The two of us were playing ping pong, one punch from me and a slap from him, and Lin Kang was so angry at both ends that his face was swollen like a puffer fish in no time.
“Chao, don’t be like this, I can’t help it, he’s going to kill me if I don’t say anything.” He really had no choice but to sit on the ground crying and begging for mercy.
“You would have died long ago if I hadn’t saved you. Remember, Rincon, next time, it won’t be as simple as two fists. This is the high seas, if I can save you from coming up, I can tell you to get lost, you’ll be a dead man once before anyone else. Get the hell out of here!”
Rincon practically crawled and slunk away.
“I thought you were going to kill him.” Moon Fullbow said.
“You are journeymen and do not abide by the law or the rules, I am different. We as soldiers don’t kill prisoners of war. It is illegal to kill, and I see that all this strife in your jianghu is because the popularization of the law is not done well enough.”
Moon Fullbow didn’t mean to laugh at all, causing me a moment of embarra*sment that the joke didn’t work.
I fished a cigarette out of my pocket, but unfortunately it was already wet and I had to throw it into the sea, which was now as calm as a mirror, with stars shining in the sky and luminous plankton floating up from the sea, illuminating the surface so radiantly that it looked like a dream.
“I just didn’t expect Ji Yanran and Zhang Jun’s son to be so soft-hearted.”
“Don’t talk as if you know my parents. I was only seven when my parents left, and I guess you were still liquid at the time.”
“Who doesn’t know someone in the jungle?” Moon Fullbow asked me back instead, puzzled, “Has no one ever told you about your parents?”
My aunt never told me about my parents, she hated the words Zhang Jun and Ji Yanran from the dictionary, he tore up all the photos of my parents, and the internet was not developed at that time, no photos were saved, I’ve almost forgotten what my mother looked like now.
“Not really, tell me about it.” I said.
“Your mother is the eldest daughter of the Ji family, do you know our nine clans of Jianghu? Yin Ji Yue Guan Qian Liu Jiang Zhao Gan. After the fall of the Yin family, the Ji family became the most prestigious family in the Jianghu. Back then, your mother was the most beautiful woman in Jianghu and there were countless suitors for her hand in marriage, for her beauty as well as for the Ji family’s fortune. Later on, I don’t know how she ended up with your father. I heard from my family that the incident was a big sensation in the jianghu at that time because your father was unknown at that time, just an ordinary man from a small fishing village.”
I admired from the bottom of my heart, “I didn’t know that, so it seems my dad was quite a bully.”
Moon Full Bow surprisingly laughed a little and said, “Uncle Zhang is a talent.”
“Master uncle?”
“That’s right. Senior Uncle Zhang is a disciple of the Thousand Sect and is my master’s senior brother.”
Yue Man Gong said so many things I’d never heard before that I froze for a moment. I originally thought my parents were very powerful, but I never thought that they were even more powerful than I thought.
“How exactly did my parents die?” I asked the question that concerned me the most.
Moon Man Bow also took a deep breath, “It has to do with the thoughtless mountain you hid.”
The painting? I hadn’t had a chance to look at it since I got it in my hands. What was so special about it that my parents would die for it?
It was true that I didn’t know anything about art, but since Jiang Ming was willing to pay so much money to buy back the painting, it must not be for the sake of the painting, but for my mother’s sake, so why would he still want to harm my mother?
I came back to my senses and said, “Don’t give me that crap, don’t set me up, I don’t have the Wuxia Mountain.”
Moon Man Bow held onto the railing and looked out at the sea, “Do you remember? I said that any of us present would only want to get the Wusi Mountain and would not hide it, only you would hide the Wusi Mountain because you do not know the true value of the Wusi Mountain. Since the fall of the Yin family forty years ago, the eight great families have been fighting each other, and the rivers and lakes are full of blood and gore. It was not until a highly respected old man came out to mediate more than twenty years ago and made an alliance with everyone in the jianghu that no one in the jianghu alliance could fight within themselves, and that anyone who killed or injured an ally would be punished, that the chaos in the jianghu that lasted for nearly twenty years was ended. If there were people of great evil and wickedness, there had to be an order from the alliance master before they could be dealt with.”
I nodded: “This is an old man with wisdom, otherwise you would have kept fighting internally and there is no telling what would have developed. But what was the story about Elder Ge’s suicide note that Liu Ruyi mentioned just now? It seems to mention that the alliance leader hasn’t been chosen yet, and it’s been twenty years.”
Yue Man Gong said, “That’s right, more than twenty years ago Elder Ge elected the alliance leader among the eight clans, but at that time Elder Ge was seriously ill and only left a suicide note, and the contents of the note were only known to your mother who was with Elder Ge at that time. As you should have guessed, the canvas on Mount No Thought was Elder Ge’s suicide note back then. He Zhitian owed a large sum of money to loan sharks at that time and was being hunted by many people. Your mother painted the suicide note as the Mountain of No Thought and gave it to him. He Zhitian used his last money to deposit the Mountain of No Thought in a safe in a bank in New York, which required his iris, fingerprints plus a key and his own signature to get it out. If he died, this suicide note would never be retrieved. That’s why several big families put out a joint message to save Jiang Ming’s life. So Jiang Ming was right when he said that your mother saved his life.”
I could never have imagined such a story and asked, “What happened?”
“He Zhitian couldn’t die, or even move him. The only one who knew the contents of the suicide note was your mother, who was Elder Ge’s favoured pupil and a senior disciple of the Golden Gate. Jiang Ming then came up with the bad idea that as long as your mother said that the allies referred to in the suicide note were the Jiang family and then killed He Zhitian, no one in the jianghu would have any objections.”
“Damn, it’s something that pervert would do.”
“After the Yin family died, the Ji family had already had a retreat after some events and began to gradually move to the mountains to live in seclusion. That’s when the Jiang family and my Yue family gradually became stronger. The Guan and Qian families were allies of the Yue family, while Liu Gan was an ally of the Jiang family, and the Zhao family had been neutral. I heard from my master that Jiang Ming did chase your mother, but there were so many people chasing your mother at the time that Jiang Ming was completely out of line. He knew your mother wouldn’t give in easily and decided to get a car crash to threaten some of your parents, but there was an accident and the crash went out of control, the person driving at the time seemed to be drunk and didn’t have time to dodge the big truck that crashed head on …… The idea was Jiang Ming’s, he was the mastermind, but others had a hand in it too.”
Hearing the moon full of bow so sure to tell me the truth about that year, my heart was empty, and for a long time could not come back to my senses.
Moon Man Bow patted my shoulder, “It’s been a long time, don’t feel too bad, Jiang Ming will pay the price.”
I laughed bitterly and shook my head, “I thought it was a big grudge, but it’s just about this kind of thing. All of you Jianghu people, you don’t lack anything and you have to fight for the alliance. It’s ridiculous.”