Six and lighted both cigarettes. Both men drew a swig. “I simply failed to understand everything that had transpired these two days. And how did you convince the men to lay aside their doubts and suspicions and sit down for a drink with you?” “And then, there’s also that boy at the sorghum plant field…”

Master Six smiled. “After you went out, the old man did ask me if I had mistaken them for my relatives. I laughed and said no, and then I asked, if he was the son-in-law of a Zhang family from the southern villages; while one of the three has a wife from the Zhao family from the eastern villages? They fell quiet, and their stunned silence confirmed my inquiry. ‘You have four sons’, I said to the old man, ‘Two daughters and a grandson, which is now close to two weeks old, I guess?’ ‘That’s right!’ The old man replied. ‘Then I am right. Do you know why people say immortals know about incidents 800 years before and happenings 800 years after?’ I asked them, before revealing the answer myself, ‘That’s because immortals possess the ability to travel through time. They can travel to the past at will, and witness with their own eyes the actual occurrence

of a historical incident.’ I paused and gestured to the old man, ‘You will be blessed with 8 grandchildren. You’ve just recently had one baby grandson. In your later years, you will have seven more! And your sixth grandson will turn out to be an immortal, which is me! I have come back through time to visit you! I have traveled back for decades to see you, Grandfather! I have a case which I was bidden to help; a case involving dragon leys; the fate of the country, hence I was charged by the will of Heaven to handle it. But I grew up without so much as looking at your face myself, Grandfather. So here I am, to see you and treat you to a meal!”

Chen Yixuan could have sworn that his eyeballs nearly popped out their sockets out of fright. Was this the powers of immortals, he asked himself. He would never have believed such things if not for the immortal sitting right beside him! But there was still one more thing that had left him befuddled. “What about the boy we saw when you were plucking the sorghum plant buds? Did you cast a spell on him? Why was he looking at you strangely?” Chen Yixuan asked. “Nope,” the immortal replied. “To be exact, the boy is a little more than 11 years old. There are two more months until his 12th birthday.” “How do know you of this detail?” Chen Yixuan asked suspiciously, but Master Six merely muttered, “The boy would be my father.”

Chen Yixuan nearly fell off his bed! But Master Six continued nonchalantly. “What we ate at the fields was a type of fungi; the result of the Sorghum Smut disease. The fungus that causes sorghum smut grows into the ovaries of the plant and replaces the grain with a fungal structure full of spores, called sori. To leave the spores unchecked would result in the spores mutating into black-colored spores that will take off into the air and spread everywhere. Hence I was doing the farmers a favor by plucking off the buds that contained the spores and prevented the spread of the fungi. There are miles and miles of fields around here; the spread of the spores would do nothing but harm to the crops. Hence it was hardly mischief on my part! Moreover, these sori are edible; although they are also consumed as food only by the poor.”

“Would it not be faster to just cut them all down!” Chen Yixuan scowled distastefully. “The people here grow sorghum plants, not for its consumption,” Master Six explained as he smiled, “And certainly not because of their high production volume. It’s because they are tall; hence they help protect against floods. The stalks of sorghum plants are widely used to make brooms, covers of pots and pans, and baskets too. They are also the material used for brick-building to erect concrete structures! To say the stalks are useful is a mere understatement. As for my father’s expression as a boy… Well, despite me coming from the past, we still share a paternal bond. I am sure he felt it too; a bond so familiar yet vague to him!”

Master Six paused to ground out his cigarette. He fished for another one and lighted it. “I was only born 27 years later.” He heaved a sigh suddenly. “The old man you saw earlier is my grandfather. The tall man was his younger brother, my first-degree grand-uncle. The two younger men were my eldest uncle and his third brother.” This reminded Chen Yixuan of the young man’s prowess with the gun. “Your Third Uncle looks hardly over 17 or 18,” he said. “Surely he’s yet to enlist into the army. But why is he so skilled with the gun? I would have thought he was a veteran of the war, if not for his age.” “Our family deals in the gun trade. This was why I brought the dud round here for them to have a look!” Master Six revealed at last.

“So where are we going in the evening?” Chen Yixuan asked. Master Six leaped from his bed. “The New Oriental Cotton Factory!” He announced. “The cousin of my grandfather is there. The dud round was made by him. I have instructed one of the officers to buy two live carp fishes and a jar of stinky tofu. The old man would kill to savor these delicacies!” Two live carps! Chen Yixuan was astonished. Carps were considered a kingly indulgence in those days.

That evening, Chen Yixuan held the two nearly-one-kilogram fishes as he went off with Master Six, with the jar of stinky tofu put in the saddlebag of his horse. The fishes were held together by a strong string that ran through their dorsal fins. Such large carps were extraordinarily expensive then; these two fishes were the price of 5 liters of corn!

When they reached the cotton factory, they were received by several of the staff due to their identification as police officers. Hearing that the policemen were looking for the maintenance technician, the manager was about to call someone to summon him when Master Six waved him off. “Lead us to the machine shop,” he said curtly. Despite their puzzling looks, they obediently led Master Six and Chen Yixuan inside.

At first sight of the man, Master Six called out loudly to him, addressing the man as “grand-uncle”. The immortal stripped off his riding gloves and went forth to take the elder man’s hands and shook it warmly. The elder man was surprised. Of course, he did not know who Master Six was and was in the midst of panic when two police officers came looking for him. Master Six mentioned nothing about his relation to the man, merely presenting him with the gifts, leaving the elder speechless beyond words. Master Six took out his handkerchief-wrapped dud round and showed it to him. With a careful study, the elder man nodded. “It is my work.” He admitted. “Do you remember who did you sold this to?” Master Six asked. The man looked at the immortal and said, “I’ll need to have a look at the gunpowder first!” Master Six nodded. He snapped the round with great ease, separating the bullet from the entire cartridge of the round. He opened his palm and emptied the contents of the cartridge on his palm. It was the first time Chen Yixuan had caught a glimpse of gunpowder himself; the dark powder looked like rat poop to him. The old man pored over the gunpowder and rose up, his eyes meeting Master Six’s. “The ammunition was sold together with some rifles, to some relatives of the Li family!” With an “Oh!”, Master Six said his thanks and bade the man well before leaving on his horse with Chen Yixuan…