Chapter 157 (1/2)

In the living room, Nangong Wuyue and Nangong Sanba sat on the couch while the rest were directly opposite them. The atmosphere felt a bit like a court proceeding. It was awkward.

However, the most awkward thing was the one with the flashy name, Nangong Sanba…

“Okay, laugh all you want.” Nangong Sanba sighed. He noticed the expression on their faces. Y’zaks had no clue what was going on because he was from a foreign world. “It’s not the first time I wanted to change my name.”

“It’s your real name, huh?” Hao Ren tactfully expressed his surprise. “It doesn’t matter what name you’ve got. If you look on the internet, you’ll find tons of people with even funnier names like Hammer Wang, Dog Egg Lee and etc. But, I’ve never heard any demon hunter with this name.”

Of course, he did not express all this thoughts: while Nangong Wuyue had a beautiful name—poetic as well as elegant, her brother’s name was the anti-climactic Nangong Sanba. Being a demon hunter, he had to be one of the dark forces’ major bosses. Antagonists always had bossy and bombastic names. Yet, this guy before him was a Sanba or a fool! The name suggested that he would not make a good demon hunter—it was like a demon with ‘noble’ in its name.

However, he kept the thought to himself; he did not want to further upset Nangong Sanba and also Y’zaks about his not-so-happy past.

“It was my mom,” said Nangong Wuyue as she helplessly glanced at her brother. “She wasn’t an educated woman. She named us based on the month we were born. My brother was born on 8th of March so, she named him Nangong Sanba (Sanba—’three eight’ literally means 8th of March in Chinese but, it also carries another connotation: foolish). As I was born in the middle of May the following year, she wanted to name me Nangong Wuyue Shiwu (Wuyue Shiwu means 15th of May in Chinese) but, it sounded too wordy so, she decided to simplify it to Nangong Wuyue… It’s that simple.”

Hao Ren glanced at Nangong Sanba. “Hey…’Sanba’ isn’t really a bad word after all. But, it’s weird to call a master like you ‘Sanba’. You can always change your name. Maybe you should.”

Nangong Sanba’s face turned solemn. “We were born to our parents, and we will live with our given names. How could I go against the wishes of our parents? When I said I wanted to change my name, it was just a thought. I’d never do it.”

Hao Ren was astounded. He looked at the demon hunter and thought: a demon hunter should have a good name that matched his stature. A good name would go a long way, and was so much cooler than the crap he had just uttered.

“My brother’s as stubborn as a mule.” Nangong Wuyue let out a sigh as she said, “Relax, Sister Vivian. My brother isn’t like other demon hunters. He wouldn’t find trouble with you because he’s no match for any of you after all, except Rollie. Oh, speaking of which, Rollie hasn’t slept yet.”

The black and white cat was meandering around the living room when it heard its name being mentioned. It halted in its step, meowed and stared suspiciously at Nangong Sanba as if it was studying the new tenant. Vivian waved and signaled the cat to come to her. She cuddled and caressed it in her arms. At the same time, she looked up and glanced at Nangong Wuyue. “Is it because he’s a mixed-blood so, he doesn’t possess the full ability of a demon hunter?”

During their trip to England, Nangong Sanba was already known to them as a half-baked demon hunter. Vivian presumed that he was a normal person with some demon-hunter knowledge. However, Vivian was wrong. He was the real deal albeit a mixed-blood demon hunter.

“Lineage is one thing. Another reason is, there was a break in inheritance during my dad’s time.” Nangong Wuyue was not hiding her past anymore. She bared it all. “As you may have already known, demon hunters and humans are different. They’re different yet, they share similarities. Demon hunters live as long as the other-kind. They marry only their own kind. Newly-born demon hunters receive the gift and injection of power from their parents.. Then, they start to train under their parents and fight weaker evil spirits as well as demons on their own when they turn 12. When they become 16, they leave their parents and learn from other senior demon hunters for a further three to five years. They are introduced to other demon hunters at the same time. After that, they are finally integrated into the community, recognized and accepted as one of their own. This was always the case up to my grandparents’ generation.”