A Coincidence
“Mother! I’m home!”
“Are you back, Zheng-Fu?”
Zheng-Fu ran to his mother right after he got home. Every time he came back from practicing, he would be covered in dirt, but today he returned home unusually clean. This made Tang-Ling wonder when she saw her son, so she asked…
“How was your day, son?”
“How?” Zheng-Fu did not understand what his mother meant by that question, but after he gave it a thought, he replied…
“I started practicing a sword fighting skill today and got to meet Elder Tong-Tieng and Elder Tong-Lang.”
“Tong-Tieng and Tong-Lang?!” Tian-Tang Tang-Ling uttered the names shockingly after hearing the names from her son. Then she asked worryingly, “How did you meet them? Did they harm you in any way?”
Zheng-Fu was in a daze by his mother’s questions. He did not understand why his mother asked such questions because from meeting the two elders, he did not feel like they were scary or anything at all…
“Not at all, mother!”
“Phew! Wonderful! It’s wonderful that you are all right.” Tang-Ling gave a relieved exhale when she heard that her son was fine…
Zheng-Fu, on the other hand, could not help but feel more confused, especially when he saw his mother’s strange gesture, so he asked, “What’s the matter, mother? Why did you ask me that question? What was so wonderful, mother? And why did you have to make sure that I was all right?” Zheng-Fu showed his innocent facial expression like a kid (because he was in an 8-year-old body…)
“Nothing, son. You go clean yourself up. Dinner is prepared.” Tang-Ling quickly changed the subject when she saw that Zheng-Fu wanted some answers…
“Yes, mother!”
Zheng-Fu felt like his mother acted strangely, but he did not want to press her, so he was fine about it. He pretended to not mind her action and rushed to clean himself up…
“Dear husband, our son met the two Monitors!” After Zheng-Fu left, Tang-Ling hurried to Kong-Shi to tell him about their son's meeting with Tong-Tieng and Tong-Lang…
“What did you say!? Our son met with the…”
“Hush!”
Tang-Ling immediately lifted her hand to cover Kong-Shi’s mouth and then whispered, “Keep it down, my dear. Why did you have to shout!?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Did you say that our son met with the two Monitors? How did it happen? The two Monitors are very secluded. They don’t like to mingle with anyone. Even I, as an elder in the clan, can hardly get to meet them. I mean let alone meeting them, I don’t even see them at all.” Kong-Shi said while feeling suspicious…
“How exactly are they like?” Tang-Ling asked Kong-Shi out of curiosity…
“I don’t know much about how they really are. I only know that both of them excel in camouflaging. Even though their Qi energy levels are not as high as mine, it is very hard to beat them. Besides, they just happen to have been training the sword skills that Zheng-Fu is doing. The two Monitors are the two people who achieved those sword skills like no others in our clan.”
“The same sword skills that our son’s practicing?”
“That’s correct. The brothers are deemed to be the genius brothers of our clan. They brought fame to our clan at the duel between Tian-Tang Clan and Lei Clan about 10 years ago.”
When Kong-Shi reached this notion about the two Monitors, he started to feel sad, and then he said…
“Anyway, ever since they started the duty as a monitor, they stopped coming out and hanging out with others. They only see the head of the clan only when something crucial happens.”
“Do you think they’re going to hurt our son?” Tang-Ling asked worryingly…
“I don’t think so. Even though they are different from others, they are still one of us. They wouldn’t hurt our son. You can rest assured about that. But if they did hurt our son, I would definitely hunt them down.” Kong-Shi said and lifted his fist up with a very fierce look on his face…
“Well, when you put it that way, I can relax about it.” Tang-Ling exhaled in relief when she heard that from her husband…
The whole conversation was heard by Zheng-Fu. It made him realize why his mother acted that way when he mentioned the two Monitors. People thought that they were mysterious and that was why she was worried…
In Zheng-Fu’s bedroom…
“I can’t believe I own three lower-leveled Qi energy stones. If I use them to cultivate the Qi energy, I would definitely be able to break through to the next stage.” Zheng-Fu said with a little smile on the corners of his lips with delight before taking out the lower-leveled Qi energy stones…
“What!? What happened to them!?
When Zheng-Fu took out the lower-leveled Qi energy stones, he had to crinkle his eyebrows out of shock so much that the eyebrows almost hit one another. What he saw was two out of three of the Qi energy stones had no Qi energy in them, not at all. They turned into two normal rocks…
“How is this possible? The last time I saw them, they were all Qi energy stones. How come they turned to be just rocks.” Zheng-Fu said with crinkled eyebrows…
Zheng-Fu tried to check again by picking up the Qi energy stone that was active and comparing it with another one that had no Qi energy in it. No matter how much he stared at the two rocks, he saw that both had the same shape of the stone resembling the Qi energy stone. The weird thing was that one of them had no Qi energy in it. It was like the Qi energy was drained out of that stone.
No matter how hard he tried to think about it, he could not come up with a sensible explanation of how the Qi energy was sucked out of the Qi energy stone…
“Agh! Is it possible that the energy just leaked out?” Zheng-Fu thought that it was likely that the stone leaked out the Qi energy by itself, so that was why the stone looked just like a normal rock. However, for some reason, his mind recalled the moment that he passed out while he was trying to practice the “Sword of the Wind” skill. He remembered seeing that glowing shadow dancing the movements that looked like the “Sword of the Wind” skill movements in front of him…
“Does that moment have something to do with this? But it’s…”
Zheng-Fu could not conclude anything just yet. He was thinking about trying to recreate that moment to check something, but then he realized that he only had one lower-leveled Qi energy stone left. If he wanted to do it, he needed another Qi energy stone…
By this time, Zheng-Fu stopped thinking about the whole thing and put the active Qi energy stone aside. Then, he sat himself down and contemplated the movements that the glowing shadow showed him. He remembered every bit of the style and movement there. He spent about two shichens replaying those styles and movements in his head before going to bed…
As soon as the sun came up, Zheng-Fu could not wait to go to the courtyard to practice what he had been playing in his head for so many hours last night…
When he got to the courtyard, he quickly drew out his sword and started to recite the movements of the fighting technique. “Set up the sword straight. Send the Qi energy to the sword and then…”
“Yah!”
Boom!
From emitting a mild wind only enough to hit a big rock with some leaves, now Zheng-Fu was able to project a wind wave strong enough to shatter that rock into tiny pieces. He understood how to use that “Sword of the Wind” skill now…
Zheng-Fu looked at those tiny pieces of rocks and was pleased with the outcome, he then said, “It’s amazing how doing exactly what that glowing shadow did could make this huge difference!”
Zheng-Fu was not the only one who was perplexed by that powerful result, Tong-Tieng and Tong-Lang were too. Both of them just arrived at the courtyard. After observing Zheng-Fu’s movement on the “Soft for Defense” skill yesterday, they rushed back to practice exactly what they saw from him. And the result was tremendously powerful. Their “Sword of the Wind” skill was improved much better. The skill could be as powerful as the ones of the lower-leveled intermediate skill…
“What was that fighting skill, kid?” Tong-Lang asked out of interest, then turned to Tong-Tieng who stood next to him in awe…
Tong-Lang’s question shook Tong-Tieng out of amazement. Then he got it together and said, “It looks similar to the “Light Wind Wave” technique of the “Sword of the Wind” skill, but its power is twice stronger than usual, no, maybe three times stronger.”
As Zheng-Fu finished testing his “Sword of the Wind” skill, he turned around and noticed his Masters there, standing not far from him, so he paid respect to both of them immediately…
“Greetings, Masters.”
As soon as Zheng-Fu started to greet them, they gained back their senses and stood with a peaceful posture…
“Hello.”
Seeing Zheng-Fu paying respect to him, Tong-Lang said, “That was the “Sword of the Wind” skill, wasn’t it?” He tried to be smooth by asking the question to hide his bewilderment…
“That’s right, Master. You’re correct. It was the “Sword of the Wind” skill.” Zheng-Fu did not lie. He answered the question with an innocent smile on his face. After the confirmation, Tong-Tieng and Tong-Lang felt the utmost urge to ask Zheng-Fu how he could produce such destructive power from the skill. They wanted to ask about those specific movement styles too, but they thought it would make them look like an amateur…
But that could not stop Tong-Lang and his curiosity, so he said, “Why don’t you do that again for us, just in case we could give you some additional suggestions.” Tong-Lang tried to keep his face straight and full of wisdom…
By saying that, Tong-Lang knew that both he and Tong-Tieng might not be able to give Zheng-Fu any suggestions at all, but he wanted to see the movements again. He pretended to tell Zheng-Fu to do so because he wanted to witness the whole thing…
In normal circumstances, a regular kid would not hesitate to do accordingly. But Zheng-Fu had the maturity and sophistication of Jin-Yang from the previous world, so he knew right away why Tong-Lang asked him to do that. Even though he truly respected both of his Masters, he was not ready to tell them how he could make the skill so powerful, so he tried to come up with an excuse…
“With all due respect, Masters, I have to say that that was a coincidence. I have no idea how I managed to make that happen. Please forgive me for not being able to show you the movements again.” Zheng-Fu said and looked at both of them with an innocent facial expression…
“A coincidence!?”