The Tale Never Ends Chapter 148 The Charlatan

It seemed that our challenger had made quite a fanfare in his preparations, for he had attracted quite a crowd of people watching from the edges of the field. Man and women, elders and children, all huddled by the fields to see what we were up to, murmuring among themselves excitedly.

I stepped into the fields which would serve as the arena for our duel and raised an arm, motioning to the crowd for silence, "Enough with the theatrics. Get him out!" I barked at the man. He turned to a helper who was near a little cabin, "Have the Elder out please!" A man emerged almost immediately and his appearance almost made me burst with laughter! Of all my experiences in dealing with charlatans and fraudsters, this must be my first! The man was dressed up in a set of old Taoist frock, holding a hossu in his hand, while cradling a fish drum in another!

The fish drum was exactly identical to the ones we usually see in the illustrations of Zhang Guolao, one of the Eight Immortals of Chinese mythology. It is a Chinese percussion instrument, made of a long and slender piece of bamboo with two smaller pieces of bamboo sticks inside. I seemed to remember that Sun Wukong of the Journey to the West had once carried something similar when he disguised as a Taoist priest! The elder man came nearer to us and cleared his throat pompously. "Seeing as we are all fellow mediums, I'd suggest that you both make peace. There's no need for hostilities. Please take my word as an elder and a senior. But if any of you refuse to heed my warning..." He stopped short and walked to a table. He placed down his fish drum and hossu and extracted a piece of the rod from the burning flames in the stove. He licked at the red-hot steel, much to the dismay and amazement of the crowds nearby who immediately howled with shock, and continued, "The wok of oil here, and a reenactment of the hill of knives from the Underworld will be at your service."

The old man had barely finished, and Chongxi's voice snapped from behind as he came to me, "Heavens! Spare us your 'elder and senior' speech!" He reached a hand into the wok of oil with a splash, and the crowd gasped, "He's reaching into the wok of boiling oil!"

Chongxi played with the bubbling oil churning around his hand for a few seconds then he did the unthinkable! With a kick, he knocked over the wok. Realizing his opportunity, Lin Feng took a step front and delivered a fist into the air in front of him. With a deafening crack like the clap of thunder, the millstone broke into two halves! A voice came from the crowd, "That's the Six Meridians Divine Swords! (A technique from the wuxia novel Demigods and Semi-devils)" But another voice refuted him, "Rubbish! You know nothing! That's the Buddha's Palm technique!" In truth, the millstone was destroyed by Xiao Qi and her sisters, and only those with true powers or the gift of Sight could see them. Ignoring the cries from the onlookers, Lin Feng delivered another fist at the flaming stove with knives and swords inside, toppling it to the ground. The burning charcoals poured to the ground, sizzling in protest. The first voice screamed again, "Look, guess what kungfu this is!" "That's the Relentless Waves technique!" said the other. But a third voice quipped this time, "Nonsense, all of you! That's the Dragon-grappling Technique!" These guys must have too much kungfu novels and flicks. I grimaced helplessly.

The man who challenged us gaped with shock at the sudden turn of events. He clapped a signal and seven young men rushed into the fields, each of them armed with menacing-looking sabres. But before they could come closer to us, every one of them fell headfirst to the ground. However, the first of the seven did not fall. But he stopped suddenly when he passed under the branch of a tree and slipped to a fall on his back suddenly with his sabre falling loose from his grasp and clattered harmlessly on the ground. A strange force lifted him into the air. But no matter how he kicked, he remained floating helplessly. The rest of the six started to howl with pain on the ground until another strange force dragged all six of them backward! Many of the people from the crowds averted their eyes, not being able to take in any more. I raised my hand and snapped my fingers, signaling to Edelweiss. She immediately placed a call to Zheng Shuang, who had already been waiting nearby.

My arm remained outstretched after the signal; I pointed at the tree, and the young man who was hanging in mid-air fell to the ground with a loud thud. He sat on the ground, panting for breath while massaging his neck. His cohorts finally stopped moving too, although the skins at their haunches have been rubbed raw and there were several bite marks too so severe that some of them were bleeding profusely.

I approached the Taoist priest pretender and snatched the burning rod of steel from him. "Strange. What does pomegranate skins taste like? I bet they're far from good."

The old man face immediately turned white with shock. Mumbling incoherently, he did not know what else to say. I looked around and raised an arm slowly into the air and stretched my palm out. The old fraudster saw and fell to his knees at once, clutching at my ankles while begging for mercy. That made me chuckled. "What are you doing? I have not even done anything yet!" "I know what you're going to do; you're going to kill me with the Thunderclap technique! Ghost or demons, humans or supernatural beings, no one survives a blow from the Thunderclap!" His voice must have reached the crowds, as many among them quickly covered their ears as if anticipating a bolt of lightning to fall from the sky. "Were you not some Elder of that bumbling fool? Surely you'd not be afraid of something as trivial as this! Come on, let's try it." From the crowd came a little voice. It was a boy, a naughty imp who shouted, "Let's try it, let's try it! It must be fun!" Chongxi strode over and wiped his hands on the old fraudster's Taoist robes, saying, "Relax! It's not painful, heh heh heh heh!" The jaunty little rascal shouted again from afar, "Of course! Come on, you'll feel no pain once you're dead!"

But the old Taoist fraudster banged his head continuously on the ground, begging miserably, "Please, dear lord! I am merely a common swindler trying to make a modest living! I beseech your mercy for intruding upon your peace and anger you. But I didn't know you're a true immortal! I'll never cheat anyone ever again! Please give me a chance to repent!" "Heh heh heh," I replied, "People might criticize me as a bully if I were to kill you now. Very well, I'll show you mercy then! But you'll have to accept your punishment in jail!" I threw a signal to everyone. My companions and I, with the Six Sisters, returned to the car where Edelweiss was waiting and we made our way home. As the car roared to life when Lin Feng twisted the key, we could hear the sirens of police cars coming. Zheng Shuang has arrived. From where we parked the car, we moved slowly to the main road where we could get a better height that overlooked the fields. There, we saw from afar the swindler and the seven young men were escorted to the police cars in cuffs. Pleased with our handiwork, we headed home, laughing merrily at our triumph.

I reached the Center the following morning to find Lin Feng charging at me anxiously, "It's bad! It's really bad!" "What's wrong?" I asked. He shoved his phone to me and pointed at the screen. "We're all on the news!" I looked at the screen and saw a headline that says, "Reel to Real: Pretender Medium suffers a humiliating defeat in the contest against the real deal!" There were even recording footage of what happened at the fields yesterday and even photos too, all courtesy of the many onlookers. Below a small video clip of Lin Feng demolishing the millstone was a caption that said, "The Buddha's Palm!" and another line, saying "Man dips hand into wok of boiling oil as if it was a bowl of cool water!", just below another video clip of Chongxi dipping his hand into the wok. I scrolled down, and found another video clip that said, "Display of magical powers." It was the one where the seven young men were held up into mid-air by Xiao Qi and her sisters. Fortunately, there was nothing about the Thunderclap technique in the recording of the fraudster kneeling at my feet. It might have been too noisy then for anyone to hear us.

What in the world?! This is bad! The news of our exploits could be viewed as the spread of superstitious beliefs in the eyes of the government! We might even be arrested by the police! I called for an emergency meeting with my companions. Publicity for the De Chang Center for Paranormal Studies was always welcomed, but we would now have to think of ways to handle the loose ends. Zheng Shuang could be calling any minute now!

After some intense discussion, we decided to stick to the "Chinese wushu" story. We agreed to dismiss everything in the video footages to simple science and Chinese wushu instead of magic or sorcery. "But wouldn't this drive away any future clients?" Chongxi asked, frowning with concern. But Lin Feng quipped, patting on Chongxi's shoulders, "It's fine. It's more appealing, in fact. The more you try to hide it, the more people grow curious. Anyone who've seen the video clips would believe that it's magic and we are the real deal."

Indeed, Zheng Shuang's name appeared ominously on the screen of my phone as it blared before noon. We arranged to meet for lunch to discuss the matter. As soon as we have met, Zheng Shuang tendered his first inquiry. "Look at this. Our coroner has reported that he has never seen this kind of wounds before! The holes bore right through the bones, look! There's not even any fracture as if the holes were made by a drill!" Quietly, I muttered, "Those are wounds caused by throwing weapons like darts. The doctors will know what to do!"

They should count themselves lucky! I had specifically ordered my spirit wolves to not kill anyone, otherwise, all seven of the young boys would already be in the morgue by now! We continued discussing how should Zheng Shuang respond to the rumors in the news over lunch. Expectedly, an official statement was released by the police station on WeChat that evening, saying, "Citizens Murong Shiyan, Lin Feng, and Yuan Chongxi are hereby recognized for their exemplary services to the nation and country to help the local police in apprehending several members of forbidden religious cults. The religious cult involved in the most recent incident had even tried to enlist help from several local triad members to incite more unrest and destabilize public order. But thanks to the help of the citizens, all suspects have been successfully arrested and investigations are still underway. The De Chang Center for Paranormal Studies have also confirmed that the techniques and methods used in their aid to apprehend the suspects are merely Chinese Wushu techniques instead of sorcery and magic. The public is henceforth encouraged to refrain from spreading words of the contrary..."

News of the released statement slowly reached the local radio stations and news on television. For once, the De Chang Center for Paranormal Studies became the talk of the town.

On most parts, some believed that the entire show at the fields was a meticulously-planned publicity stunt, while some held on to what they saw at the scene, claiming that we were truly mediums who possessed supernatural powers. Either way, everything was beginning to move in the direction like how Lin Feng had predicted.

In truth, Zheng Shuang himself was filled with brimming interest that he had asked us about what happened in the fields that day. "That's simple actually," I explained, "The steel rod was really heated to the point of red-hot. But the charlatan had first applied a layer of a concoction made from pomegranate skins. It numbs his skin, allowing him to lick at the burning steel without feeling pain. But the wok of boiling oil is nothing but a sham. There's only a thin layer of oil over a thick layer of vinegar below. What was boiling and bubbling that day in the wok, was not the oil, but the vinegar below. You'd hardly feel any heat above..."

But just when we were thinking that we have reached the end of the entire affair with the weasel, we found ourselves vastly mistaken. We went back to the warehouse where the lair of the weasels was later one day. But not only were the weasels missing, even the evil spirits that I have stationed there to watch their entrance were already gone!

Chapter end