I was really annoyed inside and my face definitely didn’t look good, who can be playful when they come across their father’s killer?
But I didn’t need to be annoyed with an old man, and judging by the strength of this old man’s hands just now, I couldn’t beat him, Sh*t.
I said, “I have a blood feud with this man, I can’t let him go, today might be my only chance to know the truth.”
Old Mo said, “The truth about what? Is what you see with your eyes the truth, is what you hear with your ears the truth, young man, be calm, what happened more than ten years ago, more than ten years ago was not conclusive, how can you investigate now?”
“How do you know about this?!”
He knew me, and he knew me very well, he might even know the whole story.
Old Mo fished out an erhu from somewhere, cradled it in his hand and played it empty.
“It is but ordinary on earth to draw a janlu horse and ask for the sky.”
The old man played the erhu in a particularly fitting manner, a cool, ancient and rather stern sound, which would have been quite meaningful if I hadn’t heard that it was the effect sound of the King’s Glory.
He laughed again, “Old man can read minds.”
I curtly said, “Old man, do you know something, tell me about it.”
The old man played the erhu again, but by now the scene had quietened down, and soon the four-in-two round was about to begin.
I couldn’t guarantee whether the old man was telling the truth or not, but whether it was true or not, it would count as one of the clues. I had heard enough testimonies, whether true or not, and from these trivial clues, I could always piece together a rough truth.
But the old man made a silent gesture to me, suggesting that I should keep my voice down and keep quiet.
“Today, the wind and the clouds are in the air, and yet you are only concerned with a twenty year old case, young man, your eyesight is not good.”
I cursed in my heart, a group of gamblers gathering to gamble, what kind of a meeting is it?
I didn’t want to fight with an old man in front of so many people. It was fine if I couldn’t beat him, but if I did, it would be me beating up an old man.
Jiang Ming and Yue Man Gong sat down at two separate tables. The poker game was live on four large monitors and the game was surprisingly Texas Hold’em, much to my surprise.
The cameras were fixed and mounted right at the top left of each poker table, capturing what was going on at the table and also the faces of several of the onlooking participants.
The more I looked, the more I saw something wrong, as I saw Jiang Yunqing first.
That was all, and then I saw Baldy… why was Baldy here too?
Then I saw Liu Rong, and behind Liu Rong, a young man in a hood who looked almost identical to Yue Man Gong.
“Why are they all here?”
“The Hero’s Meeting, the meeting of heroes, the wind and clouds fighting, the river and sea fighting.” Old Mo, still playing his erhu, suddenly became incomparably grave in tone, “In the words of you young people, this is a big party in the Jianghu.”
Baldy was from the Cloud Cliff School, I’m not sure what the Cloud Cliff School is, but he was by no means a hooligan in the marketplace, he was a dignified jianghu man of sorts.
The Yue brothers were even more so. Old Gan and I had said that Liu Rong’s side was followed by a teenager named Yue, who was a great fighter and was after a famous school in the jianghu.
I couldn’t even figure out what kind of weapon he had with his erhu, he was so mysterious, like someone out of a martial arts novel.
These are just the ones I know, there are more people I don’t know. Today it’s called the Poison King Competition, but as Old Mo said, it’s more like a big party for the kung-fu people, what exactly are these people doing here?
I feel that Boss He wanted to use the painting to attract all these people here from the very beginning, for no other reason than his King of Gamblers competition.
“The kid from the Moon family, the disciples from the Cloud Cliff School, and those are just the ones you know. That fat guy who looks like he’s asleep, his surname is Guan, you should ask someone to find out what Guan Lang is. That little girl with two ponytails, looks like she hasn’t even graduated primary school yet, even two of them you’re no match for, that’s the heir to the Qian family’s Xuan Nui Sutra, and that one with dyed yellow hair, the one gnawing on a chicken leg, six of the nine surnames of Jianghu have arrived here, don’t you think about why?”
“For the thoughtless mountain.” I said, dumbfounded.
“Yes and no.”
Just as we were chatting, there were winners at the four-card table for the last two winners, and there was no doubt that it was indeed Jiang Ming and Moon Full Bow.
The game had entered a white heat, the last one, and it was about to be decided. After the King of Gamblers had won, anyone who entered the final could challenge the King of Gamblers at any time, and the one who won the King of Gamblers before the boat docked would be able to take away the Mount of No Thought, but everyone in the room knew very well that once the painting was in the hands of Moon Man Bow or Jiang Ming, there was no chance of winning it back.
As usual, Boss He came out to say a few words to warm up the crowd, fanning the flames of the event. Those who were watching were the uninformed tourists, but those who had really come for the thoughtless mountain were all focused on the painting.
Old Mo suddenly said, “Do you want to play a game with me? Bet on who will win and who will lose in the end?”
“No bet.” I said dryly, “Old man, all you’re worth is this erhu, and you might get three for a hundred on sale at the Double Eleven, with shipping included, so what are you betting against me.”
Old Mo shouted, “It’s worth thirty dollars, I’ll bet you thirty dollars. I’ll bet on the moon full bow.”
I laughed, “That’s too much of a bully, old man, can’t I bet on Jiang Ming? Look at his hands, they’ve got these tiny cuts all over the palms, do you know how that happened? It’s from playing with knives. But not just any knife, it’s the kind of blade that’s a little finer than a hair.”
Old Mo grunted, “Teenagers know a lot.”
“And more than that. This kind of blade looks like a moustache cutter, but it’s not, it’s used to practise cheating, the same way the Choi Mun use to even out their hand speed, now called conjuring. The practice is nothing else but a shadowless fast hand that comes and goes without a trace. Sometimes the player will even take care of his opponent’s emotions and will not make it so obvious, sometimes he will just not give you a face, that cheat will make you doubt your life. But even if you play it back with an ordinary camera, you can’t see the difference unless you use a high-speed camera. I have fought with Jiang Ming, this man is just smart, if you want to play tricks, he may have a chance to win, if you want to play cards, it is impossible. My headmaster told me that there are eight major paraphernalia in the jianghu, the gold skin and colourful hangings, and the a*sessment of the group, and there are eight other paraphernalia, the wind, the horse, the swallow and the bird, and the piercing teeth and the thousand sheets. These sixteen professions are all means of making a living for the blessed pawns of the jianghu, but the outer eight sects are even more bloody, cruel and shameless. Just by looking at Yue Man Gong’s hands, those who know the trade can tell at a glance that this is a veteran of the Thousand Doors. How can Jiang Ming win?”
Having said that, I stood up despite Lao Mo’s stopping me, who followed me with that erhu in his cackle and asked, “Where are you going?”
