The Tale Never Ends Chapter 114

I scoured through my memory. The name of Xiao Yu sounded familiar to me. Finally I remembered. It was when we had split up to deal with the spirits of the slaughtered infants during one of our bouts against the Apostles of the Creed of the Eight Trigrams. Yuan Chongxi had rushed to the rescue of a wealthy widow and her two daughters.

Xiao Yu was the eldest of the two daughters. She would be graduating this year. What a blissful pair of lovebirds! Due to his help, the widow and her family had more-or-less recognized him as the future husband of the eldest daughter who had, by a stroke of luck, immediately fallen for him! It was just like how his teacher had prophesied that he might be enthralled by the sweetness of romance!

In a stroke of mischief, I immediately keyed in a message, “Chongxi's still sleeping. I'm Shiyan. Do you want me to kick him up?” I promptly recorded a short footage of Yuan Chongxi salivating in his sleep with the drumbeats of his snore in the background and sent it to the girl. With almost no delay, she replied, “It's all right. Let him rest then,” with a snickering emoticon just behind.

I returned the phone to his side and woke Yuan Chongxi up notwithstanding. The sun was already blazing high up in the sky that the shadow of Lin Feng swift and sharp movements stretched into the room. Yuan Chongxi rubbed his eyes and looked at his phone. With a scowling smile, he pointed at me. “Another of your mischiefs, you brat.”

I giggled and slipped out of the room quickly and went to Mother's cabin. I had just turned the corner when I heard the whimpers of some of Aunt Ulan's girls saying, “Please come down”, “It's dangerous.” But I could not be sure since I barely spoke Mongolian. My forehead creased into a frown. Hoping that it was not anything bad, I quickened my pace and broke into a small run towards the other side of the camp where the main hall was situated.

From afar, I saw a group of girls gathering outside the entrance of the main hall. There was even a person sitting on the roof! Who else could it be, if not for my mother! I sped forward and had everyone dispersed, assuring them that all would be well. Even so, the girls were still worried as they reluctantly went off on their own business.

With great difficulty, I clambered out of the second-storey window and heaved myself up to the roof. Mother was guffawing at my miserable attempts to climb up. “It should have been simple for you to climb up. What a pathetic state you were in.” I glowered at her. This is the roof of a two-storeyed building, I almost snapped in return but I only managed a weak smile and sat beside Mother on the ridge of the roof. Despite having entered Aunt Ulan's body, Mother could not hold back her usually-playful temperament like a little girl that even I felt embarrassed.

Suddenly, she sighed. “Four decades. It has been four decades since I came here!” Huh, I almost gasped aloud. Then I realized. That would mean that Mother was also present during Father's encounter with Aunt Ulan! But it was a matter so long ago that I could hardly make anything of it, I brooded. “Urm… Mother… About Father and Aunt Ulan…” I said quietly. Mother smiled. “Come to think of it, I only feel sorry for her, your Aunt Ulan. For forty years she had been waiting for naught.”

There was a hint of melancholy in her voice. Was she sad or was she merely feeling apologetic towards Aunt Ulan? I could not tell. I put on a smile. “Well. Father's centuries-old love for you is as strong as the sturdiest oak, Mother. Surely…” But what I wanted to say was immediately guillotined by Mother's sigh. She shook her head. “We have been together for more than centuries. But your Father has shown me anything but love. I would never be able to attain such affections from him.” Her sudden lamentation left me speechless. I had always believed that Father loved Mother deeply; a love that has endured for centuries. But it was the first time I hear Mother speaking about their relationship. But what was most baffling to me, was Mother could not even tell if Father truly loved her. But how could it be possible? How could they have been together for centuries with no true love? What about me then? Not that I really had anything to do with their relationship.

We talked the whole morning, sitting atop the roof. For the first time in my life, I understood a little more about my parents.

Apparently, Father had long been together with Mother, although there was no love between them. They had posed as a pair of husband and wife in order to provide the facade of a happy family just for me when in truth, a much deeper secret laid between the relationship of my parents which seemed more akin to a master and his handmaiden, after listening to Mother's murky explanation. There was nothing I could bear to say to them as I finally realized that I understood too little about my parents.

Your father, Murong Hai was a generous person, even before he attained his powers and immortality, said Mother. He was a person who would gladly give up his everything for the good of others, including his own life. He had one chance to leave everything behind and live quietly with the person he truly loved. That was long before he achieved his current omnipotence. But he did not make the choice of doing so; all for the sake of his own siblings. But how could you bear to follow a man like him with such unfettered obedience, I asked Mother and she replied that it was their opportune encounter that had allowed Mother to realized the true aim of her existence. He was family to her, even though the sentiment was not mutual, she said to me. I could say nothing. It was a phrase I had heard many times in fiction; a phrase I had never expected to hear in person.

She was hardly the one the great Murong Hai truly loved, Mother gasped again, although he has had his share of lovers and paramours. Uninterested in delving more into Father's dalliances, I said softly to her, “Well, don't look so bleak, Mother. Surely Father has feelings for you, otherwise he would never have wanted to be married to you, no matter it is for me or not.”

Mother smiled gently. No one truly understood Murong Hai, she remarked suddenly, not even she who had spent countless years with him. Despite being his companion for centuries, she could only say that she knew a part of him and no more. He had always remained an enigmatic person all his life, she muttered again, a person could even hold on to a promise for centuries with one whom he barely knew.

I would never have been able to take in everything Mother had told me that morning if not for my experiences in the past two years. Much had changed in my life in recent years that had truly changed my perspective. I had always thought that Father and Mother were powerful mediums that could communicate with all Three Realms of Existences, only to discover that they were actually immortals with deific powers. I would never be able to believe that my family had been harboring so many secrets and a frisky old man like Father was so benevolent a person.

Then I remembered something. “Mother,” I asked, “Was it because of me, that both of you refused to ascend into the Heavens?” To my astonishment, Mother's head gave an unmistakable nod. “To ascend or not to ascend, that was hardly the question,” she admitted and said, “Not that we would have anything to gain. Moreover, your father and I are hardly the immortals that require to ascend into Heaven in order to achieve immortality.” I nodded quietly. Father and Mother were different from Master Six, I long realized. Unlike Master Six who had first ascended into Heaven to become a true immortal, Father and Mother had reached the zenith of immortality without the need of the ascension.

The kick of hooves on the ground robbed us of our attention to continue our talk. We looked down and saw Yuan Chongxi, Lin Feng, and Edelweiss with a large group of girls already on horses, ready for the next chapter of our pursuit. They waved at me.

Unlike the difficult episode of climbing up the roof, leaping down was hardly difficult for me. I strode quickly to a horse, lighting a cigarette before I took the reins. “What's up?” I asked Yuan Chongxi, “You found where we should go to this time?” But his answer was the last one I expected: No.

Chapter end