chapter 7

(Traditional Chinese cover scanned by Dairytea)

Chapter Seven

Mars just crashed into Earth. Bush just bombed bin Laden. No word or expression in this world could possibly describe my shock right now.

If I were someone more timid, I would have foamed at the mouth and died on the spot. But I, Ma Xiaodong, have seen things in my years, and let’s not forget about the heavenly judgment. I stay frozen for only six second – only six! – after hearing the pretty boy talk.

And after those six seconds, I

do what anyone would do. I dash towards the creature and pull open the loose

robe. Flat. Definitely a man.

I look at him. He looks back

at me.

“My good man, are you

Ruoshui?”

He flashes a smile. I crack

open my mouth back at him.

Then I grab the jade pillow

from the bed and smash it against my head.

The world goes black, and I

start floating again. The hills are there. The bridge is there. The department

chief is there, too.

“What have you done now?”

“What am I doing, you ask?” Once

again, I find myself clutching at the old man’s collar. “I’m hunting you down

and demanding a refund! You sonuvab.i.t.c.h! You tricked me! That li’l prince was a

h.o.m.o who keeps men around, wasn’t he?!”

The chief chuckles weakly. “It

is indeed a tiny flaw, but nothing is perfect!”

“A tiny flaw?! I f.u.c.king told

you that I want lots of beautiful women, and you gave me a d.a.m.n f.a.ggot! I’m so

done with this s.h.i.+t. You deal with it, and find me a normal body. Now!”

The chief’s wrinkled face

turns blue, then red and finally white. “Son, you really are too stubborn and

can’t see the truth.”

The truth? I scoff, “Where do

I find truth in that?”

“Now, slow down there.” He

claps my shoulder while taking me aside to the base of the bridge and presses

downward until I am squatting. “You youngsters always have difficulty seeing

the root of the issue. Allow me to a.n.a.lyze this for you. Now, who have you

become? Chai Rong. And who is Chai Rong? The little prince. In the Daxing

Empire, is there anyone above the little prince aside from the emperor? No, there

isn’t. The prince indeed indulges in the pa.s.sion of the cut sleeve, and to be

frank with you, he died because of it. Hey, hey, hey! Take it easy and listen

to me. So the little prince is a cut sleeve. Who made him like that? No one. He

is a cut sleeve because he is happy being a cut sleeve. That is the key here.”

f.u.c.king h.e.l.l! I slap my thigh.

“What’s key about the prince being a cut sleeve?!”

The chief pats my shoulder

again. “Son, are you a cut sleeve?”

I spring up. “You’re a f.u.c.king

cut sleeve!”

He pushes me back down on my

a.s.s. “Well, there you go. The problem is solved.”

I glare at him. “How the h.e.l.l

is it solved?!”

“Why can’t you see?” He shakes

his head. “The prince is a cut sleeve. No grudges, no regrets. No one forced

him. He likes being a cut sleeve, so he is. Now you’re the prince, and you

answer to no one aside from the emperor. If you don’t want to be a cut-sleeve,

then you don’t have to be, and n.o.body can say a thing. Am I right or am I

right?”

I consider it for a minute and

admit he has a good point. The chief continues persuasively in my ear. “There

are twenty or so male concubines in the Prince Tai manor. It took but a

word from Chai Rong to get them all there, so likewise it would take but a word

from you to get rid of them all! Whatever you want – as long as it’s not the

wife or the throne of the emperor – you can get with just one utterance. You

have all the power you can ask for, son!”

“Chief.” I nod approvingly. “You

are a genius.”

He beams as he pulls me up.

“Then what are you waiting for? Hurry back before they put you back into the

coffin again.”

I interrupt him, “Wait.”

He stares at me. “What else do

you need?”

“I need to figure out exactly

what Chai Rong did in his lifetime.”

I could see him struggling

internally before finally letting me read Little Prince Chai’s life. Simply

put, it is an epic revolving around the capture and collection of male

beauties.

At one, he stopped

breast-feeding. At two, he learned to read and write. Then at the tender age of

thirteen, he began his life as a cut sleeve until the age of twenty-one, at

which point he had collected nineteen concubines. Behind each was a horrendous,

b.l.o.o.d.y story, and each was more farcical than the last. In order to get a nice round

number, he found his arrow aimed at the newly appointed tanhua.

After bribery and threats failed, he kidnapped the tanhua while the gentleman was returning home. And finally, he died

in bed strangled by the tanhua.

G.o.dd.a.m.n, this guy got off easy

being strangled!

“You have collected many yin

merits, son, just by returning the body to life,” the chief explains to me in

the end. The little prince is the most dear to the empress dowager’s heart, and

the emperor absolutely adores him as well. After the prince was strangled, the

emperor sentenced the nineteen concubines to be buried along with the prince

and the tanhua to death by slow

slicing. As soon as I returned to life, I saved nineteen lives just like that,

and the tanhua is currently being

kept on death row until the emperor decides his fate.

“So, it’s all in the hands of

destiny, son,” he rambles on, embellis.h.i.+ng his thoughts. “Think back over your

previous two decades of life. Was there anything you wish you had

accomplished?”

I think back to my eighteenth

birthday when I learned to accept that I would only ever rise to the level of

ordinary. After that, I considered ambitions and aspirations only in my

daydreams.

“It’s a different story now.

You have been given a second chance. Here, you’ll be able to make a name and a

new world for yourself.” My mind begins to broaden. I got money and power. The

sky’s the limit!

“A man must have ambition,

aspiration, a fighting spirit and his own empire. Now that is a real man! My

boy, you must cherish this rare opportunity. Bring fortune to others, and most

importantly, make a bright future for yourself!”

Standing on the Bridge of

Hopelessness, I see before me a world full of life and possibilities.

An ambitious vow appears in my

head: From today onwards, the world will know what a virtuous hero the new

Prince Chai Rong is!

I bring my fists together and

say to the chief, “I’ll go back now.”

He claps my shoulder once again.

“I will send you back, young man. Quickly now. w.a.n.gqing

is still awaiting my help.”

“w.a.n.gqing?” What an elegant

name. “Guy or girl?”

“A lady, of course,” he says

as a sweet smile finds its way to his face. “She’s my darling. Every soul that

crosses the Bridge must drink a bowl of w.a.n.gqing Water. Haven’t you heard of

it?”

“w.a.n.gqing Water? Isn’t it

Meng-po

Soup?”

His face twitched. “That was

the old name. My wifey said Meng-po made her sound old, so she changed it.”

The tanhua was the

third-place in a national examination.

Literally “forget sentiment.”

The suffix -po refers to

an elderly woman. Meng-po is the Chinese G.o.ddess of reincarnation who met the

dead at the bridge to the afterlife. She served them her broth of forgetfulness

before leading them across the bridge to their next life. She is usually

portrayed as an old woman.

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Dairytea:

Chapter Eight

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