Chapter 16 – Big Boss Tang’s Adventure (1/2)

Chapter 16 – Big Boss Tang’s Adventure

Part 1

April 19. Daybreak.

Pale rays of morning light seeped in through the window, allowing Big Boss Tang to gaze upon Ingot’s face.

He was drunk. Back when he said “I’m not drunk,” he had instantly fallen asleep, and now that he slept, he looked like a child.

He was a child, an intelligent, mischievous, charming, annoying boy, just like a boy she had known when she was young.

She had called that boy “bro,” and he had called her “kid brother.” He really had regarded her as a kid brother. Every day they would go hiking or tree-climbing together. They would curse and fight, ride cows and chase dogs, steal chickens and go fishing.

All the things that adults forbade children to do, he would take her to do. All the tricks that boys played, she had played.

Eventually, she almost forgot that she was a girl.

Then one summer day, he took her to the forest behind the mountain to go splash around in the brook.

It was a hot day, and she wore a thin outfit of woven grass cloth. The water in the brook was cool and refreshing. The two of them had shouted up a storm as they played, until her clothes were soaked through.

The clothes were tight on her body, and the afternoon summer sun shone down on her in its warmth.

She suddenly realized that he wasn’t shouting any more. He was staring at her stupidly with his large eyes.

It was at that moment that he discovered she was definitely not a boy, and furthermore, she had grown up.

She had started to get nervous.

And then she saw something on his body changing, changing in a very scary way. She wanted to run, but her legs had already grown weak.

***

By the time they returned home that day, the sky was dark, and dinner had long since been eaten.

From that day forward, even though he still called her “little brother,” he never again took her to play like the boys play.

From then on, she was his, all the way to the day that he decided to leave and roam Jianghu. He told her not to play with other boys, to wait for him until he returned.

But he had never returned.

***

She was seventeen that year, and now she was thirty-four.

In these seventeen years, she had never had a second man. And never had there been a second man who could move her heart.

She had never imagined that after those seemingly endless seventeen years, she would suddenly meet a young man like this, so intelligent, mischievous, charming and annoying.

She felt her heart beating.

Just now when Ingot had embraced her, a familiar heat had flushed her body, the same feeling she had felt on that summer evening.

If Ingot hadn’t fallen asleep drunk, what would have happened?

She didn’t dare think about it.

—How could this little scoundrel act like this? How could he be so pernicious?

***

Even though it was only April, it seemed to be getting hot. Uncomfortably hot.

She was sweating, sweating uncontrollably.

She couldn’t wait for the little scoundrel to wake up. She couldn’t give him another chance to mess with her, to confuse her, to hurt her.

A woman of her age should not have done something as stupid as this.

She quietly picked up her woven, golden shoes from under the bed, then pushed open the door to leave. But then she walked back quietly and covered Ingot with a thin blanket. Finally, she left.

The dimly lit courtyard outside was cool and humid. Milky, morning fog drifted about. Someone sat on the stone steps of the corridor opposite her, cheek resting on her hand, staring at her.

“Little Cai,” said Big Boss Tang, surprised. “What are you sitting there for? Why aren’t you asleep?”

Little Cai ignored her, instead staring dully at the golden shoes in her hands.

—This young girl was already growing up, and was already at the age where she would have flights of fancy. The more she shouldn’t thing about something, the more she liked to think about it. And she would always thing about the worst things.

Big Boss Tang knew what she was thinking, but couldn’t devise a way to explain herself.

—When a women stays all night in a man’s room, then leaves in the morning, disheveled, carrying her shoes, half drunk…

What would people think? What could she say?

“Go back to your room and go to sleep!” she said, avoiding Little Cai’s eyes. Then in a very level voice she said, “You should have gone to sleep a long time ago.”

“Yes, I should have. And what about you?” She stared at her. “The entire night, you didn’t go back. Why?”

Big Boss Tang couldn’t think of anything to say.

With a cold laugh, Little Cai said: “I advise you to put on your shoes as quickly as possible. Walking barefoot can lead to a cold.”

With that, she stood, turned, and walked off without a backward glance. It seemed as if she had no intention of ever looking at Big Boss Tang again.

There was a chill in the early spring air.

Big Boss Tang stood there stupidly on the stone walkway, feeling cold spread from her feet all the way into her heart.

She hadn’t done anything wrong whatsoever, but she knew that what she had done was broken a young girl’s heart.

***

Dawn light spread, but the fog did not dissipate.

She let out a deep sigh from her heart, and was about to head back to her bedroom when she suddenly noticed that she was once again not alone in the courtyard. Someone sat on the stone steps in the spot that Little Cai had just vacated, check resting on hand.

The big difference was, it was not a young girl, but an old man.

A weird, little old man.

Part 2

Big Boss Tang didn’t recognize the little old man, and had never seen someone as weird-looking as him before. She had never imagined she would ever see someone like this.

The little old man was not just extremely old, he was also extremely small. Some parts of him seemed older than anyone else in the world, and some parts smaller.

His head was almost completely bald. Only a few white hairs stuck out of the top of his head, and they looked almost like they had been glued on. Even the strongest wind wouldn’t blow them away.

Almost all of his teeth were gone. From the top of his mouth to the bottom, from left to right, he only had one tooth. But his tooth was not like the usual teeth of old men, dirty and yellow.

His only remaining tooth was bright white, so bright it seemed to glow and shine.

He was truly old, and yet the skin on his face was like that of an infant’s, white and soft. It was a rosy white, and a soft like tofu.

He wore a set of red clothes with gold lining, embroidered with gold flowers. Only nouveau riche playboys on their way to a brothel would wear something like this.

Wouldn’t you agree that an old man such as this is truly incredible?

***

Big Boss Tang just about laughed.

But she didn’t. Because this courtyard should in no way have a person such as this in it.

And yet, there he was sitting in front of her, looking at her. He gazed at her with a twinkle in his eye, the look you might expect to see on the face of a man who was twenty, or thirty, or forty or maybe fifty years old.

Luckily, Big Boss Tang knew how to keep her cool. She could do it despite being shoeless. So she nodded at him and smiled.

“Hello, how are you?”

“I’m very good,” said the little old man. “Extremely good, good beyond belief.”

“May I ask your honored family name? And what distinguished business brings you here?”