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1
The man walked past the gates to his home, a shabby bamboo hut with fences of pine sticks tied together.
Creak!
A rough curtain draping over the hut's non-existent door, was brushed aside by his brown calloused hands. The man searched through the kitchen until he found the wooden basin. It was meant for bathing and can only fit one person inside.
He set down his fish basket. Then, he heard the bell ring and his servant calling out to him.
"Master! Are you home?"
His delicate brows furrowed. He grabbed his fish basket and dumped everything out into the bathing tub in a panic.
Ow! Can't you be gentle?!
The fishes flopped around and wriggled until the tub was filled with one-tenth of water. Their gaping mouths gasped, as if to shout at the rude human. But the fishes can't cry.
"Sorry losers."
The man spoke like a haughty nobleman when he left the room. His tone was so vulgar that the fishes shut their mouths.
You are the loser here!
The fishes complained in their small hearts. But what can they do? They were the ones, who lost to this rude human.
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2
On the other side of the lake, there were two men standing next to the pine tree and the big boulder. The shorter one was a bearded man, wore a navy cloaked shirt with wide fluttering sleeves and a leather belted around his waist. His futou, the black head scarf felt too tight for his big head weighed with worries.
He was grasping the yellow funnel cup of a two meters tall flower that grew rooted to the boulder. It has a pair of brass bells dangling from beneath its six white petals, which were one foot long each. When the futou man blabbered into the cup, the flower petals and the long stalk shuddered obscenely, and the bells swung with incessant ringing.
The futou man shouted, "Master, we got a case today!"
The big petals twitched as a gruff, masculine voice rumbled through the plant's funnel cup, "Em. Who and where, Xiao Xie?"
Then, the futou man excitedly rambled on and on, but his master got annoyed because he heard and understood nothing the ringing of the flower's bells.
"Xiao Xie."
"They found her on the shore with her pretty hairs tangled all up. Her clothes have been torn up and she's four months pregnant! How can such a pretty lady die so young? The world is so unfair!"
Ring! Ring!
"Xiao Xie."
"I don't really get what's wrong with her family. It seems like no one care about her death; they keep saying that it's a suicide! But what kind of Omega victim would dare beat their own head, strangle her neck, stab out her stomach, then throw herself over into the pond with her and wait for eleven days to show up all ugly and fat?!"
Ring! Ring!
"XIAO ZHONG XIE!" 1 ("xiao = little, zhong = bell, xie = crab")
"Yes, Master?"
Ring! Ring!
"You are too noisy!"
Zhong Xie, the futou man felt wronged, "Master!"
Then, they both heard Zhong Xie's companion gave a rude snort.
"Xiao Zhong Xie, who did you bring here?"
The tone of Zhong Xie's master turned cold and thorny. Before Zhong Xie could give an answer, his slit-eyed companion snatched the flower and its bells from his hands. An electric blue face mask of metal concealed both his mouth and ears, giving off an elusive presence. The strange man wore a black collared leather jacket and kept one hand in a pocket of his navy tactical trousers.
He spoke up, "This humble slave is Min Shuiyin at your services."
There was a long pause and the flower stopped shaking.
"Oh, he hung up," Min Shuiyin duly noted as he gently released the flower and its bells.
Min Shuiyin looked over at the lake and spotted a man in white clothes with a straw conical hat. He was manually rowing his boat toward their shore. The man stopped rowing and drew out the back sail of his fishing boat to the side. There was a strange character inked on the sail similar to one would see on a spell talisman. The man clicked his tongue twice, five time, and two times before shouting out with his finger pointed at Min Shuiyin and Zhong Xie.
As a martial artist, Min Shuiyin's hearing was superior to the hearings of normal civilians, and he could pick up what the man in white said.
"Le-Le!2Happy-Happy Li-Li!3Pretty-Pretty Help your big Daddy push his boat to shore! Blow!"
Then the man's boat suddenly sped up toward the shore where Zhong Xie and Min Yin were waiting. A great gush of wind blew against the flat sail. Two white dorsal fins peeked out of the water, flanking the boat.
Min Shuiyin asked Zhong Xie, "Is your master a psychic?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
". . . . Master said that he's an ordinary scholar."
". . . . ."
With those skills, I don't dare call our master an ordinary scholar!
Min Shuiyin was skeptical of the abilities displayed by Zhong Xie's master.
The man in white threw something into the water. They heard a pair of shrill whistles and saw the white tails smashed into the lake waves. Then the man jumped off his boat with his rope in hand to tie a tight knot around the boulder where the big flower grows.
"Le-Le! Li-Li! Daddy is busy, I will be back!"
Zhong Xie shook his head, "Lele and Li-Li are Master Gui's pet dolphins. They are his babies."
When the man in white zhongyi turned back to Zhong Xie and Min Shuiyin, he stuck his hand out to Zhong Xie with a deadpan mouth.
"Xiao Xie, give it!"
"Okay, okay! Here's your hat, Master!"
Zhong Xie immediately pulled off his black futou, revealing his manbun, and handed it over to his master in white zhongyi clothes. His master took off his conical straw hat and tied his black futou on like a bandana.
The servant continued to strip himself of his attire and hand off his wide-sleeved, navy cloaked shirt, then his leather belt, and then his black boots to his cruel white-haired master.
Master Gui was younger, darker skinned, and shorter than Zhong Xie by two heads. He had unruly shaggy white hairs that hid his eyes from the outside world. He was fat4A/N - NO! He's a chubby thick! Not fat! with his round belly slightly bulging out from under his chest. Splotches of reddish-gray sunspots dotted all over the young man's face that was not hidden by his bangs.
Min Shuiyin was stunned. He knew that the noble lords and bigwig literati could be tyrannical and cruel. But he never expected his own master to be so cruel and ugly enough to rob his manservant of his (Zhong Xie's) own clothes!
Zhong Xie shivered in the cold; his teeth started to chatter.
"Master! I-i-it's c-c-ooolld!"
Pom!
A pack of gray daun da clothes were thrown at his face. Zhong Xie quickly slipped on his manservant's outer shirt and pants.
"Thank you! Master, I bought you a warrior slave. The contract have already been sent to your terminal."
"We will talk later," the man snarled at Min Shuiyin, "Where's my ride?!"
Min Shuiyin caught a whiff of delicious blue lotus fragrance and inhaled. Is his new master an Omega?!
"HEY! If you got a horse, then take this great master to the crime scene now!"
The angry scholar got in Min Yin's face even though he couldn't reach Min Shuiyin's throat. Min Shuiyin felt his blood boil and boldly lugged the fat scholar over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He leaped off the mountain stairs and ran toward his horse, making the scholar feel nauseous. Zhong Xie quickly followed after them without breaking a sweat until he got to his gray horned horse.
Min Shuiyin tucked the scholar in front of him and slapped the reins. His roan mare reared and galloped away into the forest where a village laid ahead. Min Shuiyin could smell the wonderful blue lotus fragrance from his ugly, fat master.
Min Shuiyin said to his new master, "May this slave ask for the honorable surname of this honorable master?"
The scholar snapped at him, "Don't call me Master! This scholar, Zhou Anhe haven't accepted you as one of his people yet!"
Min Shuiyin chuckled while the scholar, Zhou Anhe sat still and snapping up at him like feisty cat that did not accept new human touches.
So feisty! I like this new master.
