Chapter 268 - Advice Over Drinks (1/2)
“Prodigal son? What do you mean?” I asked the restaurateur who had aroused my interest to know more about our new friend. He cast a look at Zhang Er’ge and chuckled. “Best you ask him yourself,” he muttered and he scrambled around the table, collecting all the mounds of bamboo sticks from our table before he left.
It was time to delve more about our friend. By the sound of it, Zhang Er’ge’s past did not seem disgraceful. “So, Zhang Er’ge. What did the proprietor mean by ‘prodigal son’?” I asked and Zhang Mingwang giggled as a preoccupied finger caressed the scar on his arm. “It’s all things of the past,” he remarked dismissively and I decided to prod no further. But a voice came from another table, yelling, “Zhang Er’ge? You self-conscious clod! If you’re reluctant to, then let me tell his story!”
We twisted our heads back and saw three men grinning as they came to us. The man on the most left was the shortest with a height that almost matched Chongxi. The one in the middle was bespectacled, his back arched and his hair white like a wizened old man. He looked almost as tall as the stocky man, if not taller. And with their taller companion on the most right, the one who had just spoken, they looked like a pair of severed fingers. The last man lumbered at least almost five foot nine, even though he was as gaunt as a pole, which made me wonder if his weight even exceeded fifty kilograms.
The short, stocky man looked just as doltish as Chongxi while the pseudo-old man in the middle looked haggard and weak. The scrawny too wore a set of spectacles and with the cigarette between his teeth, he looked like a scholarly bag of bones. Yet despite their normal-looking attire, none of them were giving off the “normal people” vibe, instead they looked more like delinquents and criminals.
“What do we have here? Wow, Murong Shiyan, as I live and breathe,” the scrawny uttered. I chuckled diffidently and remarked, “Ah, I’m sure everything you’ve heard about me has been exaggerated to an Olympic degree. What shall I call you?”
“Liu Siyang.”, “Zhu Fengwei”, and “Mu Haisong, the same Mu as the folklore heroine Mu Guiying,” Shorty, Oldy, and Scrawny introduced themselves in cue. Zhang Er’ge, still sitting between Na San and I, scowled with amused glee, “Mu! There we go again, you running around, sprouting nonsense about me!” Mu giggled and remarked to me with a wink, “Look at him brag.”
Mu turned out to be a talkative fellow. Despite his thuggish outlook, one could definitely see that he was a learned person from his speech and conduct. He reminded me of Yan Jishi, who, notwithstanding the strings of expletives that escaped his mouth, was also a nice person to be friends with.
Mu began telling us about Zhang Er’ge’s past. He once operated an internet cafe of his own. But his business turned poor and he lost money. So he sold the internet cafe to pay off the debts and left to work elsewhere. But without proper education since he was a boy, he could only work as bouncers or “crowd controllers” in night clubs and bars, while occasionally engage in shakedowns and extortions for loan sharks, until one day, he was cornered by a rival. He was attacked. Stabbed and cleaved that he almost died and the terrible scar on his arm was the souvenir from that fight.
In wine lies the truth. After a few rounds, Zhang Er’ge’s tongue became loose and he added himself, “You won’t be able guess how many friends I’ve gotten after working in the roughs for so many years. None! These three of them…” His finger pointed to each of the Three Musketeers before us and continued, “… they are the closest thing to friends that I have. They truly see me as a friend themselves. It’s not easy these days to find people like them. People like you, Murong Shiyan. And for that, I admire you. These three friends of mine have warned me, implored me, and admonished me countless times. But I was greedy. I always wanted to make big bucks. And for that, it nearly cost my life. Fortunately, I survived. So, that’s the end of my swashbuckling days. I now operate a small mini-market for a living.”
“Rome is not built in a day,” Mu commented affably, “You start small, building it up brick-by-brick. Like how you eat barbecue skewers.” He pointed at the mounds of bamboo sticks. “You have to eat them one by one. No one eats a whole roasted lamb at a barbecue stall.” Zhang Er’ge simpered and nodded, taking a draft of beer from his can.
Mu and his two friends drew up chairs of their own and sat down with us. He looked at Na San and me. “I heard a snippet of what you’re saying just now. You’re going to save that prince?” I nodded. “Be that as it may,” Mu chuckled and said, “I don’t think it’ll be easy to get him to give up his purpose. He could still remain an enemy of yours even if you saved him. He could never stop trying to use you to recreate that empire of his.”