Paths Of Life

 

Volume 2 : Path of a Warrior

 

Chapter 5 : Adjusting to the New World

 

The days passed by one after the other. The gradually yellowing leaves hinted at the imminent arrival of fall. Despite all the ruckus caused by the announcement that night, nothing much had changed for the villagers themselves. They simply had to get used to a new strange looking fellow walking amongst them- actually there were two of them if Bo was counted as well.

 

But for new strange looking fellow, his first few days at the Ao tribe could be called anything but normal. It soon became clear to him that what  he was stuck in was definitely not a bandit camp, it seemed to be more of a village. But being unable to talk to any of the people around made things quite difficult. The miscommunication even led to a couple of embarrassing situations for him.

 

One such situation occurred on his first morning in the village. It involved a rather awkward game of charades with the man at the bonfire in an attempt to ask for directions to the washroom. The man at the bonfire or as Zhang Gui decided to call him - Bear Man was terrible at dumb charades. And hence the game ended with him having to relieve himself in the nearest hedge of bushes - a spectacle that was not appreciated by the female villagers who witnessed it.

 

Master Zhen immediately decided that the first order of business was to teach Zhang Gui how to speak. Zhang Gui on the other hand blamed the awful charades skills of the bear man - how could he have known that there would be a world in which a raised pinky finger would mean nothing.

 

And that is how Zhang Gui began his language lessons. To serve as his teacher, Master Zhen brought over the most learned man of the tribe - Chief Daquan. But to the ignorant Zhang Gui he just looked like a young man covered in extravagant leathers. He looked almost too posh to be a tutor. Ever since that man saw Zhang Gui, he simply would not stop smiling. It was a creepy grin as well, oddly reminiscent of that hunter he had met in the forest. Of course, he could not inquire about the identity of this man yet so in his mind he decided to just address him as Creepy Man.

 

If Master Zhen and Chief Daquan were to ever find out that they were referred to as Bear Man and Creepy Man, one could only imagine how many Ao tribesmen would fall victim to their anger.

 

Everyday held a new challenge for Zhang Gui. He had yet to fully recover from the public urination debacle of the day before but unfortunately his second day was bound to bring yet another humiliating experience that he would never forget. It happened when he was on his way back to Master Zhen’s hut after a grueling day of memorising vocabulary.Not paying great attention to his surroundings he crashed into Ao Longwei.  Zhang Gui recognized him immediately as the hunter who had kidnapped him back in the forest. He had nothing but apprehensive feelings towards this former kidnapper. 

 

Perhaps Ao Longwei had heard about Zhang Gui taking language lessons or maybe he was just dumb but he suddenly started talking  - asking him all kinds of questions -  as if he had no inkling that the boy could not understand most of what he said. 

 

Unfortunately for Zhang Gui - ‘yes’ was one of the first words he had learned and in a bid to quickly escape an uncomfortable situation, he replied yes to all the questions and ran back to his hut. 

 

“Oi my lucky star, it's me - we met in the forest. Do you remember me ?”

 

“Umm… Yes”

 

“I saved you and that monkey of yours that day.”

 

“Yes”

 

“Well there is no need to thank me for it. But if you really want to express your gratitude - I guess you could help me hunt for some animals back in the forest, I still have to catch one more for the hunting party.”

 

“Yes”

 

“Oh how nice...but I really have to hand it to Chief Daquan, he’s managed to teach you so much so soon. You can already hold a conversation with me. My mother says I could not speak properly till I was 6 years of age.”

 

“Yes”

 

“Quite the agreeable fellow aren’t you?”

 

“Yes”

“You know, saving you actually brought me a lot of benefits and to thank you for those, I don't think there could be a better gift than making you my honorary little brother. What do you think?”

 

“Yes”

 

And that is how Zhang Gui came to be known as Ao Longwei’s lackey around the tribe. It was only after a few days that the truth dawned upon him. 

 

“Big brother!!? He wants me to call him big brother? Nevermind the years I spent toiling away in Hell, I was already 27 years old before I died on Earth. And he wants ME to call HIM big brother? ”

 

But by the time he realized the mistake he had made, it was already too late. Apparently, the Ao tribe took promises of word quite seriously and going back on your word was considered ‘dishonourable’. Of course Zhang Gui had no honour to speak of - he had already lost all that back in Hell- he was happy to back out of the agreement but Master Zhen would not allow it and the courage to talk back to that bear man was something he was yet to possess.

 

Ever since that day, Ao Longwei would stick close to him whenever he found the chance. The only time he was left alone was when Ao Longwei left the village to look for the last prey of his. Even for that, he had wanted ‘his little brother’ to tag along but fortunately the language classes provided a handy excuse. 

 

Learning from chief Daquan a.k.a Creepy Man was also only marginally better than accompanying Ao Longwei. From dawn to dusk, Zhang Gui would be trapped inside the Chief’s residence. Everyday, he would learn something new about the tribe and the tribe would learn something new about him. Although, to be exact it was not the entire tribe interacting with him, in fact the only people to regularly converse with him were Master Zhen, Chief Daquan and Ao Longwei. Some of the more interested people of the tribe would then interrogate Ao Longwei for information and disseminate it across the tribe. 

 

“He says his name is Zhang Gui.”

 

“Zhang Gui? Is there any Zhang Tribe in the Western Frontier? How odd.”

 

“He said that he has no parents in this world.”

 

“Oh that poor child”

 

But Zhang Gui himself was oblivious to most of this.

The only part of the day he looked forward to was the dinner. It had become customary for Master Zhen, him and Ao Longwei to dine together. Although Zhang Gui would have preferred to stay as far away from Ao Longwei as he could. A strong urge to punch rose up within him everytime he looked at the goofy face of his ‘big brother’.

 

Knowing that the dinner was coming out of Master Zhen’s quota, the shameless Longwei would confiscate some portion of it as a ‘Big Brother tax’ from him. Thankfully for Zhang Gui, the food had become only a secondary temptation at this point. The real reason he looked forward to the dinner was to ask every question he had stumbling around in his mind. It was a brand new world and he knew almost next to nothing about it. Every answer from Master Zhen would end up giving rise to two more questions.

 

“Have you ever heard of Mount Lao ?”

 

“What is beyond the Redwood forest ?”

 

“What is the hunting party?”

 

“Has this Longwei fellow always been this annoying?”

 

Each passing day, he would learn new words and ask new questions. 

 

Learning a language was a difficult endeavour. Learning a language when you and your tutor had no other language in common to communicate with was extremely difficult. The only way Chief Daquan could think of was to simply point at something and then shout out its name. For grammar and sentence formation, he simply unleashed one sentence after another while demonstrating their meaning and expected Zhang Gui to memorise them. One of the first things he taught him was how to ask for directions to a toilet, he did so by shouting the question at his attendant and then making him guide them to the toilet. 

 

It was like teaching a newborn child. It was bound to be a time consuming affair. At least it was supposed to be. 

 

Which is why it was so shocking when Zhang Gui managed to ace the proficiency test Chief Daquan had set, just 21 days after he began learning the language of this new world - Taka as they called it. Zhang Gui was pleasantly surprised - in his mind he thought that perhaps Taka was supposed to be that easy or maybe the Creepy Man had set up the test considering his newbie status. It was not that he had not noticed the vast improvements in his memory and comprehension skills but he could not understand the cause for these changes and since it was good news regardless, he did not pay much attention to it.

 

As for the Creepy Man - flabbergasted was the only word that could be used to describe his thoughts. Having spent his youth at Lord Baron’s castle, Daquan knew all there was to know about prodigies. Every other person under that castle’s shelter was qualified to be called a talented prodigy but this boy…. He had never seen such comprehension skills. 

 

A perfect score in the proficiency test he had designed was meant to reflect an average Ao tribe adult’s level of understanding of Taka. He was not even sure if all the adults in the Ao Tribe would be able to clear it. He had meant for Zhang Gui to clear the test but only one year down the line. In fact, the only reason he made him give it a shot 21 days into his lessons was to gauge how well the boy was learning as well as to make him take his studies more seriously. He had thought he would use the inevitable low score as a motivator for the boy. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected a pass result to emerge.  The exam tested around a couple thousand words worth of vocabulary and quite a few grammar topics - to think that someone could ace that in mere 21 days was absurd to say the least. 

 

“Was he pretending to not know the language only to impress us later on? Could we have been deceived?”, Daquan even entertained such thoughts but his gut told him that the boy was the real deal. And as a hunter, he was willing to trust his guts over everything else.

 

“What a monster! Does he have eidetic memory ? I can’t believe a noble family threw someone like him out. I guess it's true what they say - one man’s garbage is another man's treasure.”, even Chief Daquan could not help himself from getting giddy at the prospect of having found a diamond in the rough. That giddy laughter of his spooked Zhang Gui even more. 

 

Recovering from his fantasies the Chief rushed towards Zhang Gui, enveloping him into his embrace. 

 

“Congratulations Zhang Gui, now that you have cleared my test, you are free to go. Sadly, our daily lectures will have to come to an end as well but at least now you will have no problem fitting into our tribe.”

 

“On the contrary Teacher Daquan, I should be thanking you for taking the time to take care of a stranger like me.”, forcing himself out of the tightening embrace Zhang Gui made his way out of the Chief’s Residence. 

 

“What’s wrong with this creepy man? Why does he always look at me as if I am some sort of a coveted trophy? Could he be gay? To think that the Ao tribe would select such a man to lead them. Master Zhen is much better.”, 

 

Unfortunately for the jubilant Daquan, his prized student had lowered his evaluation by a notch.

 

Standing outside the Chief’s residence, Zhang Gui breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “It is finally over.  I don't think I could have endured many more days of that.”

The Sun was well on its way down, moving behind the contours of the distant mountains as it was hiding itself away. 

 

“I guess it's about time I go and see him.”

 

*hehe*

 

“I wonder how Bo will react when I tell him about me passing the test.”