Stepping aside for Reality

Chapter 11 Yee Ng Chai

The journey from the dark forest to the town of Qinghe took a greater effort than Wen Yiji expected. He had to use his Dark Fire internal energy to block the Invisibility energy all the way. It was exhausting work. Several times during the journey, he had to stop the carrriage and climb into it so that no one would see him. Then he rested his Dark Fire internal energy. In doing so, he became semi-visible Once he had rested sufficiently, he exerted the Dark Fire internal energy to block the Invisibility energy again, climbed out to the front of the carriage and continued travelling. It was an energy-sapping way of travelling, but he managed.

On reaching the town of Qinghe, he set out to look for an inn. He needed to rest.

"I don't think I will look for Yee Ng Chai," he mumbled to himself. "I have more troubles than I can handle. No point going to look for further trouble. Besides, the death of my compatriots happened a long time ago. No sense in digging up old stuff, is there?"

He looked at his horse as if expecting an answer. The horse ignored him and plodded along. It too had its own share of troubles; having to transport a freaky rider who occasionally looked only half-visible.

He got to an inn and took an upstairs room. He immediately locked the door securely from inside and took a long nap in his semi-invisible state. When he woke up, he exerted his Dark Fire inner energy to become visible. Then he went downstairs to the inn's dining hall to order some food. He was hungry.

He sat down at an empty table. A young, fat waiter approached him.

“I want a chicken,” he told the waiter. “Steamed chicken. And I want it fast.”

“Sorry,” said the fat waiter. “Can’t do that.”

“All right,” said Wen Yiji. “I want a duck then. And I want it fast.”

“Can’t do that either,” replied the waiter grimly.

“Chicken cannot do. Duck also cannot do. What is this place known for?”

“Chicken and duck," replied the waiter seriously.

Wen Yiji stared at the fat waiter and said, "You are bluffing me, right?"

"No," replied the waiter. "I don't bluff. Everybody here call me Honest Niu because they know that I don't bluff. I am a very moral person. I believe that morality is very, very important."

"Okay, Honest Niu. First you said that chicken and duck cannot do. Then you said that this place is known for chickens and ducks! I want the truth!"

"Chickens and ducks can do. But you wanted it fast! That, we cannot do.”

“Ohhh……I understand now. Your cook is damn slow, is it?”

“No, our cook is fast, really fast. But he is off today to attend to some personal matter. So my boss is doing the cooking. He is damn slow.”

“I am very hungry. What do you suggest?”

“If you want something good, I suggest you go somewhere else to eat. My boss's cooking is hopeless. Actually, worse than hopeless.”

"My God, you are honest!"

"Of course! I am Honest Niu. Morality is very important to me!"

“Look, Honest Niu. I am very hungry and I want something fast. Not necessary to be good.”

“If you want something fast, we have some ready-made steamed dumplings. No need to wait.”

“All right. Bring me the dumplings,” ordered Wen Yiji.

The waiter brought out a big plate full of dumplings. He placed them on the table and said. “The bill will be charged according to how many dumplings you eat. Big dumpling, small dumpling all same price.”

“The big ones are three times the size of the small one. I will take the big ones for sure. But how will you know how many I have eaten?” asked Wen Yiji.

“There are fifteen dumplings here. I will come back to count the balance remaining after you have finished. Please do not put any half eaten dumplings back on the plate.”

“As if I would do a thing like that!”

“Hard to say. I give you warning first.”

“Kanineh…..want to eat also must have warning. Go away and let me eat in peace!”

Wen Yiji ate five huge dumplings. The waiter came back and counted the balance.

“Ten dumplings remaining. Fifteen minus ten is two. You owe me two coins,” he told Yiji.

“Are you sure that your arithmetic is correct?” asked an incredulous Wen Yiji.

“Of course!” replied the waiter. “Do you question my arithmetic?”

“No, but if you continue like this, your boss’s business will be colder than water," said Wen Yiji.

“Listen,” whispered the waiter. “My boss is with the cook’s wife in the kitchen. What he is doing to her, I am doing to his business!”

“Ah…..I see,” said Wen Yiji with a knowing smile. “You don’t approve of sex. Because you are a very moral person!”

“No! No!” exclaimed the waiter vehemently. “It's just that the cook is my very best friend!”

“I understand now,” said Wen Yiji. “You don’t approve of his wife’s immoral actions with your immoral boss.”

“That is right! If anyone is using my best friend’s wife, it ought to be me! I want to bang her very hard at least ten times!”

“What?” asked a shocked Wen Yiji. "I thought you said that morality is very important to you?"

"Oh, all right," said the waiter graciously. "Make that just slightly hard and only nine times!"

“Sheeeesh.....never mind. Do you have any good wine in the inn?”

“No,” replied the waiter. “Our wine is watered down. It tastes like dog piss!”

“How can the wine be watered down?”

“Sometimes the cook steals a drink from a pot of wine and then he tops it up with well water after that, thinking that the boss will not know the difference.”

“Na beh…..like that also got. Your cook is very immoral. Does your boss know?”

“Oh, he knows! But he still sells the watered down wine for normal price!”

"Wa piang," said Wen Yiji. "Most people would have tried to sell me the watered down wine, but you did not. You really are honest!"

"Of course! I am Honest Niu!"

“I really need a good drink," said Wen Yiji. "Where is the best wine shop in town?”

“That would be Yam Seng’s Wine Shop, on the other side of the Buhou bridge.”

“Is it far?”

“Just a few hundred steps from here. You can see the Buhou bridge from the door. Cross it and you should see a shop selling cotton fabrics on your right. Opposite it would be the wine shop.”

Wen Yiji's was suddenly at full attention. That sounded very much like where Yee Ng Chai was seen by Squirrel Beard.

"Shop selling cotton fabrics?" he asked. "Who owns the place?"

"It belongs to a Master Yee Sang," replied the waiter. "His cotton fabrics are the best in the town. You should go there and buy some."

Oh, so it wasn't Yee Ng Chai, but a certain Yee Sang. Anyway, it did not matter as he had already decided not to pursue the matter. He thanked the waiter and then headed over the nearby Buhou bridge to the wine shop. It was already close to dusk. It would be dark soon.

On reaching the wine shop, he sat down at an empty table and asked for the best wine.

An old man approached him and asked, "I am Master Yam Seng, the proprietor. Would you like to try a specialty wine?"

"Pleased to meet you, Master Yam Seng," said Wen Yiji. "What kind of specialty wine do you have?"

"I have scorpion wine!" replied Mater Yam Seng. "Very potent! The scorpions are immersed in rice wine and then sealed for a number of years. This wine can strengthen your bones and tendons and also help to combat general fatigue."

"Say! That is good! Do you use organic scorpions? I heard that they are the best!"

"Ahhh......you are a discerning customer. I use only the best scorpions," beamed Yam Seng proudly. "Free ranging scorpions, not farm bred inferior ones grown in cages."

"Of course," agreed Wen Yiji. "Free range scorpions are the best! Let me have a pot of your best scorpion wine for starters!"

“We have two types; the VSOP and the XO version.”

“Gimme the XO version.”

The pot of wine was brought before Wen Yiji and he started drinking. Soon, he finished the whole pot of wine and was feeling slightly drunk.

Master Yam Seng approached him and asked, “Would you like a second pot?”

“Yes,” replied Wen Yiji. “Bring me two pots. I will take it back to drink.”

“Good idea!” said Yam Seng. “You will not regret this purchase. Many travelers come to this place just to buy my wine.”

“If the stuff is good, there will be no end of buyers,” commented Wen Yiji. “Everyone is always looking out for a good purchase.”

“True, true. If you are looking for a good purchase, may I recommend the cloth shop opposite. Those who know will go there to buy the cotton fabrics,” said the wine shop proprietor.

“You own that shop as well?” asked Wen Yiji.

“No, no!” laughed the proprietor. “It has nothing to do with me. But the fabrics they sell there is really good quality. Cheap also. I thought that you may want to know, since you are looking for a good purchase.”

“Who owns it?”

“A certain Master Yee Sang owns it.”

“Do you know him well? Do you think he will give me a discount if I buy in quantity?”

“Actually, I don’t know him well at all,” said Master Yam Seng. “He seldom comes out of his shop.”

“Even so, you should know him very well since you are both from the same area.”

“Well, I know everyone else well enough. But Master Yee came here with his family only seven years ago. This is a quiet area and the house was empty. He rented it cheaply and then later bought it from the owner.”

Seven years ago! The piece of news struck Wen Yiji as being highly coincidental; he last saw Yee Ng Chai seven years ago. Could Yee Sang and Yee Ng Chai be the same person? People have been known to change their names.

After paying for his drinks, he took his two pots of wine and walked out onto the road. He headed back towards the inn where he was staying. The road was dark by this time and the moon was not visible. In the far off distance he could see a couple of figures walking about using a tiny lantern for light. Other than that, there was nobody around.

“Damn!” he said, wrestling mentally with himself. “I should at least check if Yee Sang and Yee Ng Chai are both the same person. After all, I am already so near!”

Another thought assailed him, “If they are both the same person…..so what? Am I going to accuse him of something without proof? After a period of seven years? And if he did betray us, should I kill him? Can I really kill a former comrade-in-arms?”

He walked another two steps, paused and breathed, “Nabeh…..I got to know. With my freaky bodily condition, I may die any time. How can I go to my death without knowing if we had been betrayed?”

Finally, he came to a decision. He hid his two pots of wine in the shadows and turned off his Dark Fire inner energy that kept him visible. He would need his inner energy free for lightness kungfu if he were to go check up on Yee Sang. In the dark night, only his legs were visible, and only at a close distance.

He went over to the cotton fabric shop and leapt up high. Over the wall he flew and landed on the roof. Then, he flipped himself down to the inner courtyard. He felt a bit dizzy when he landed on the ground beside a bush. Perhaps he should not have drunk so much scorpion wine. He looked around him. Master Yee Sang ought to be in one of those back rooms. The master of the house usually stayed at the back. But which room?

A servant with a lighted lantern came along the corridor and delivered a pot of tea to one of the rooms. He came out, and as he left, he said to someone inside, “Goodnight, Master Yee.”

The sound of the servant’s footsteps then faded as he walked away.

Quickly, Wen Yiji moved to the door of the room and pushed it open. His plan was to go in, take a quick look at Yee Sang, and then get out. It ought to be over in an instant. He moved inside the room and swiftly looked around him. The room was lighted by two lanterns but he did not see anyone.

“Strange,” he thought to himself. “Where is Master Yee Sang?”

He walked towards the bed and at that moment, a figure came out from behind a wooden screen where he had been changing clothes.

Wen Yiji was shocked. The face that looked in his direction was that of Yee Ng Chai! So, Yee Sang was Yee Ng Chai!

If Wen Yiji was shocked, Yee Ng Chai was even more shocked. All he saw was a pair of legs moving in front of him. He froze in terror. Then he trembled from head to toe. He tried to shout in terror, but he could not.

Watching him trembling in deep fright, Wen Yiji realised that Yee Ng Chai must have thought that he was seeing a ghost. He remembered that there was one dead compatriot whose voice sounded like him. Wan Tan; that was his name. It was time to get the truth out of the cotton cloth maker.

"Yee Ng Chai," cried Wen Yiji in a faraway voice. "I have died a terrible death! Yee Ng Chai!"

"Who are you?" mouthed Yee Ng Chai wordlessly.

"I am…….Wan Tan, your former compatriot."

"Bro...brother Wan Tan?" gasped Yee Ng Chai in a soft whimpering voice.

"I, Wan Tan have died a terrible death! Hic. Why did you betray us?"

"You knew I betrayed you?"

"There are no secrets in Hell. Hic! We know everything! Ooooooooooh.........why did you betray us?"

"Brother Wan Tan, I am sorry! I had not meant for any of you to die! I am sorry. So sorry!"

"No matter how sorry you are, the fact is we are all dead. Ooooooooh.......why did you betray us? Why? Why? Tell me why?"

Yee Ng Chai suddenly knelt down in front of him and said, “These past years, my heart had not been easy, knowing that I had betrayed you, betrayed Chief Feng, and betrayed my friends. I have dishonoured my name. I knew that this day would come….that I would pay for my actions.”

The free admission of guilt by Yee caught wen Yiji off guard. He had expected some form of denial at least. He wished his head was clearer. The scorpion wine was starting to exert its effects.

“You will….. hic……pay for what you did…..pay and pay! Your family will also pay,” he intoned. “Even your dogs must pay!”

“Brother Wan,” said Yee Ng Chai. “I will take responsibility for what I did. Take my life if you wish. But please leave my family alone. I beseech you.”

“A ghost has no mercy,” replied Wen Yiji. “Tonight, you will enter Hell.”

“I am ready to enter Hell,” cried Yee Ng Chai. “But I beg you not to harm my family. Not even a strand of hair.”

”Are you trying to negotiate with me?”

“No, I am appealing to your sense of justice. I am the one that wronged you, not them.”

“You still have not told me why you wronged us! Were we not your friends?”

“You were all my friends!” said Yee Ng Chai. “But I had a sick wife to look after.”

“What has that to do with us?”

“Seven years ago, my wife fell sick with a strange illness. Her medicinal herbs were expensive and soon, there was not enough money in the house to feed my family. The daifu who had been treating her then recommended that I go to Ah Long’s gambling den to take a gamble. He said that if I did not, there was no way that I could afford medicine for my wife. So, I headed to Ah Long’s gambling den to take a gamble. It was a setup. I lost whatever I had. Ah Long then loaned me some money and I gambled again. And lost again. Ah Long then demanded his payment back with interest. I could not even pay the interest let alone the principle sum. He had me beaten up by his men. After that he said that if I was willing to do a thing for him, he would forget my loan. I found out that he wanted me to report the route that Chief Feng was going to take for the Jade Lion trip. I refused to do so. Ah Long then said that if I were willing, he would give me one thousand taels of silver. It was a very good sum. With the money I could afford medicine for my wife. I demanded that he give me the money first, but he said that he would give me half first and half later, after I had completed the job.”

“And so, you betrayed us. For one thousand taels of silver.”

“I did not think that the result would be so devastating. I suspected that Ah Long would try to rob our shipment. But I thought that with the skills of our group, we could easily kill of our attackers. Chief Feng had good iron palm technique. The Chin brothers could kill the most persistent attacker. And Arrow Eye could hit anything with his arrows. What was there to fear? I thought that I could safely betray the route and nobody would find out about it. It turned out that I was wrong. The ones who attacked us were so highly skilled that many of us lost our lives.”

“How did you betray the route? Only Chief Feng knew the route he was going to take.”

“Nobody knew how Chief Feng picked his routes. But I had worked with Chief Feng long enough to know the way his mind worked. Before he decided on a particular hill crossing, I already knew how he would do it. It was easy to guess the route he was about to take. Sometimes he would surprise me by doing something different, but most times, I would be correct. I left notes hidden under stones along the route. The notes were picked up by someone following our trail and then sent ahead by a carrier pigeon. Thus, the robbers had sufficient time to make preparations to ambush us. I thought that if they attacked us, we would kill them easily and that would be the end of the matter. What I had not counted on was that they were powerful enough to kill so many of our team. Once I saw how many of our members had died, I realized the enormity of my actions.”

“And so, instead of going back to face the punishment from the emperor, you decided to go back to take the rest of your money before running away. Yes?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Once the seriousness of the situation sunk in, I knew that Ah Long could not afford to leave me alive. Dead men tell no tales. He would seek to kill me and my family once I returned to the Imperial Capital to collect the remaining balance of five hundred taels from him. So, while travelling to the Imperial Capital with Brother Arrow Eye and the remaining members, I ran away one night so that I could reach the Imperial Capital before they did. I traveled night and day. When I reached my house two nights later, I scouted around and spotted two of Ah Long’s men keeping my house under surveillance. I knocked them out cold. Then I collected my family and got out of there fast before daybreak. The next day, Ah Long’s men went around town on horseback looking for me. However, I knew the back roads and so I left the Imperial Capital and came here.”

“Why here? Hic. Why this town?”

“We were passing through this town and my wife fell very ill. I knew that she could not travel on any more. So I rented this place very cheaply. My wife recovered. Her family used to be in the fabric making business and she still had the skills. So, we decided to open up a fabric making business to feed our family.”

“I see that business has been good and you have achieved prosperity.”

“Yes, business has been good. I finally bought this place from the owner. However, my wife passed away two years ago.”

“Did you remarry?”

“No. After her, I could never marry again. I decided to bring up our children on my own.”

Wen Yiji looked at the bed. It was obvious that Yee Ng Chai slept alone. He said, “Don’t worry, I will send you to join your wife in a moment.”

“You will not harm my children?”

“No.”

“Thank you! My eldest son is now fifteen. He is matured for his age. He is a good son and I am very proud of him. He will be able to take good care of his siblings once I am gone.”

“Only fifteen? He is but a boy.”

“He is a better man than I could ever be. He does not know of my shameful act. I do not wish him to know. It is every father’s wish that his son thinks well of his father and respect his memory. You cannot fault me for this.”

Wen Yiji swayed. He wished that the room would stay still instead of moving around. He would have not drunk so much scorpion wine if he had known that he was going to confront Yee Ng Chai. He steadied himself and the room stopped moving. He was at a loss on what to do next. Clearly, Yee Ng Chai was wrestling with his guilt while mourning the loss of his wife. Finally, he asked, “Who is this Ah Long?”

“He is a loan shark who operates several gambling dens in the Imperial City. He is a member of the Green Scorpion Sect. His biggest den is the Casino Royal. I heard that Prince Jin go there sometimes.”

The Casino Royal……Wen Yiji knew the place. It was a large den with lots of wine and women. He would have to pay Ah Long a visit.

“Can you give me some last moments with my family before you take my life?” requested Yee.

“Listen,” said Wen Yiji. “I am going to forgive you. But every year, during the festival of the Hungry Ghosts, I want you to put out a pot of wine for your dead comrades. Not just any wine. I want scorpion wine. Do you understand?”

“You are not killing me?” asked an incredulous Yee Ng Chai.

“No, I am not,” replied Wen Yiji. “But remember my instructions about the wine. Or you will find me haunting your family!”

With that, Wen Yiji stumbled out of the room, leapt to the roof top and was gone.

Yee Ng Chai remained there in the kneeling position. Finally, he bowed low several times and said gratefully, “Thank you, Brother Wan Tan! I will remember your instructions on the scorpion wine!”

Wen Yiji collected his two pots of wine where he had left them. Then he went back to the inn.

Once in his room, he opened a pot of wine and addressed his dead comrades one by one by name.

"Comrades and brothers," he said. "Perhaps I should have taken the life of Yee Ng Chai for betraying us all. But I could not. Please do not fault me. Whatever happened, happened a long time ago. Let us close this chapter instead. I instructed Yee Ng Chai to put out a pot of scorpion wine to you all once a year. You will like scorpion wine."

He poured out a cup of scorpion wine, raised it in the air and cried, "To you, fallen comrades! May the ox-head horse-face serve you good food, good wine all day long!"

He took a long drink and recited a poem.

"A cup of wine raised to the lips
Is joy in any season
Let me be forever drunk
And never come to reason."

Soon he was fast asleep.

Fifteen days later, he reached the Imperial City.

While killing time in a bookshop yesterday, I walked past the children's section and one book title jumped out of the shelves and caught my eye. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.



A story about a farting dog? Somehow, I never did imagine that children are into that kind of stuff.

Next, they'll be doing a story about a pooping monkey just for the kids. A pooping monkey that whoops while it poops. I’m almost afraid to ask where the next generation is heading.

You must have heard that the cops managed to recover the life-size statue of Homer Simpson seventy-two hours after it was stolen from the Golden Screen Cinemas at the 1 Utama shopping complex.

The registration number of the culprits' Proton Waja was captured by closed-circuit television cameras at the mall. It was then a simple matter of looking up the car registration records to see which smart alec burglar owned the car. Then......pow.....three days later, they got the culprits; two college students. Yep, three days later.

On any television crime series, the cops would have got the miscreant within three hours. I mean, it takes only half an hour to look up the car records(while drinking coffee) and find out where the driver lives, two hours to finish eating their donuts, and another half an hour to go and arrest their man.

So what does that tell you?

a) Real time is very much slower than television time.
b) Nobody cares about a stupid statue
c) Or maybe people do care about statues, but nobody cares about Homer Simpson.
d) They took three days to fight off the pigeons queuing up to shit on the statue.
e) All the cops have gone to JB to fight crime, leaving only a skeleton staff to fight the pigeons.
f) Cinema officials noted that ticket sales went up once the dumb Homer Simpson statue was gone, so they told the cops to take their own sweet time.

If you are wondering why I am so interested in this statue story, well…..frankly……I’m not.

I just don’t have anything else to blog.

Chapter 10: The Semi-invisible Man

The road to the dark forest passed by a few desolate farmlands. Two young boys by the side of the road stared agog as they saw a horse and carriage with a pair of legs as the driver passing by them.

Wen Yiji gave them a cursory glance. He knew that he probably looked like a freak to them.

“Monster! Monster!” One of the little boys shouted.

“Quiet!” hissed the other boy. “The monster may hear us and then kill us!”

The two boys looked at each other in shock. Then they fled.

The sky grew cloudy but Wen Yiji did not notice. Even if he did, he wouldn’t have cared. There were heavier things occupying his mind. Soon, the carriage reached the dark forest. He found a suitable place to park his carriage under the shade of trees, hidden away from the main path. Away from prying eyes, he sat down to contemplate his fate.

“What do I do now,” he asked himself. “What do I do now? I have become a freak. I can’t show myself in the Imperial City. I can’t even go back to Tsinkiang. Everyone will flee in terror if they see only half of me! I may have to stay in this forest for the rest of my life and hide away from the view of humans. Oh heavens…..my life has come to an end!”

The story of his life played itself in his mind, “In the year that I was due to be married, I was imprisoned by the Emperor for six years during which time my family was killed. Just when I thought that my life was finally getting better, I turned into a freak. Is this some sort of dirty trick played upon me by the gods? Have I not paid my dues sufficiently?”

In a fit of anger, he walked to a nearby clearing and looked upwards. Then he shouted furiously at Heaven, “You gods who sit in your fairy palaces playing celestial chess with the lives of mankind! What did I do to deserve all this? True, I have killed a number of people, but every one of them deserved to be killed! Did I do wrong? Tell me, did I do wrong? Answer me!”

The forest fell silent. Even the crickets stopped their chirping.

“You cannot answer me, is it?” he shouted again. “Too embarrassed to give me an answer, is it? I tried to walk the path of peace! I tried to sell potatoes! And this is how you reward me? Why don’t you gods become human for a change and I become the god?”

Thunder rumbled in the clouds above.

“Come on, strike me!” he invited. “Strike me dead!”

Claaaaaaaaaaacckkkkk!

A flash of lightning struck the top of a nearby tree.

“You missed!” shouted Wen Yiji. “Why don’t you try again, you lousy shot? I will not try to flee! Come on! I am here! Over here!”

This time, there was no thunderbolt. All was silent.

“Is that it? One lousy shot and you decided to call it quits? Even an old one-legged rooster can shoot more times than you! Don’t you ever become a rooster. You will be sure to leave a lot of hens unsatisfied!”

The silence was deafening. Then it rained. Not a heavy pouring rain, but a light drizzle.

“Even your rain is wishy washy! Like diluted pussy water with no strength!” he yelled. “Come on! Flood me!”

After a while, even the drizzle stopped. Wen Yiji was wet to the skin, but he remained unmoving. The wind blew on his wet body and he felt cold. He decided to go back to his carriage. As he walked, he brushed against a thorny plant and the thorns pricked him. He cursed profoundly, leaving no doubt at what he thought of the plant’s mother and father. Taking a broadsword from his carriage, he went up to the thorny plant and started swinging the weapon. In no time, the plant was a heap of leaves and thorny stems.



Picking up a stout thorny stem, he removed some barbs from one end so that he could hold the stem with his hand. Then holding it by the smooth end, he brandished the thorny stem against the sky and shouted, “I have been a good man all my life. While many officials went their corrupted ways, I have always served the country and my emperor faithfully. Yet my liberty of six years was taken from me, my family members were taken from me, and now half of my body has been taken away from me! Where is your sense of justice? Show me the god who is responsible for my troubles and I will push this thorny stem up his ass!”

He waved the thorny stem violently fully expecting some kind of celestial response. There was none. Finally, in disgust, he threw the thorny stem onto the ground.

He went inside his carriage and slept.

In the morning, he woke up. Sleepily, he reached into his bag and pulled out his polished brass mirror so that he could comb his hair. A moment later, he was reminded of his semi-invisibility. He swore angrily. Then he felt depressed and went back to sleep again.

For three days, he woke up in order to sleep. The sad truth had hit him that life was not possible for a semi-invisible man. Depression engulfed him and he wanted to die. He thought of his sister Xiang Xiang. He had yet to fulfill the duty required of an elder brother; the arrangement for his sister to be married off to a good family. Damn! He wished that he had made all the necessary arrangements before all this had happened. It was too late now. There was no way that he could ever be part of human society. His life was over. He turned over and tried to sleep. He would lay there till death claimed him. With luck he might die in peace in his sleep.

+ + + + + +

In Tsinkiang, a dejected Kotekichi walked aimlessly about in town. He was the lst remaining swordsman of the Kansai Killers. Through a secret contact, he had finally managed to send off a letter to Grandmaster Hattori by a pirate ship that was heading back to the eastern islands. In the letter, he detailed the deaths of the three Kansai Killers at the hands of a skilled Tsinkiang archer of the surname Wen. Tsinkiang was not small and he did not have any luck finding anyone of the surname Wen. There were lots of Wongs and Wangs, but no Wen.

Kotekichi did not like Tsinkiang. He thought that the women there were rude. Each time he visited a courtesan house, the women would snigger openly at the small size of his equipment. Even when he was busy pumping away, one insensitive woman kept on asking, “Inside already or not? Why I cannot feel wan?”

He would have slain the woman, but he knew that Grandmaster Hattori would want him to keep a low profile until the archer was located. There was nothing that he could do until the archer was found. No, he did not like Tsinkiang.

+ + + + + +

A very despondent Wen Yiji woke up from his sleep. He felt like shit. Actually, he felt like shitting more than he felt like shit. He had not eaten in days, so he wondered idly where the shit was going to come from. Sleep was impossible when one needed to shit. Thus, he got up and walked to the most convenient bush. Just as he was about to undo his pants, he heard a sound. It was a footfall. Someone was in the vicinity.

A figure walked stealthily among the trees towards the carriage. He carried a pair of strange looking clubs in his hands. However, it was his face that drew Wen Yiji’s attention. It was hideous. The face was disfigured by marks and strange nodular growths.

“Stranger, if you are looking for food, I have some potatoes,” Wen Yiji called out.

The stranger looked in his direction. He could not see Wen Yiji as the torso was invisible while the visible legs were behind the bush.

“You must be behind the bush,” said the stranger looking in Wen Yiji’s direction.

“Yes, I am behind the bush, trying to shit,” replied Wen Yiji. “Please don’t come near.”

“Trying to shit? Good! Good! Good! Good! Good!” said the stranger. “I will wait until you finish shitting.”

“You don’t have to wait,” said Wen Yiji. “Just climb into my carriage and take what you want.”

“What I want is not inside the carriage. Have you finished shitting yet?”

“Naaaah….now I cannot shit.”

“Damn! Curses!”

“What is it to you whether I shit or not?”

“I hate to have shit in my lunch!”

“I don’t understand.”

“I wish to invite you for lunch.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You are the lunch.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Good. Stupid people taste better than intelligent ones!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Never mind. You are probably too stupid to understand even if I explain it to you.”

Wen Yiji pondered the insult. He did not like to be called stupid. Yet it was his own stupidity that caused him to become half-invisible. Yes, he was stupid. Incredibly stupid! No one in his right mind would learn a strange martial art without completely understanding the effects. He looked at the stranger. He understood that for some reason, the ugly stranger seemed intent on eating him.

Finally, he said, “I still don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?” asked the hideous man.

“If you wish to eat me, why did you tell me? Are you not afraid that I may run away?”

“Oh no!” replied the stranger. “I would like you to try to run away. I always enjoy a good chase before I cook. It gives me an appetite.”

“You may not catch me.”

“Ha! I can catch anything in this forest! I know it like the back of my hand! No one escapes me. I will give you a generous head start, but in the end I will still catch you.”

“Who are you?”

“I am the one they called the “Lao Chio Monster”. The one that everyone fears.”

“The Lao Chio Monster? What Chio and what Monster? Never heard of you. Sorry, but you are not that famous.”

“It does not matter. Once you finish shitting, the hunt will begin.”

“Again, I don’t understand.”

“What? After all the explanation I just gave you? How can you not understand?”

“I don’t understand why you are so damn hideous,” replied Wen Yiji cooly. “Do you have leprosy?”

“I am not damn hideous, you stupid mouth!” shouted the stranger angrily.

“Oh yes you are! Your face is repulsive,” replied Wen Yiji. “I may be stupid, but Confucius said that it is better to die stupid than to live like a hideous piece of deformed dung!”

“Confucius never said that!”

“Sure, he did! And another thing; even if I am stupid, I can always learn from experience and get smarter. You, on the other hand cannot learn to become less hideous!”

“That is where you are wrong. Every physical form has an energy pattern. The lumps of growth that are on my face are caused by some weird energy. I can use my internal energy to suppress this weird energy and I will become handsome.”

“If you use your internal energy to suppress this weird energy, the weird energy will disperse and then you will get lumps everywhere!”

“That is what you think! I can always block the weird energy at an energy passage where it is unable to disperse.”

“I doubt if such a thing can be done,” commented Wen Yiji. “You are too ugly too be improved. You are so hideous that I bet you have to tie a mouse around your neck so that the cats will play with you.”

“I hate cats. But dogs like to come near me.”

“Of course they will like to come near you. Your face is so damn ugly that it scares the fleas away from them.”

“Damn you!” shouted the Lao Chio Monster. “Let me show you my handsome face!”

Without delay, the Lao Chio Monster exerted his internal energy and his face suddenly turned normal; all the unusual lumps of facial growth had vanished.

“There, I am handsome now!” declared the Lao Chio Monster. “Can see or not, stupid?”

“I will not call you handsome,” said Wen Yiji. “But you are definitely slightly less ugly than before. Why don’t you remain this way all the time instead of looking like a leper?”

“If I were to use my internal energy this way, I will not have energy left for any other things. I use it only when I have no choice, like when I need to go to town to buy soya sauce.”

“So, you are forced to live in this forest like a monster, away from people. Thus you hate people, and that makes you want to eat them. Is that it?”

“Do not try to psychoanalyze me. I eat humans because I like the taste and I live in the forest by choice. There is plenty of wood here for cooking. Once in a while, I will capture a human and the food will last me for two weeks.”

“You are an evil monster.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lunch.”

“It wasn’t a compliment,” said Wen Yiji. Although he felt despondent about living, he had no wish to be eaten by the Lao Chio Monster. Somehow, there was something very nauseatingly wrong with the idea.

“Have you finished shitting yet? If you have, get ready to run!” suggested the Lao Chio Monster.

“Whatever for? I’ll rather stand and fight you.”

“You have better run. If I catch you, I will tie you up and boil you alive slowly. That way, your flesh will be freshly cooked.”

“Stop it! You are making me sick!”

“Start running. Ready or not here I come!”

The Lao Chio Monster’s face turned hideous again as he leapt over the bush even as Wen Yiji leapt away from the spot. The Lao Chio Monster saw a flash of legs leaping away and he leapt after them. Wen Yiji jumped over a tree followed by the Lao Chio Monster. Both men landed in a clearing.

“You have no body!” exclaimed the Lao Chio Monster in surprise.



“Yes,” said Wen Yiji. “Are you afraid?”

“Afraid? Har har! No!” said the Lao Chio Monster. “A pair of legs is a pair of drumsticks to me! What I cannot understand is how you can speak if you have no body. Wait! I know. You must be talking through your ass!”

“Do you see my ass?”

“No.”

“Then how can you say that I am talking through my ass if you don’t see my ass!”

“Ya hor……errr……what are you talking with, if I may ask?”

“You won’t be able to understand even if I explain it to you. You are demented. Sick and demented. And damn ugly. Nabeh…….if I were you, I would have killed myself twenty times already!”

“This must be some sort of illusion. Somehow you are able to give the illusion that you have no body. You may fool others but you don’t fool me!”

“I am not trying to fool you. I really do not know what I am. Right now, I do not even know if I am a freak or a monster.”

“I think I know what you are, Mr Lunch.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You are a creature who has escaped from a mao shan sifu. Those mao shan wizards practise the dark arts and are known to have weird creatures such as vampires under their control.”

“If I am a vampire, then you must be very afraid of me right now.”

“Har har har! Afraid? I have the all-powerful five thunder talisman that protects me against vampires!”

“What in hell is the five thunder talisman?”

“You are too stupid to understand such things, so I will not even try to explain!”

Wen Yiji retorted, “And you are too ugly to explain such things, so I will not even try to understand!”

In anger, the Lao Chio Monster threw one of his clubs at Wen Yiji who ducked.

“You missed!” said Wen Yiji. “That was a lousy throw!”

The club sped past Wen Yiji, spinned in the air in a circle and then came from behind and headed back towards Wen Yiji again. He heard it, and jumped aside. He was not quite fast enough and the spinning club caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder.

“Ahhhh….” he cried. “Kanineh…..what kind of evil weapon is that? Can fly back like that!”

“Har har!” laughed the Lao Chio Monster. “I call it the Boomerlang!”

“Boomerlang? What a ridiculous name!” said Wen Yiji. He picked up the fallen club and threw it powerfully at the Lao Chio Monster but the club flew into the air, spinned around and then headed back straight for him. He had to run. The spinning club chased after him and he hit it with a palm blast. His palm blast was weak but it caused the spinning club to wobble and it headed to the nearest tree where it crashed into the branches.

The next moment Wen Yiji had to run again as another spinning club headed his way. The Lao Chio Monster had thrown the second club. This time, Wen Yiji leapt over the club and palm blasted it from above. The club spinned low and then hit the ground. It bounced back into the air and banged into a bush where it came to rest.

A rope came out of nowhere and snagged Wen Yiji’s right leg. He grabbed hold of the rope and pulled. At the other end of the rope was the Lao Chio Monster.

It became a test of strength as both men pulled on the rope. Wen Yiji should have been the stronger of the two, but he had already gone for three days without food. The Lao Chio Monster reeled him in steadily. Wen Yij’s leg became unsnagged just as the two men were almost at arm’s length apart. Wen Yiji released the rope suddenly and the Lao Chio Monster stumbled backwards a few steps.

As the Lao Chio Monster looked up again, he saw that Wen Yiji had disappeared.

“Hey, where are you?” he cried. “Come on! I thought you wanted to stand and fight! Not run and hide!”

Wen Yiji was standing behind another bush. He knew that his legs were hidden behind the bush and could not be seen. His body was above the bush but that part was invisible. He closed his eyes to half-slits. Perhaps, if he did not move, the Lao Chio Monster would not know where he was. Then he waited to see what the Lao Chio Monster would do.

The Lao Chio Monster looked around him as if listening to something. Then he stared in Wen Yiji’s direction, laughed and said, “I know this forest like the back of my hand. I know the sounds it makes and I know when the sounds are absent. From the sounds of the insects, I will say that you are there!” He pointed in Wen Yiji’s direction.

Wen Yiji swore softly. In his current half-starved state, he was weaker than his adversary and he did not know the forest at all. The Lao Chio Monster would catch him, overpower him and boil him. It was a fate he did not wish to contemplate. He needed a weapon to fight back. His arrows! They were still in the carriage. He must make his way to his carriage fast. He could not see the carriage from where he was, but he roughly knew its direction.

He ran.

In his haste, he had misjudged his direction and ran the wrong way. He quickly realized his mistake and changed directions. Unfortunately, the Lao Chio Monster guessed at once where he was heading.

Wen Yiji saw his carriage. Then he noticed the Lao Chio Monster running towards it as well. He could not hope to reach his carriage before his hideous opponent. He needed a weapon fast. He passed by the fallen thorny stem, so he bent down to pick it up on the run. It wasn’t a very good weapon but it would have to do for the moment.

The Lao Chio Monster reached the carriage and saw Wen Yiji’s legs heading in his direction. Suddenly, he saw Wen Yiji’s legs swerved away into a different direction. The Lao Chio Monster lunged and tried to grab a leg with his right hand. His hand grabbed something, but it wasn’t a leg. It was the thorny stem.

“Ahhhhh……you stupid bitch!” he screamed as the spiky barbs of the thorns bit into his palm painfully. It was like clutching a handful of needles. He hopped around in pain as he gingerly tried to remove the thorny stem from his hand.

Wen Yiji took the opportunity to grab his bow and arrows from the carriage. He loaded an arrow and took a quick aim. Then he shot off an arrow. The hopping Lao Chio Monster looked up and then tried to leap away. He was too late; the arrow hit him in the left arm and spun him around. The movement caused him to grip tighter on the thorny stem and he screamed in agony again. Both hands had already been rendered useless. The unthinkable occurred to him; he would have to run and escape.

The Lao Chio Monster leapt quickly away from his position and then over a tree. An arrow sped its way through the branches and hit him in the back. The ugly man crashed down to the ground and a third arrow buried itself into his head. The Lao Chio Monster laid unmoving on the ground, his life ebbing away fast.

Wen Yiji approached.

“You are a psychotic monster of immense proportions; killing people for food just because you like the taste. You are so sick in the head that you will make a cockroach puke,” he said in disgust. “You know, you shouldn’t have said that you wanted to boil me alive. It is not civilized. And it makes me lose my appetite!”

The dying monster could only glare in hatred at his conqueror’s legs.

“You called me a stupid bitch,” said Wen Yiji. “Guess what…...who is the bitch now? Huh? Who is the bitch now?”

The Lao Chio Monster tried to curse, but no words came out of his mouth.

“I called you 'damn ugly' just now,” continued Wen Yiji. “And guess what…..na beh…..you are still damn ugly! Some things never change!”

Walking around the body, he unleashed an arrow that penetrated the top of the Lao Chio Monster’s head and so ended the life of the man-eating monster.

Wen Yiji looked up towards the heavens and shouted, “See what I have to do for you? Killing monsters is your job, not mine!”

He walked back towards the carriage. Something that the Lao Chio Monster had said sprang to his mind.

“Maybe I can also use my internal energy to suppress the invisibility energy, the way that the Lao Chio Monster used it to suppress his weird energy,” he discussed with himself. “And he blocked the weird energy at an energy passage where it was unable to disperse.”

Sitting cross-legged on the ground, he closed his eyes and mentally scanned his body, feeling each muscle and each bit of flesh. In time, he located a strange energy in his body. He followed the path of the energy and found out where it ran. There was a part where it ran through a narrow channel.

“This could be it,” he thought to himself. “This could be the spot where I can block the Invisibility Energy!”

Breathing deep, he summoned his Dark Fire Inner Energy and blocked the strange energy flow in the narrow channel. He felt a pressure within as the two energies opposed the flow of each other and fought to a standstill. He opened his eyes and looked around. The world was brighter than just a moment ago. He pulled out his brass mirror and stared at his reflection.

“Yes!” he shouted. “Yes! I am visible again!”

With two opposing energies countering each other within his body, he realized that the situation was far from healthy, but it offered him a temporary respite from his problem. He was elated.

“I shall journey to the next town,” he declared. “And then I shall buy the best wine that money can buy and get drunk! Thoroughly drunk!”

Chapter 9: The laws of invisibility

Wen Yiji tried hard to stay awake on the carriage. Exhaustion ate into his spirit. The day had been a disaster as far as he was concerned. Nevertheless, he was glad to be still alive after the ordeal with the Buddha Palm and the Devil Flute. The pains within his body told him that his multiple injuries required the attention from a daifu. He was still coughing up blood every now and then.

He thought of the Ghost Ninja. "Poor old fella," he muttered. "Travel so far just to get himself killed. Talk about bad luck."

He passed through a little town and spotted an inn. Tiredly, he got down from the carriage and booked a room. He then sent for a daifu who took his pulse.

"You are not well," announced the daifu.

"I know that," remarked Wen Yiji. "That is why I sent for you."

"Your internal injuries are severe. However, it appears that you are very strong and thus you can still walk around even with your internal injuries. Most people would have died already. You need to exercise caution. If you exert yourself strenuously, you may start hemorrhaging internally again. It is best that you get half a month of rest to allow your system to heal properly."

"I cannot wait that long," said Wen Yiji. "Just write me a prescription. Make the dosage twice as strong so that I will heal in half the time.”

“Medication does not work that way. If I were to follow your line of thinking, then I will be able to make the dosage ten times as strong so that you will heal in one-tenth the time!”

“That is a good idea! That’s try it!”

"No! If the dosage is too strong, there may be side effects. You can get hallucinations!"

"I need to get well fast. I can deal with the side effects and hallucinations."

"I’m sorry, but we daifus have a code to follow. I will write you the prescription that I think is best for you," said the daifu. "What year were you born?"

Wen Yiji told him. The daifu did a quick calculation and said, "Your Heavenly Doctor direction is east. Sleep with the head of your bed to the east. Also, when you boil the herbal medicine, turn the stove such that the qi mouth faces the east. That should help you recover faster."

"Thank you," replied Wen Yiji as he paid the daifu. After the daifu had left, Wen Yiji walked over to a medicine shop and bought twice the amount the doctor had written. Then he had a stove brought to his room so that he could boil his medicine. He set the stove facing east, his tianyi, or Heavenly Doctor direction.

+ + + + + +

The lone rider arrived at the house and knocked on the door.

“Master Sun Cheong,” he called out. “I am here with the food supplies.”

There was no answer. He pushed the door open and entered the house. Sun Cheong was lying on the floor, weak with pain. He had tried to use his Buddha Palm internal energy to heal himself but the injuries were too many and therefore the process was slow.

“Master Sun Cheong!” cried the rider. “What happened to your face?”

“I don’t know,” whispered Sun Cheong hoarsely. “I have been in a fight…..too many internal injuries…….will need a daifu.”

“Can you get up?” asked the rider, who was one of the Seventh Prince’s underlings. His job was to bring food supplies for Sun Cheong every few days.

“My right leg is broken and I am unable to walk,” replied Sun Cheong. “But my job here is done. Can you arrange for a carriage to take me back to the capital?”

“No problem,” said the rider. “But the journey will be painful if you have not recovered from your injuries.”

“I can stand the journey. I left my horse tied to a bush on the other side of the hill behind the house. Go fetch it.”

The rider went to look for the horse. He soon came back to report, “I’m afraid your horse has disappeared. Must have escaped or got stolen. But there is a dead horse out in front. It is starting to smell.”

Sun Cheong cursed. However, his priority was not the horse. He needed to get well as fast as he could. His mission was to kill the Ghost Ninja and he had accomplished that. He did not know what had happened to the bodies of the Ghost Ninja or the potato seller, but he did not care. He had not been able to walk easily or pee painlessly for the past few days and so he knew that it was imperative that he get to a good daifu as fast as possible.

Later in the day, the carriage arrived. Sun Cheong got inside and settled himself in for the journey. The bumpiness of the road rattled his body agonisingly and he swore at every bump in the road.

+ + + + + +

The Flute Master and Blackface had met up with Whiteface and other sect members who were escorting the coffin of Fire Cloud back to the Imperial Capital. Chui La Pah was in a mournful mood. Of his three disciples, he had liked Fire Cloud the most.

“I cannot understand how Fire Cloud was so easily killed,” he mumbled.

“That is plain for all to see, sifu,” answered Whiteface. “Brother Fire Cloud got married to junior sister Phoenix just a few months ago. And every night, he was humping Phoenix like no tomorrow. Of course his knees will be weak and his eyesight blurry. Stand also cannot stand properly….how to fight?”

“Do not talk that way of the dead!” admonished Chui La Pah. “Go and check that the horses are well watered.”

“Yes, sifu,” said Whiteface as he walked off to attend to his duties.

The Flute Master sighed, “I now have the unpleasant task of breaking the sad news to Phoenix.”

With a look of utmost concern on his face, Blackface spoke, “I will be most willing to comfort sister Phoenix in her time of sorrow, sifu.”

“I am sure that you would,” replied his sifu sarcastically.

“Sister Phoenix is too young to be a widow,” remarked Blackface. “I know that now is not the occasion to ask about such things, but when the time comes for Phoenix to marry again, will you give her to me?”

“You are right. Now is not the occasion to ask about such things.”

“But a time will come when the occasion is right.”

“If I am not mistaken, Whiteface also wants to marry her. And he is your senior.”

“Whiteface will not be able to keep her satisfied the way I can.”

“Are you bragging?”

“No, sifu. A fair way to decide is to allow me to fight Whiteface for her.”

“Shut up. We will not discuss this matter any further.”

“But sifu….”

“But what? You the sifu or I the sifu?”

Blackface was silent. He knew that Whiteface would not give up the chance of marrying Phoenix. Who would? She was the hottest woman in the whole Green Scorpion Sect. All there of them; Fire Cloud, Whiteface and Blackface, wanted to marry her. However, Master Chui La Pah had decided that Fire Cloud would be the one to marry her. With Fire Cloud dead, the race should be once again wide open. Thinking about Phoenix made him horny. But Master Chui appeared to favour Whiteface. Damn! The face of Blackface turned black.

+ + + + + +

For five days, Wen Yiji stayed in his room at the inn, drinking double dosage herbal medicine and sleeping. He did not experience any hallucinations except for a few occasions. On one occasion, the room looked twice as big as it was. On another occasion, he thought he saw a blue goat in the room humping the stove.

At the end of five days, he had enough. His recovery was almost complete. He decided that it was time to journey on. He should be on his way to Qinghe to investigate former Imperial Guard Yee Ng Chai. A prosperous Yee Ng Chai. Dealing with cotton fabrics in the Northwestern sector of Qinghe. Near the Buhou bridge. No, Wen Yiji had not forgotten.

Riding his horse drawn carriage, Wen Yiji wondered idly what to say to Yee. It would not do to go and accuse Yee Ng Chai of betrayal without proof. All of a sudden, he felt the urge to shit. He was passing a lightly wooded area, so he turned his carriage off the road. Getting down from the carriage, he went behind a bush and pulled down his pants.

A bird on a tree stared at him and chirped noisily.

"Oh, shut it," scolded Wen Yiji. "Just let me shit in peace and I'll be out of here."

While waiting to finish shitting, he suddenly realized that he had forgotten to take water to wash his backside. It was a small problem. He remembered that he had the first few pages of the Ghost Ninja's manual on him. He could use those pages as toilet paper.

Wen Yiji reached into his clothes and pulled out the pages of the Invisibility Manual.

"Invisibility Manual! Hahaha! I have never heard of such nonsense! It is amazing what rubbishy concepts that people will believe," he smiled in amusement. "Only the village idiot will ever think that a person can truly become invisible!"

He looked at the first page and saw the words:
The Three Laws of Invisibility

"What? This rubbishy concept also got laws?" he asked in amazement. "No joke, man!"

He read on.
First Law: To become invisible, one must first be visible.

"Na beh......that is stating the obvious," he clucked in disgust. "Of course one has to be visible before becoming invisible. If one is already invisible before becoming invisible, then there is no need to try and become invisible some more!"

He read on.
Second Law: Once you become invisible, no one can see you.

"Na beh…..." commented Wen Yiji. "Stating the obvious again! I do not need a manual to tell me that. If someone can still see you then obviously you did not become invisible!"

The third law read:
Third law: You should first know the trick to become visible before you become invisible.

"Na beh......" commented Yiji again. "There is no trick in being visible. Everyone can do that! This manual is so longwinded. Say so many things without saying anything at all."

Wen Yiji had still not finished shitting, so he read on for entertainment's sake.
Instructions: Breathe in five times normally and then breathe out two times.

He breathed in five times and found that he had to breathe out five times.

"I can't believe this crap I am reading," he sighed. "How can anyone breathe in five times and breathe out two times? Breathing in, alternates with breathing out. If you breathe in five times, you have to breathe out five times as well! Obviously, the instructions in these pages are not going to be any good! In fact, this paper is not even worth the shit I am about to wipe!"

He had just finished shitting. Without any further thought, he took the page that he was reading and wiped his ass with it. As he was getting up, he read the next page.

slowly and three times quickly.

"Oh, I get it now!" he exclaimed. "I was supposed to breathe in five times normally and then breathe out two times slowly and three times quickly!"

He tied his pants with his cloth belt and continued, "Let's see if there are any more stupid instructions."

Out of curiosity, he followed every step of exercise listed in the pages and before he knew it, he reached the end of the pages.

"Hmmmmph, no more steps to follow," he muttered. "Well, I don't feel any different. I wonder if there is a lot more steps in the portion that Sun Cheong burned. Stupid moron. Fight me so hard for the manual just to burn it. What an idiot. And I'm no better. I wonder how much time I have already wasted in following the Ghost Ninja's instructions."

He looked at his hands and feet. He was still visible. He laughed, “There! I knew all along that invisibility was impossible!”

He climbed onto the carriage and continued travelling along the dirt road. All of a sudden, the sky got much darker. He felt weird, as if he was not himself. He looked up at the sky.

“Strange weather,” he mumbled to himself. “Not a cloud in the sky but it’s dark. Maybe it is already dusk. But that is impossible. I haven’t had my lunch yet. Could be another hallucination. Perhaps I should get to an inn to rest."

After driving some distance, he spotted three people working in a field planting some crops. He decided to stop and ask directions to the nearest inn. There were three of them; a young girl, an old woman and an old man. He leapt off the carriage and headed for the young girl first.

“Miss,” he said softly. “Will you be kind enough to tell me where the nearest inn can be found?”

The girl turned to look at him. Her eyes widened in shock. Then she fainted and fell to the ground.

Wen Yiji was surprised. It was not the reaction that he expected.

“Wa piang!” he muttered. “These rural girls never see handsome men before! See one good-looking guy and they faint!”

He walked over to the old woman and called out, “Excuse me, auntie.”

The old woman stopped the work she was doing, straightened up, turned around and looked at him. The next moment, she gave a loud scream and then she also fainted.

“Huh?” asked an astonished Wen Yiji. “I have effect on old women also? I must be more handsome than I realized! Maybe I can even get hired for my looks!”

By this time, the old man had also straightened up and turned around. He took one look at Wen Yiji and then fell to his knees. The old man kowtowed to him without stopping.

“What? Old man also?” muttered Wen Yiji. “Wah lau eh….old men also affected by my looks. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not!”

Aloud, he shouted, “Hey, old man! Stop it! I don’t want to be your idol!”

The old man cried, “Sir, I beg you. Please do not disturb us. If you don't harm us, I promise to offer you a roast pig!”

“Harm you? Do I look like a bandit to you?” asked Wen Yiji indignantly. “And where is your roast pig?”

"Mercy! Have mercy on us, O Torsoless Ghost!" cried the old man. "Oh mercy!"

Wen Yiji was mystified. "Why do you call me a Torsoless Ghost?" he asked.

"I am sorry if you are offended by that name," replied the old man, quivering in fear. "I mean no offense. Since I could only see your legs and not your torso, I called you Torsoless Ghost. I meant no offense. Please don’t kill me."

"Oh," said Wen Yiji, still mystified. "Why can't you see my torso? Is there something wrong with your eyesight?"

"Please do not toy with me, O Whatever Ghost," cried the old farmer. "I am only a simple farmer. You have no torso. I can only see you from the thighs down."

"What?" yelled Wen Yiji. He tried to look at his own body and found that he could see only his legs. No wonder he had been feeling strange. He had earlier dismissed it as a hallucination effect from his medication.

The old man kept on kowtowing.

"Wait a minute," said Wen Yiji. "Maybe this old man is a hallucination! Just like the goat the other day. Except that this hallucination can talk!"

He went over to the old man and kicked him gently.

"No, no, no!" cried the man. “No, don’t kill me!”

The old man sounded real enough. Wen Yiji next pinched himself.

"Ow!" he cried. "This is no hallucination!"

He looked at his own body. Again, he saw only his legs. He could not see his hands. However, he could feel his hands and body. He knew that his head was still there.

“I have turned half-invisible!” he thought to himself in astonishment. “For some reason, only the lower half of the body is visible while the upper part is invisible!”

Wen Yiji stood there for a long time pondering the magnitude of the event that had befallen him while the old man prostrated himself before him.

“I get it now,” he muttered softly to himself. “I practiced the Ghost Ninja’s martial art and that has turned me invisible. Since I only had half the manual, I became invisible in the upper half of my body. Yes! Yes! The concept works! Too bad the other half of the manual was destroyed!”

Exhilarated, Wen Yiji walked up and down, reveling in his state of semi invisibility.

“What am I doing?” he asked the old man while waving his hands in front of him. ‘Tell me or I will eat you!”

“You are just standing there,” answered the old man. “Please do not eat me, O great Ghost!”

Wen Yiji smiled gleefully as he nodded his head. “You can’t see what I am doing, can you?”

“Now you are nodding your head,” said the old man.

“What? Can you see my head?”

“Only your eyes. I can see them very faintly up in the air,” answered the old man.

Wen Yiji was nonplussed. His eyes were still visible, albeit faintly. He closed his eyes to half slits and asked, “Do you see my eyes now?”

“No,” the old man replied.

“Are you truly unable to see my torso?” asked Wen Yiji.

“Err….yes, if you are standing still,” replied the old man. “But when you moved, I could detect a faint ripple in the air where your torso was supposed to be.”

This was something new. Wen Yiji was disappointed to find out that his torso invisibility was not true invisibility. But it made perfect sense. If the Ghost Ninja could become truly invisible, then he would have turned invisible to escape from Sun Cheong. Perhaps at night, the invisibility would function better. He looked at the sky. It had an odd hue. Either dusk was approaching or it was about to rain.

“Old man,” he said to the farmer. “Do you think it will rain?”

“No, O Ghost,” replied the old farmer. “It is a bright and sunny midmorning. I do not think it will rain today.”

“Mid morning? Did you say mid morning?” asked Wen Yiji. “Around lunchtime?”

“Yes,” affirmed the old man. “But I have not had my lunch yet.”

“Neither have I.”

“Please do not eat me, O High Ghost!”

“Tell me the truth. Do you find that the sky is dark for a mid morning?”

“No, I find it bright and sunny.”

“Oh shit….” mumbled Wen Yiji. His exhilaration was gone and he was starting to feel weird. He could feel the warmth of the sun’s rays on his feet, so he knew that the old man was speaking the truth. That would mean that his eyes were not functioning as they used to function before.

“Better turn back into my visible form,” he decided. Then he paused in his thoughts. He did not know how to become totally visible again!

“Oh, no, no, no!” he cried. “Don’t tell me that I will be like this for the rest of my life! Destined to live out my days as a Torsoless Ghost? Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!”

He walked back and forth trying hard not to panic. Stopping in front of the old man, he asked desperately, “What do I do? What do I do?”

“You can haunt some place else instead,” replied the old farmer. “Please don’t haunt us!”

“I mean, what do I do to become a normal human?”

“A ghost cannot become a normal human, I’m afraid.”

“I am not a ghost!”

“Now, you are in denial.”

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!”

“Ghosts don’t have shit to shit.”

“Maybe there is someone else I can see.”

“There is. Our village headman’s son is very humsap. Always going after people’s daughters. Or people’s wives. Sometimes people’s mothers also. You can go and see him.”

“Whatever for?”

“So that you can haunt him till he behaves himself.”

“Kanineh….I am talking about my problem and you are talking about humsap people! Will you be quiet for a moment? I need to think.”

Wen Yiji thought furiously, “I wonder if this invisibility is permanent. Maybe if I stand on my hands, the invisibility will be reversed.”

He stood on his hands and said to the old farmer, “Hey, old man! Tell me what you see!”

Before the farmer could answer, the farmer’s daughter got up from her faint. She looked in Yiji’s direction, gave a scream and promptly fainted again.

The farmer said, “I can see your two legs upside down in the air.”

So, the torso was still invisible.

“Damn!” cried Wen Yiji. He was at a loss at what next to do. He cursed and swore at all and sundry. He needed to go somewhere quiet so that he could work things out; somewhere where there were no people around.

“I need to go somewhere quiet,” he said to the farmer. “Do you know of such a place?”

“Ahh,” said the farmer understandingly. “You need to go to a yin place, suitable for ghosts, is it?. There is a forest not far from here. Go along the road towards west. You will come to a fork in the road. The left road goes to Qinghe and the right road goes to a dark forest. Very dark. Very yin. Not like here, so yang. Good for you there.”

“You appear to want me to leave here quickly. But I’m hungry. I need to eat first.”

“Please don’t eat me! Please don’t eat me!”

At that moment, the farmer’s wife got up from her faint. She looked at her husband cowering in front of Wen Yiji and so she started taking off her clothes.

“What are you doing?” hissed the old man to his wife

“They say that ghosts are afraid of naked women!” his wife hissed back.

“Mama, should I take off my clothes too?” asked the daughter who had woken up again from her faint.

“Yes! Do it fast!” replied her mother. In her hurry, she was all thumbs and could not undo a knot in her clothes.

The girl stripped quickly and stood up. Wen Yiji momentarily forgot his predicament to admire her form. She had nubile breasts and the hairy fuzz between her legs had formed into a vee.

The old woman finally struggled free of her clothes and stood beside her daughter. Wen Yiji took one look at the naked old woman and cringed. She was saggy and wrinkled all over.

“Oh heavens,” he muttered. “I wish I hadn’t seen that!”

He fled to his horse and carriage and drove away as fast as he could.

“Look at him go!” yelled the old woman in satisfaction. “He must be terribly frightened of us!”

“So, ghosts are really afraid of naked women!” remarked the old farmer in awe. “Luckily for me! He said that he was hungry. I thought he was going to eat me!”

“Thank the gods that you are not harmed, father!” exclaimed the daughter. “From now on, if a ghost tries to be funny, I will quickly take off my clothes!”

Next: The Semi-invisible Man

Many are still unaware of the risks from bird flu. Or maybe we are aware, but are just waiting nonchalently for the price of chicken to drop. Fucking vultures.

For some reason, bird flu fails to evoke emotions of frantic horror in quite the same manner as the issue of Paris Hilton out of prison. Which explains why we have not been treating bird flu with all the grave seriousness that it thoroughly deserves.

We need a contingency plan. No more foolin' around. There's work to be done. And birds to be culled.

From now on, you know what you hafta do.

Check all birds. No exceptions.

Is it true that if you take a half-torn bill to the bank, they'll give you half the bill's value?

Not true. The bank people will say that it is vandalized property and that you are in possession of vandalized property. Then they will ask you to go back to look for the other missing piece. Then after they get the other piece, they will ask you to fill a form and then wait in a queue. After that, they will tape the two pieces together in a slipshod manner. And then they will say that the bill cannot be used, so they will have to keep it. You do all the donkey work for them and they treat you like it was your fault the bill got torn. Okay, maybe it was your fault, but they don't have to know that.

Chin Tu Lan



Should you turn off your computer every day?

It depends. You must first go back to basic principles, like knowing why you got the computer in the first place. The computer is there for one good reason only; so that you can get a holistic education. And holistic education means downloading pr0n. If you think that downloading pr0n is the same as downloading prawn, then you are not ready for holistic education yet. In which case, you should turn off your computer and wait until you are old enough. Always remember that the word 'holistic' starts with 'ho'. If you are old enough to look at them hos, then you will surely be using the computer for downloading pictures. That one automatic one. Leave the computer on everyday so that you need not waste precious downloading time while waiting for the computer to boot up. That is not to say that you never have to turn off your computer. Like James Bond said, never say never or you will die another day. Use common sense a bit, mah. For example, if your parents enter your room without warning, then you have to quickly turn off your computer before they get too curious. They come from the pre-internet era and may not understand the holistic concept. If not, the computer manufacturers make the on-off switch for what.

Chin Tu Lan



How come the Earth doesn't melt if its core is molten rock? Wouldn't it just melt through?

Hey, not to worry. This type of thing is very simple one, so we can solve by using simple logic. The earth's core is usually liquid molten rock. That is very hot. Hotter than hot. But the molten rock will cool down one and become solid again during the night. See? You no need to panic like that if your science is si beh solid.

Chin Tu Lan

Chapter 8: Always a higher mountain

The two riders slowed down on seeing Sun Cheong prying himself loose from the grip of the Ghost Ninja. They stayed at a respectable distance.

"Sifu," whispered Blackface on his horse. "Who is that man?”

"That is Master Sun Cheong," whispered back Chui La Pah. "And the old man on the ground looks like the Ghost Ninja!"

"From the looks of it, this Sun Cheong must have beaten up the Ghost Ninja," remarked Blackface.

"Or killed him," said his sifu.

"In that case, Sun Cheong has just saved us a lot of trouble. We should go and thank him."

"No."

"Why not? He has done our work for us. Maybe we can buy him a drink also."

"No!”

“But sifu, a drink will not cost much."

“No! You the sifu or I the sifu?"

"You the sifu, sifu."

"Don't you ever forget that!"

"Yes, sifu,” said Blackface. “Sun Cheong is holding what appears to be a book in his hand.”

"You are right," said Chui La Pah. "Here, take my horse and get at least fifty steps away from me. I will approach on foot from here."

The Flute Master handed his reins to Blackface and got down from his horse. Blackface led both horses away to a safer distance. Slowly, Chui La Pah walked towards Sun Cheong.

Inside the house, Wen Yiji welcomed the respite in fighting and tried to heal himself with his inner energy. He inhaled the qi from the air and tried to expel his pain with each breath. He knew that he might not have time to recover completely, so he would have to find a means of escape as soon as his legs could bear the weight of his body.

Sun Cheong stared hard at the two riders. He knew who they were. Something told him that the presence of the Flute Master could not have been an accident. He was instantly on the alert.

Chui La Pah stared back at Sun Cheong steadily without flinching as he approached slowly. There was no love lost between the two men. The Flute Master called out, "Good afternoon, Master Sun Cheong. Long time no see."

Sun Cheong called back, "Good afternoon, Master Chui. Long time no see, long time happy. May I ask, what brings you here to these parts?"

"I am seeking the Ghost Ninja. There is a matter that I wish to discuss with him.”

Sun Cheong swore softly to himself, “Early don’t come, late don’t come. Now only want to come. After I have killed the Ghost Ninja. Ta ma de.”

Aloud he said, “I am afraid that is not possible. The Ghost Ninja is dead.”

“I see his body lying beside you. Did you kill him?”

“No, I did not. He was already dead when I arrived!”

“Liar!” whispered Wen Yiji on the floor inside the house. Although he could see Sun Cheong, from his position, he could not see whom the bald man was talking too.

Sun Cheong stepped away from the body of the dead old man. He took a few steps towards the Flute Master and thus moved out of Wen Yiji’s range of sight. With pain racking his body, Wen Yiji moved his hands and placed the few pages of the Invisibility Manual inside his clothes. He took a deep breath to gather his Dark Fire Inner Energy. Then he crawled painfully to the side of the house and peeped out through a crack in the wooden wall. He saw the bald Sun Cheong talking to someone who had two flutes tucked in his waistband.

“Two flutes!” he gasped to himself. “He must be the man by the Yellow River…..the one whom the old man was trying to avoid!”

He could see the Flute Master clearly this time. Then he noticed Blackface on horseback some distance in the background. He cursed, “That looks like one of the bastards who was shooting arrows at our boat the other day! I remember that one of them had a dark face.”

Outside the house, Chui La Pah asked, "How did the Ghost Master die, Master Sun Cheong?"

"From old age, I think, Master Chui. How should I know?"

“Pardon me for not believing you. But I think you killed him,” said Chui La Pah in an accusing tone.

“You got which eye that saw me kill him?” asked Sun Cheong. “Which eye?”

“I can see from here that his skull is crushed in. It is obvious to me that you killed him with your Buddha Palm!”

“Why would I do a thing like that?”

“For his secret manual. That must be his Invisibility Manual that you are holding in your hand.”

“This book?” asked Sun Cheong, holding up the manual. “It is not any Invisibility Manual. It is just an ordinary book……called ‘The Seven Daily Habits of Highly Defective People’. You wouldn’t be interested.”

“Ahhhhh…….but I am interested!”

“Too bad.”

“May I respectfully request that you let me have it?”

“Your request is hereby refused.”

"I see," said the Flute Master grimly. "You wish to keep it for yourself."

"No, I wish to destroy it. I was going to do that when you appeared."

"But, why? Why?"

"Because it is totally trash and is not fit to be read by humans."

“Give it to me!”

“No!”

"If you do not give it to me, do not blame me if there is no mercy under my hand!"

"Are you threatening me? You dare to threaten me?"

"That was not a threat. That was a statement of fact!"

In the house, Wen Yiji had already recovered a tiny bit of his strength. He could stand up weakly if he chose to. However, he stayed glued to the hole in the wall, spying on both men and listening. At the back of his mind, he knew that he should be trying to escape while Sun Cheong's attention was diverted. But for some strange reason, he felt compelled to see the outcome of the confrontation between the Flute Master and Sun Cheong.

"Do not be arrogant!” warned Sun Cheong. “What makes you think that you are in a position to threaten me? What qualifications do you have? You are only a trumpet player!"

"I play the flute, not the trumpet!"

"Same thing. Both also make noise with a lot of hot air.”

"Your words are rude and offensive. There is a limit to my patience. I offer you toasted wine, but you insist on punishment wine.”

"Do not talk big in my presence, Master Chui. Just because you have become the running dog of Prince Jin, you think you can put on airs."

"You know of my connection to Prince Jin? Then you should know better than to displease me."

"Who is Prince Jin? Who? A royal nobody! I have no equal under Heaven. I will displease whoever I wish!"

“Your conceit will get you killed. There is always a higher mountain.”

“There is no higher mountain than the Buddha Palm!”

“Proud words. Very big mouth breath. You must have forgotten that I am capable of killing with sound."

“Sound?” sneered Sun Cheong. “Ahhh……yes…..I remember. A long time ago, you woke up one night to play your flute and in the morning you discovered that your wife and children had died in the night. Then you remarried. But you forgot, and so you got up at night to play your flute again. Your second family also died. That is why you have no wife and no children! How pitiful!”

“Do not bring up the subject of my wife and children!”

“You know what killed them? It was your lousy playing! I think they killed themselves when they heard your horrible music. Hahahaha!”

“For that terrible remark, you will die!” snarled the Flute Master in cold fury. “I will kill you first and then take that manual away from your cold dead fingers!”

He took out his Devil Flute and blew some notes on it. The Sounds of Hell from the flute hit Sun Cheong like a blast of pain inside his head.

For a brief moment, Sun Cheong stood there transfixed to the ground. Then he sprang into action. He leapt after the Flute Master and delivered a palm blast. However, the Sounds of Hell had already slowed down his functions and the Flute Master evaded the palm blast easily. Chui La Pah was a canny fighter. He moved his legs even as he played his flute, and maintained his distance from Sun Cheong at twenty five steps; a distance too far for the Buddha Palm blast to be effective, but near enough for the Sounds of Hell to inflict damage.

Inside the house, Wen Yiji felt as if his insides were collapsing. He was not sure what was happening, but instinctively knew that the destructive impact came from the flute. He was not as near to the Flute Master as Sun Cheong and the house wall shielded him to a certain extent. Still, he felt the immense power of the killing sounds exerting a pulsing pressure inside his head. By reflex, he clamped his hands to his ears to block out the sound. It helped, but not as much as he had hoped.

Sun Cheong cried, "Stand and fight me like a man, if you dare!"

The Flute Master ignored him and continue blowing the flute.

Sun Cheong tried a different tactic. His nostrils were bleeding and he decided that it was futile trying to chase after Chui La Pah. Somehow, the sounds of the flute interfered with his fucntions. Using his inner energy, he attempted to shield his organs against the awesome power of the Devil Flute. He faced the Flute Master and concentrated on blocking out the sounds. He held the manual in one hand behind his back and sent a spurt of energy to it. The manual caught fire.

“He’s burning the manual!” gasped Wen Yiji from inside the house. The sight of the burning book galvanized him into action. In agony, he struggled to his feet. Then he saw two buns on the table inside the house. He grabbed the buns and stuffed them one to each ear. Then he clamped his hands tightly over them. The squashed buns sealed up his ears and prevented the Sounds of Hell from entering them. However, although he could not hear anything at all, he could still feel some effect. He could not understand what was happening but knew that he had to get away quickly.

Painfully, he stumbled to the back of the house and then out through the back door. He wandered a few more steps, fell down and tumbled down a slope. The pain in his body was still there, but he was out of range of the Devil Flute. He got up and kept on walking until finally he fell into a hole in the ground and passed out

Meanwhile, the Flute Master blew his Devil Flute relentlessly. He could see smoke rising up from the head of Sun Cheong. What he did not know was that the smoke did not come from Sun Cheong’s exertion of inner energy, but from the flame of the burning manual held behind Sun Cheong.

The realization soon hit Sun Cheong that his powerful Buddha Palm was unable to control the effects of the devilish sounds. He thought that perhaps he should not have burned the manual but used it to bargain for his life. It was too late now; the manual had been destroyed. He could feel his body weakening fast as his strength depleted. There was no doubt in his mind that he would be killed. However, he had one more trick left. He would have to use the Death Illusion Stance and hope for the best. The Death Illusion Stance would send him into a death-like state for half a day and perhaps fool his enemy into thinking that he was dead. Using the remaining energy he had left, he slowed down his heart and breathing. Then he toppled over onto the ground and lay there unmoving.

For a while, the Flute Master kept playing his flute. Then he stopped playing and looked at the immobile Sun Cheong. He hailed his disciple.

“Blackface. Go and see if he is dead,” he ordered.

Blackface approached Sun Cheong’s body with great caution and kicked it a few times. There was no response. Then he jumped up and down on Sun Cheong’s body. Again, there was no response. He knelt down to examine the body.

“Sifu,” he said. “There is no pulse and no breath. Master Sun Cheong’s body is cold and does not emanate yang qi. The blood that was flowing out of his nostrils has dried. I think he is dead.”

The Flute Master then approached the body. He noticed the charred remains of the manual still held in Sun Cheong’s fingers and realized at once what had happened.

“You stupid fool!” he screamed. “How could you have destroyed that!”

He searched the body and found nothing else. Then he walked over to the Ghost Ninja’s body and searched it, hoping to find another copy of the Invisibility Manual. Again, he found nothing.

“What are you looking for, sifu?” asked Blackface.

“I am looking for the Ghost Ninja’s Invisibility Manual.”

“Maybe, it could have fallen on the ground somewhere.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think so.”

“I will help you look,” said Blackface. He got down on his knees and started to feel around.

“What are you doing?” asked the Flute Master.

“I’m looking for the Ghost Ninja’s Invisibility Manual.”

“You don’t have to get down on the ground to feel for it.”

“Sifu, I reckon that the Invisibility Manual will be invisible. If I don’t feel for it, how will I know if it is there?”

“Oh, Heavens,” mumbled the Flute Master. “There is no such thing as an invisible manual! Pig head no brains! Will you stop wasting time?”

“But sifu…”

“No buts. You the sifu or I the sifu?”

Blackface kept silent.

Chui La Pah walked into the house. The place looked like it had not been cleaned for a long time. It was more or less uninhabited. He came out and found Blackface busy trying to lug a bag of potatoes out of Wen Yiji’s carriage.

“What are you doing?” asked the Flute Master.

“I found some potatoes, sifu,” replied Blackface. We can take these back and get them cooked for dinner.”

“You want to take back some worthless potatoes?” screamed his sifu. “Have you learned nothing from me? We only take what is worth taking! Like gold and silver, you idiot! Go around to the back of the house and see if there is anyone else here!”

Blackface dropped the bag of potatoes like hot potatoes. He ran around the house to the back and looked around. Soon, he came back.

“There is nobody around, sifu,” he reported. "Not even a fly."

“Are you sure?” asked the Flute Master. “Did you check carefully?”

“Yes, I did,” replied Blackface confidently.

“Our man in Gaotang told us that the Ghost Master was travelling inside a carriage with some other man. Hmmmmph……who was that other man?”

“It’s simple, sifu,” replied Blackface. “That other man was Sun Cheong. The two of them traveled here together.”

“Why would both of them come here?” asked the Flute Master. “This place is so secluded.”

“I think they were having an affair,” suggested his disciple. “Things like this is known to happen. They must have come here for a bit of privacy.”

“Shut up. You don’t know them as well as I do.”

“Well, at least we can tell Fire Cloud’s widow that her dead husband’s killer is dead.”

The mention of Fire Cloud reminded Chui La Pah of something.

“I left Whiteface to arrange the transportation of White Cloud's coffin back to the Imperial City," said the Flute Master. "Let’s go back to see how Whiteface is doing.”

The two men got on their horses and rode back the way they came.

Some time later, Wen Yiji regained consciousness. He clambered out of the hole and looked around. His body still hurt, but the healing process had done a good job. He could move around without much effort.

“What a day,” he muttered to himself. “Almost got killed by the Buddha Palm. And then almost got killed by the Flute Master also. Never been so shameful before!”

He headed towards the front of the house and then found the bodies of Sun Cheong and the Ghost Ninja. His carriage was intact, but the horse was dead, killed by the Sounds of Hell from the Devil Flute.

“Poor horse,” he muttered. “No chance to pull another carriage."

He contemplated the situation and then grumbled, "Poor me. Now I have to pull the stupid carriage!”

He bent over the dead body of the Ghost Ninja and said, “Old man. I did not know who you were. However, I will give you a decent burial. I remembered you saying that you were visiting the grave of your friend. I will bury you beside your friend.”

He got a spade from his carriage and headed behind the house to look for the grave of the Ghost Ninja’s friend. He remembered the old man saying that the grave was on the other side of the hill behind the house. He soon located the grave and started digging into the earth beside it. As he dug, he heard the sound of a horse snorting. Curious, he followed the direction of the sound and found a brown horse tied behind a huge bush.

“This must be Sun Cheong’s horse!” he exclaimed. “He must have kept it here so that the Ghost Ninja would not suspect that anyone was in the vicinity.”

When he had finished digging the grave, Wen Yiji took the horse and rode it to the house to collect the dead Body of the Ghost Ninja.

"Old man," he addressed the corpse. "I will not be able to dress you nicely before burying you. I will have to bury you as you are. Both you and your killer are entering Hell together. I cannot make you better looking than your killer. But I can make him uglier than you!"

Wen Yiji took the spade and aimed at Sun Cheong's head. Then he brought the spade down sharply. Twice. Sun Cheong's face was instantly disfigured.

However, Wen Yiji was still not satisfied. "Old man," he cried. "I will make sure that Sun Cheong will not be able to chase you around in Hell!"

So saying, he took the spade and broke Sun Cheong's right leg in twenty places. He leaned back and looked at his handiwork.

"One last thing, Old Man. Looks are not everything. I will make doubly sure that this Sun Cheong will not be able to compete with you for women in Hell!"

He stood between Sun Cheong's legs and struck repeatedly with the spade. Finally, he was satisfied. He then lifted the Ghost Ninja's body onto the brown horse and led it to the grave. After he had buried the old man, he hitched the horse onto his carriage. A sudden pain in his chest reminded him that his internal wounds had not yet closed entirely. He looked in the direction of Sun Cheong and cursed colourfully.

Suddenly, he remembered something. The words of Sun Cheong "If you can beat me, I will eat my own shit!" rang in his mind.

In anger, he took some horse shit to Sun Cheong's body that was still in the Death Illusion Stance. He said, "Since I did not beat you, I cannot force you to eat your own shit. However, I can give you some other shit, you lowly worm!"

Wen Yiji opened up the bald man's mouth and dumped the horse shit in. Then he took a stick and compacted the shit in the mouth.

Klook Klook Klook Klook Klook!

His anger subsided slightly. He took one last look at the area and then drove his carriage away from the place where he had very nearly lost his life. Twice.

Some time in the night, Sun Cheong woke up from his Death Illusion Stance. Instantly, he felt the intense pain on his face, his right leg and the area between his legs.

After having discovered that he was still alive, he asked, "Wot ish dis stuff in mah mouf?"

I don’t usually have time to read the news. Skimming over the headlines is usually what I do, and then I quickly try to guess the news. Imagine my concern when I read this news story header:

“Concern over ageing fuckers”

Is there a genuine cause for concern? Of course there is! Ageing fuckers may get a heart attack on the ninety-ninth stroke, if you know what I mean. And if he collapses halfway, he’ll also give his sex partner a heart attack. And the person who discover them will also get a heart attack.

It’s a tao thing. One beget two, two beget three, three begat……etc.

This is too important a piece of news to pass up, so I read on.

Shit, they were writing about Fokkers, not fuckers. Sheeeesh…..they don’t even write the news I want to read anymore. Dammit, they are not even trying.

There is something odd about this Altantuya affair. Change of judges, change of lawyers, change of prosecution team, change of trial date. It's all very strange. Even the old familiar smell of bullshit has changed.

Let's change the topic. I don't like to talk about people getting murdered. Wuxia fiction is different. Kungfu characters get bumped off in the most horrific manner so that you can get entertained. To put it crudely, it's their fucking responsibility to die. In real life, death is a difficult topic to handle. Just like water vapour rising into the air to condense later as raindrops falling onto earth, people live in order to die. Law of nature. Unfortunately, that does not make the topic easier to write about.

Here's something odd again. The new Miss Universe, Rio Mori, says that confidence and brains make people beautiful. OMG! Brains and confidence? And all this while, I actually thought that it was all about a big set of balanced boobs. Damn. I'm so out of touch.