Joy of Life: Volume 1 Chapter 6

Volume One: The City by the Sea
-- written by Maoni

Chapter 6: The Man was a Guest

With an unconscious assassin lying on his bedroom floor, Fan Xian didn’t have any time for questions, so he said in a straight forward manner.

“Someone came to kill me. I knocked him unconscious, and he is still lying on the floor.”

The blind youngster turned his head slightly sideway. Although his heart skipped a beat, he didn’t show any expression on his face. He lowered his head in a salute.

“What is Young Master Fan joking about?”

“There’s no time for playing serenity right now. You have to take care of me.”

With a broad grin, Fan Xian grabbed hold of the blind youngster’s hand and started pulling him toward the Count’s Manor, thinking to himself, “Still pretending that you don’t know me? Whatever! Not right now. Let’s go!”

“The Young Master is still talking nonsense.”

The blind youngster knitted his brow slightly as though he was baffled by how the little kid could have known his relationship to the kid – at the time when he had delivered Fan Xian to Port Danzhou in a swaddle, Fan Xian had only been a few months old, and shouldn’t have remembered anything about it – Could the Old Madame at the Count’s Manor have told Fan Xian about him?

It was very late. The night was silent with only a few occasional shrill dog barks toward people getting into the wrong house after late bathroom runs.

The blind youngster Five-Bamboo finally moved. With the still blank and apathetic face, he shut the door of the grocery store and began walking toward the Count’s Manor. Fan Xian let out a big sigh of relief and then quickly followed behind in small steps.

When the two arrived at the Count’s Manor, they went inside through the dog hole. Once they were inside Fan Xian’s bedroom, the blind youngster “looked” at the still unconscious assassin on the floor.

Fan Xian stared at the man on the floor nervously, not knowing whether the man was dead or alive. So he turned around and asked.

“Uncle Five-Bamboo, why didn’t you come to see me in the last several years and always kept yourself inside the grocery store?”

The blind youngster named Five-Bamboo turned his head slightly sideways once again and only spoke after a long pause.

“My Young Lord, you really surprise me.”

He was indeed caught by surprise. Although he had expected the kid to be naturally out of the ordinary since he carried the bloodline of Her Ladyship, but Five-Bamboo had never imagined a four-year-old to behave with such maturity and was even capable of…successfully plotting against Mr. Fei from the Capital City.

“Let’s deal with this guy first,” Fan Xian suggested. With quite some effort he managed to flip the assassin on the floor over and removed his cloth mask, revealing the true identity of the assassin.

The assassin had a very thin face and appeared to be quite old. The beard under his chin looked like it was already turning gray, but for some unknown reason, the grayish color was mixed with some spooky green, which made the beard look somewhat disgusting.

Fan Xian was startled. He quickly hid behind Uncle Five-Bamboo and grabbed his sleeve.

“Uncle, this assassin is ugly!” he mumbled with a bitter face.

“This is Mr. Fei, the Assistant Director of the Empire Bureau of Investigation Third Division.” Five-Bamboo squatted down slowly and reached for the assassin’s lower jaw. “He was considered to be one of the top three poison masters in the entire world. He is skilled in deploying, distinguishing, and detoxifying various poisons. A formidable one he is indeed, yet you took care of him with a mere porcelain pillow. I wonder whether you were really lucky or he was really unlucky.”

“He was really unlucky,” Fan Xian thought to himself.

Although he was quite surprised by the fame and high status of the man on the floor, he had to admit that the man was truly unlucky to have met him, a monster with lives from two worlds in the disguise of a young kid.

“Don’t touch him with your hands. What if there’s poison on his body?” Fan Xian reminded the blind youngster Five-Bamboo.

Five-Bamboo did not stop his action, neither did he explain. Fan Xian somehow got the feeling that this was his way of making a statement: There is nothing in this world poisonous enough to kill him.

“Uncle, what do we do with him?” Fan Xian asked with a bitter face, knitting his brow intensely.

He was not the natural socializer type. However, in this world, the blind youngster was the first person he had ever known and the only person he could trust wholeheartedly. Besides, he knew how capable the youngster was in his Kung Fu skills, so he deliberately acted even more lovable and respectful, never sparing any opportunity to address him as uncle.

He glanced all over and finally fixed his stare on the dagger. He ground his teeth hard and the idea of stabbing this Mr. Fei to death soon occupied his entire mind.

Noticing Fan Xian’s intention, Five-Bamboo stood up and shook his head.

“Your temperament is so different from Her Ladyship. How can you be so cruel at such a young age? Who taught you?”

“I taught myself,” answered Fan Xian respectfully, having no guts to offend the Kung Fu master, the only one he could lay his trust in. “I know uncle has been staying in the grocery store all these years so he can protect me. I also know that uncle only stayed away from the Count’s Manor because he is afraid that my mother’s enemies might find me here through him. That’s why I had to learn to be cruel myself.”

Five-Bamboo shook his head again and didn’t speak.

Fan Xian could tell that his mother’s servant plus Kung Fu master had grown suspicious of him, so he asked with a cackle, “Uncle, what should we do now?”

His intention was obvious: maybe Uncle Five-Bamboo should take care of the serious business such as killing. But Five-Bamboo’s reply caught him by surprise.

“Young Master, you made a mistake. You hit the wrong man.”

“What? Wrong man?”

Fan Xian froze in great shock. He slowly turned toward the assassin lying on the floor and gazed at his blood-stained face in disbelief.

“What’s done is done. No need to worry,” Five-Bamboo declared calmly. “Mr. Fei is the Assistant Director of the Third Division in the Empire Bureau of Investigation. But he also has a secret identity… Actually he works for someone who works for your father. Therefore he didn’t come to Port Danzhou to kill you. If he had really come to kill you, I believe you would have died many times already, regardless of how skillful you are.”

Now Fan Xian remembered. The assassin lying on the floor seemed to have mentioned before that he was sent by Fan Xian’s father, but….

……

……

“Damn, he looked totally like T-Bag^[1]. Who’s gonna believe a dirty old man like him?”

For the past many years, Mr. Fei Jie^[2] had always stayed in the research institute of the Empire Bureau of Investigation at the Capital City. Although with fine titles such as Master of Poison and such, at the age over fifty, he was already kind of semi-retired. If it had not been because of the request from an influential person asking him to come to Port Danzhou to teach, and of course it was a request he did not have the courage to reject, he would never have left the Capital City and made the journey.

He had never expected to be greeted with two heavy strikes on his head, which drew half a bowl of blood and almost ended his old life, when he met his student for the first time.

He stared at the young boy in front of him only to discover that the boy’s face had innocence and loveliness written all over it. The two big eyes blinked again and again as if they carried a sense of fear and shame. Such a lovable small face, together with the young boy’s important status, successfully prevented him from blowing off his stomach full of anger onto the little kid.

When he turned his head and spotted a servant-like man, he finally found a vent for his anger.

“Hey! You! Untie me quickly! I am Mister Fei, a private tutor the Count invited himself,” he yelled.

However, the servant seemed to be even more arrogant than him. Paying no attention to his demand, the man said coldly, “I don’t recall the agreement I had with your superior included the part where you play the role of a teacher.”

“Mr. Five?” Fei Jie opened his gloomy and queer eyes wide and took a good glimpse of the servant-like man. Then he was shocked. “Mr. Five, it’s you!”

Hearing the assassin calling himself Fei Jie^[3] after he regained his consciousness, Fan Xian found the entire matter truly obscure.

---

[1] Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell, a fictional character from the American television series Prison Break.

[2] The name Fei Jie sounds like another Chinese word that means obscure or unintelligible. Picking this name shows the author’s humor.

[3] “Fei Jie” means obscure and difficult to understand in Chinese.

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Joy of Life: Volume 1 Chapter 5

Volume One: The City by the Sea
-- written by Maoni

Chapter 5: Staggering Pillow

Although Fan Xian had the body of a four-year-old, inside he had the soul of a mature person. The bloodshed and massacre on his first day in this world left deep imprints in his mind. For that reason, he always felt a sense of unease in his heart, knowing that his mysterious pedigree would one day bring serious trouble to him.

Trouble had finally found him today.

Since his sneak attack ended in vain, it was no good to repeat the old trick. While sobbing pitifully with the intent to baffle the late night visitor, Fan Xian worked his brain hard for a method of escape.

“If I cry for help, the man would surely kill me in no time. But the visitor is not moving. He must be really confused when I randomly called him ‘Daddy’,” he thought to himself.

“Daddy, Daddy…,” he immediately cried out, taking full advantage of his very young age.

“Stop pretending, Young Master Fan,” the man said in an indifferent tone. “You are really smart. Even at such a young age, you already know how to protect yourself. But you probably also know very well that I am not the Count, his Excellency.”

After these words, the man tightened his grip of the dagger and then approached forward toward the four-year-old Fan Xian.

Fan Xian kept the innocent look and teams streamed down his face, but he felt a strong throb in his chest.

“Then who are you, uncle?” he said with a sob.

“Your father sent me to check on you. So don’t scream, okay?”

The late night visitor’s two eyes both had small tints of brown and looked somewhat ugly. The crinkles by the corners of his eyes clearly gave away his age. The tone of his words directly reminded Fan Xian of a pervert grandpa who invites little girls to go watch goldfish with him^[1].

Fan Xian did not reveal any of those thoughts and still put out a flawless act of a four-year-old kid, showing a bit of fright, a bit of surprise, and a little annoyance.

“You are not Daddy!”

Then as though he had not seen the dagger in the man’s hand, he turned his tiny buttocks and climbed up the big bed.

“I don’t even know what Daddy looks like,” he muttered.

The man walked toward the bedside with a sinister smile. All of a sudden, the little boy on the bed turned his head around and gazed in the direction behind the man with sheer joy. “Mommy!” he called out.

……

……

This was a very clumsy attempt to trick someone. If it were done by any other person, the man would not have fallen for it. He was, after all, a great master who owned an entire laboratory in the Capital City.

However, since it was done by a four-year-old boy, the man simply believed in him, and as soon as he heard Fan Xian’s calling for Mommy, his eyes opened wide in shock, and he jerked his head around and looked over his shoulder.

Naturally, behind him were only the tightly-shut door and the dense shade of the night.

“Wham!” a brittle cracking sound suddenly resonated in the bedroom. The late night visitor collapsed to the floor, blood all over his head.

Holding the remaining half of the porcelain “pillow” in his hands, Fan Xian looked at the man lying on the floor, heart still fluttering with fear. He felt the weight of the remaining “pillow” and then clenched his teeth. Raising his arms high, he swung the porcelain headrest at the back of the man’s head with all his might.

This time the sound was somewhat muffled because of the strength carried. Even if this late night visitor were a first-class master in martial arts, this staggering “pillow” blow would have kept him unconscious for a good while.

……

……

“Is everything alright?” The servant girl’s voice arose from the outside.

“Everything is fine, Sis! I broke a tea cup. You can clean it up tomorrow.”

“I better clean it up today. You might step on the broken pieces and hurt your feet.”

“You can do it tomorrow!”

When the servant girl recognized the unusual bad temper in the voice of the always gentle and lovely Young Master, she held her tongue and said nothing.

Fang Xian walked by the closet and pulled out a quilt used in the winter. Holding tight onto the quilt cover, he ripped hard and made himself some cloth strips. Twisting the cloth strips together, he tied up the unconscious man on the floor firmly. Only by then, he noticed that the clothes on his back had been soaked by cold sweat.

Fear quickly welled up in his heart – both in his previous life and the present life, this was the first time he ever tried to kill someone, even though he was still unsure if he did kill the man or not.

“That was too risky,” he thought, “if the man was indeed a Kung Fu master, my first strike would for sure have gotten me killed.”

He reached underneath the cloth mask of the man and felt. The man was still breathing. For some unknown reason, Fan Xian suddenly felt a strong urge to kill the man. A cold shudder awoke him. He suddenly realized that ever since his rebirth, he seemed to have morphed into someone much more firm and resolute. He didn’t even hesitate for a second when he ruthlessly attacked the man.

He didn’t realize that deep inside the heart of the child named Fan Xian, he considered himself as someone who had already died once. Therefore, the new life in this world was especially precious to him, and he would not allow anyone to take it away from him.

As the old saying goes, “You never know what you have until you lose it.” The truth was just that simple.

Fan Xian held the dagger in his hand and pondered over and over. In the end he still couldn’t make himself kill the unconscious man on the floor. Suddenly he thought of someone and a smile crept up his face. Silently pushing the door open, he ran to the back court and crawled out from a hole in the wall used by dogs to get in and out. Soon he was standing outside of the small grocery store on the street corner right across from the Count’s Manor.

……

……

“Thump! Thump!” he gently knocked on the door of the small grocery store. The sounds were very light and didn’t travel far even in the quiet night of Port Danzhou. But Fan Xian knew that the man inside would hear the knock with no problem. Even though the man always pretended to not know him for the last four years, at the critical moment, this man was the only person in this world Fan Xian could trust.

“Who is it?”

A flat, emotionless voice came from inside the grocery store.

“He hasn’t changed at all,” Fan Xian thought, “just like that year outside of the Capital City, following a prescribed pattern in both his speaking and his acts.” He rolled his eyes and then replied softly, “I am Fan Xian.”

As expected, the wooden door of the grocery store opened quietly, and the blind youngster stood at the doorway like a ghost, which actually caught Fan Xian by surprise.

Fan Xian stared at the man who sent him to Port Danzhou and the face and the black cloth covering his eyes, which didn’t seem to have changed even the slightest bit. He couldn’t help wondering, “Doesn’t this man ever get old?”

---

[1] “Inviting little girls to go watch goldfish” is a popular phrase used in China to refer to pervert child molesters.

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Joy of Life: Volume 1 Chapter 4

Volume One: The City by the Sea
-- written by Maoni

Chapter 4: Late Night Visitor

“Are you thinking about something?”

The little girl sitting by Fan Xian’s right hand side asked with pouted lips while the two servant girls were busy setting up the dinner table. The little girl was a bit skinny and had somewhat darkish skin. Sitting right next to Fan Xian, whose face was almost as pretty as a girl, the little girl appeared even more pitiful.

Fan Xian reached out and rubbed the yellowish hair on the little girl’s head.

“I am thinking about what kind of tasty food you get to eat every day in the Capital City,” he grinned.

The little girl was the daughter of the Count of Southernland, Fan Xian’s younger sister. They shared the same biological father but had different mothers. Her name was Ruo-Ruo.

She had always been feeble since birth. The Old Madam loved her granddaughter very much, so she sent for her a year ago and kept her in Danzhou for recuperation. A year had already gone by and there still wasn’t much of an improvement. The hair on her head still looked sparse. Born into the family of a government official, she never lacked warm clothing or good food. Her symptoms must have resulted from premature labor, not malnutrition.

Fan Xian found himself quite fond of the little girl. Even though he dealt with her using the attitude of an uncle, treating her as an adorable little kid, playing with her, telling her stories, in everyone else’s eyes, such an attitude became the clear proof of a loving brother-sister relationship.

Nevertheless, due to Fan Xian’s awkward status – a baseborn son, which is very different from a legitimate daughter – the servant girls intentionally avoided mentioning anything regarding the other Count’s Manor in the Capital City.

Since the brother asked, the little girl sincerely started counting with her fingers the tasty things she had enjoyed back in the Capital City. The memory of a three-year-old is surely quite limited, so all she did was to repeat candied haws^[1] and dough figurines^[2].

It was quite late when dinner was over. The setting sun was already half hidden by the other side of the continent, and the dense twilight began to envelop the entire manor.

“Alas! Ruo-Ruo, you are indeed a Weak-Weak^[3]!”

“Brother is teasing again!”

“Alright, alright! What story would you like to hear today?”

“Snow White.”

A big grin suddenly appeared on Fan Xian’s face out of nowhere. Luckily there was no one else around; otherwise one would be shocked to spot such a queer grin only capable by grown-ups appearing on the face of a four year old boy.

“How about a ghost story?”

“No! I don’t want it.” Fan Ruo-Ruo was quite frightened, shaking her head vigorously. Tears quickly formed around her eyes and two streams of tears soon rolled down her darkish face. Evidently, she had been tormented by ghost stories many times in the past year.

Teasing this little girl was only one of Fan Xian’s many vulgar hobbies. What he was best at was bantering with those servant girls. He frequently told ghost stories to those youthful blossoming girls, who always ended up jostling tightly into each other’s embraces screaming and shivering on top of the bed.

Although it was out of the question for Fan Xian to flirt with the young girls vocally for the sake of concealing his true self, he always enjoyed the sweet and tender hugs at these times.

He would always reassure himself with the argument that as a young kid, he was still in a phase where touching was very desirable. So what he did was completely normal and warranted, not something shameful.

Every time the servant girls became curious as to how he could have known so many terrifying stories, Fan Xian would always make his teacher liable. The direct result was that all the servant girls now eyed the teacher with a disgruntled look. “The Count is paying a handsome salary for you to give lessons to the Young Master, yet you teach him ghost stories. It is already evil to scare a little kid, but it is even more evil to scare us, the blossoming flowers.”

After the usual evening ghost story telling was over, the two servant girls, still carrying a mixture of frightened yet satisfied looks, attended to the little guy’s evening hygiene routines and then shut the door to let him sleep.

It seemed to be just another ordinary night.

Fan Xian pushed the hard and uncomfortable porcelain headrest^[4] to the side, and then took out a winter robe from the chest of drawers. Folding it into a nice rectangular shape, he made himself a “pillow”.

He rested his head against the “pillow”, but his two eyes remained open. They shined dimly in the dark night as he remained awake for a long time.

He had accepted the fact that he was reborn into this world, but he was still not used to the customs. It should have been around nine o’clock in the evening, and it was not a comfortable feeling to sleep so early. Besides, he had already slept too much on the sickbed in his previous life.

He stroked the surface of the bed board with his hand and felt better with the conclusion that no one could easily spot the secret casing he had made. As he became more relaxed, naturally, the inner energy inside him began to circulate gradually and he slowly approached the state of meditative trance.

“What kind of life should I live in this world? And how should I spend the next few decades? Maybe I’ll even have many wives and concubines like an ordinary noble man,” Fan Xian’s mind wandered.

Just on the edge of entering the emptiness of mind, Fan Xian was suddenly awoken by an unannounced visitor.

……

……

“Are you Fan Xian?”

A man appeared by his bed all of a sudden. With a grain of abnormal brown in the pupils, his eyes only showed the coldest apathy, clearly indicating his indifference to life.

The question was actually asked nicely. But if such a question was asked by someone who had sneaked into your bedroom at midnight, wearing a mask on his face, holding a dagger in his hand, with a few small bags pinned to his waist, the question could be very terrifying.

If Fan Xian had been a real four-year-old boy, he would surely have screamed on the top of his lungs at the first sight of this queer uncle.

Even if he did all his thinking with his toes Fan Xian could still comprehend that a night traveler capable of sneaking into the Count’s Manor without triggering any alarms had to be someone with high caliber Kung Fu and very possibly, a cruel mind. If he had made any attempt to scream, most likely the man would not hesitate to break his neck in a split second.

At that thought, Fan Xian couldn’t help but feel quite pleased with his calmness. Working hard to suppress the growing uneasiness, he cleared his throat gently. Then putting on the most lovely baby face he could manage, he threw himself forward!

……

……

“Daddy, you are finally home!”

The four-year-old boy dove into the assassin’s arms, tears streaming, and held onto his waist tightly. But the boy’s arms were too short and could not completely circle around the waist. So instead, he grabbed the man’s robe tightly as though he was afraid the man would just suddenly disappear.

Perhaps the boy used too much strength when grabbing the robe, with a tearing sound, a strip of the robe came off.

The man frowned. Without any obvious movement, he suddenly freed himself from Fan Xian’s hug, and then just stood there, dumbstruck, as if he was still trying to work on why this baseborn son of the Count of Southernland had called him Daddy.

Meanwhile, he was also very puzzled. His robe was the top of the line gear of the Bureau. Even a knife wouldn’t have easily cut through it. How was the young kid able to easily tear it apart?

Fan Xian was even more baffled, so much so that he felt as though his heart began to bleed – during times when he managed to be alone, he had always experimented with the power of the nameless inner energy inside him using rocks in the rockwork hill in the courtyard. When he found out that he could almost manage to crush those not-too-hard rocks into bits and pieces with his tender little fingers, he started building some confidence in his self-defense ability.

That wasn’t an easy task to lower the man’s guard with the tears of a four-year-old. Directing all the inner energy to his fingers, Fan Xian thought he had a pretty good chance to subdue his opponent. But who could have imaged that all he was able to achieve was to tear a few strips off the man’s robe.

Something big was bound to happen now.

---

[1] http://www.lannyland.com/jol/TangHuLu.jpg

[2] http://www.lannyland.com/jol/MianRenEr.jpg

[3] The Chinese character for “weak” has the same pronunciation as the character in the girl’s name.

[4] Typical in ancient China before pillow was invented.

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Joy of Life: Volume 1 Chapter 3

Volume One: The City by the Sea
-- written by Maoni

Chapter 3: Training and Schooling

Fan Xian had no idea that he was training in a very profound inner energy manuscript. Any normal martial art student would have trained with the utter most scrupulousness and prudence; furthermore, he would undoubtedly ask his master or trustworthy friends to monitor alongside.

The most dangerous part of the manuscript was at the very beginning. When depositing energy into the Snow Mountain of the Dantian^[1], the practitioner’s reaction time with respect to his body would become dramatically slower than his mind, and the direct result being that the practitioner would feel as though he had completely lost control of his body.

If the practitioner had no such prior experience, he would easily come to the conclusion that he was going through a fire deviation^[2], and then forcefully retract the inner energy – if he were lucky, and if he were exceptionally good at controlling his inner energy flow, he could possibly direct the energy inside his body back into the various chi channels and meridians; but that would also mean the practice achieved nothing. For new learners, such panic could very likely lead to obstacles with one’s spirit and mind.

Being a new learner, the fact that Fan Xian didn’t end up with fire deviation, yet even had a better understanding of the profound experience than those advanced practitioners must be attributed to his life experience and luck.

When he started to train in the nameless inner energy, he lived inside the body of an infant, which had not returned most of the congenital energy inherited from the mother’s womb back to the outside world. With this inside his body, he could get twice the result with half the effort. Additionally, most of the congenital energy actually ended up stored inside his chi channels and meridians magically.

The most common problem of obstacles in spirit and mind for practitioners didn’t cause many problems for Fan Xian.

In his prior life, Fan Xian lived in a sickbed for several years and was already accustomed to not being able to control his body with his mind. When he had the similar feeling, he didn’t panic. Instead, he actually felt slight joy and warmth for being able to find some of the remnant memories.

When he trained for the first time, even though he felt as though the energy streams inside him seemed chaotic and he felt his mind was disconnected from his body, he wasn’t afraid at all. Because there was no interference from fear, his mind was clear and focused. He overcame the most difficult barrier with ease.

Ever since then, training became easy. All he had to do was to recite the scripts inside his head, and then he would naturally enter a state of trance – that was why each day’s nap time for Fan Xian was a very pleasant experience, and why it was so hard to wake him up.

For an ordinary inner energy practitioner, entering into a state of meditation trance would have required good luck together with special circumstances. Using everyday’s nap in place of meditation was indeed a luxury no one could have imagined.

God certainly had special favor for this kid.

……

……

Once he was awake, Fan Xian would roll his delicate and lovely little face swiftly in the warm towel in the servant girl’s hands, which counted as a face wash. Then in the afternoon, it was time to take lessons in the study from the literature teacher, who was respectably invited by the Count’s Manor from the East-Sea County. The teacher wasn’t very old, roughly in his thirties, yet carried the distinct flavor of a pedantic scholar.

A literature improvement movement had being going on in the Qing Empire for the last ten years, initiated by an article calling for improvement in literary works written by the Minister of the Literature Cabinet, Mister Hu. Today’s world of literary was filled with battles between the ancient prose style and the modern text style.

The ancient prose style was identical to the Classical Chinese style^[3] in Fan Xian’s memory. The modern text style was similar to Vernacular Chinese style^[4], only with more elegant wording.

Fan Xian’s teacher was a fan of the ancient prose style, so Fan Xian’s curriculum included many classic scriptures. Although these scriptures were not the same as the Four Books and the Five Classics^[5], interestingly, the contents and ideas weren’t that different, and also had the separation of Confucianism, Mohist School, Legalists, and Taoism.

As a result, during the first lesson, Fan Xian became very suspicious about where he really was.

It was a very hot and muggy summer day. The study was also hot and humid. The teacher pushed open the south-facing window, and immediately the singing of cicadas entered the room together with the cooling breeze. Turning around, the teacher found his little pupil bending over the desk staring blankly. He was just about to reprimand him when he suddenly caught sight of that innocent little face, which touched a soft spot in his heart.

The teacher actually took pleasure in the little pupil of his. At such a young age, the kid was able to speak orderly, and even comprehend somewhat the sublime words with deep meaning in the scriptures. It was really no easy task for a mere four-year-old.

The teacher also had doubts himself. Why was the Count of Southernland so anxious and had such high demands in the invitation letter to him? Because of such high pressure, he had no choice but to teach the four-year-old books of scripture. If it had been a normal family, kids at this age would have been learning just characters and memorizing some beginning literature.

When the lesson was over, Fan Xian saluted the teacher in good manners, and then waited respectfully until the teacher left the study. Then stripping off the sweat-soaked robe, he ran out of the study, as the servant girl followed hurriedly while calling out for him to be careful.

As soon as he entered the main courtyard, Fan Xian stopped running. Putting out the most innocent smile on his face, he strolled inside, and as soon as he saw the Old Madam sitting in the middle of the hall, he called out in his baby voice, “Grandma!”

The Old Madam’s face was kind and affable, and the deep wrinkles were clear marks of the many passing years. Only the occasional shine in her eyes would briefly reveal her shrewdness and the fact that she was not just a simple woman – it was said that the Count of Southernland would not have been able to achieve his fame and power without the Old Madam’s connections in the Capital City.

“What have you learned today?”

Fan Xian stood obediently in front of the Old Madam’s chair and described what the teacher had taught him that day. Then after a respectful salute, he headed toward the side hall to have dinner together with his younger sister.

The Old Madam and her grandson didn’t seem to be very close to each other. Maybe it was because Fan Xian was only a baseborn son, though the Old Madam didn’t mistreat him. She always had high demands for him, which naturally resulted in the estrangement.

Fan Xian could still remember that when he had been only one year old, the Old Madam had once held him tightly in her arms late at night and wept dearly. The Old Madam, of course, did not think a one year old infant would understand her words, or even remember them.

“Kid, if you have to blame, then blame your father. You poor little thing! Losing your mother right after you came to this world.”

……

……

What kind of family did he belong to? That was the biggest question occupying Fan Xian’s mind. He had already experienced an assassination right after he came to this world. Even though he already knew his father was a high-ranking official in the Capital City, the Count of Southernland, who he had never met in person, but who was his mother? At the time of the assassination, the Count of Southernland was still at His Majesty’s service in the conquering army. Those assassins certainly had targeted his mother directly.

Since the soul inside his body really belonged to another world, he obviously didn’t think much of the father-son relation between him and the never-met Count of Southernland. Only occasionally, he would think of that woman who had already left this world, the woman who he should have called mother.

---

[1] Dantian literally means "cinnabar or red field" and is loosely translated as "elixir field". It is described as an important focal point for internal meditative techniques and refers specifically to the physical center of gravity located in the abdomen (about three finger widths below and two finger widths behind the navel).

[2] Improper training in inner energy that normally causes severe injury to self in the forms of paralysis and damage to internal chi channels and meridians. 

[3] With the characteristics of using very short verses and very uncommon characters to express very rich meanings in order to demonstrate the author’s intellectual and language capabilities. This type of literature can only be understood by well-educated scholars. However, sometimes the extreme brevity creates bifurcation and no one is sure what the original author really wanted to say.

[4] Using verses and words that are closer to the real world language, which are easier for common people to understand.

[5] The Four Books (The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Confucian Analects, and The Works of Mencius) and The Five Classics (The Book of Songs, The Book of History, The Book of Changes, The Book of Rites, and The Spring and Autumn Annals) are required readings for Confucian scholars starting from the Southern Song Dynasty.

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Joy of Life: Volume 1 Chapter 2

Volume One: The City by the Sea
-- written by Maoni

Chapter 2: The Nameless Yellow Book

As far as Fan Xian was concerned, maybe the only benefit of a second life was that he could freely move his limbs. He could run and jump all he wanted now. That was indeed a very gratifying feeling. It would probably be very difficult for people who had not suffered from the same kind of illness to truly appreciate the joy.

“This must be a blessing from Heaven,” he comforted himself.

It took him all four years to finally comprehend it and accept the fact. Now that he had the opportunity to live again, why not make it a good one? Since God was so kind to bestow upon him a brand new life, just for consideration of God’s feelings, he should live it sincerely. For instance, since he could move now, why not move some more?

 Therefore, all the servants of the Count’s Manor soon learned that this baseborn Young Master was not the idling type^[1].

“Young Master, come down please! I beg of you!”

At the moment, Fan Xian was sitting at the very top of the rockwork hill in the courtyard, staring at the ocean horizon in the far distance, smiling.

In the eyes of the servant girl, the fact that a four-year-old would climb that high together with such a mature smile on his face clearly indicated that the little fellow had gone completely mad.

The crowd by the foot of the rockwork hill gradually grew in size and soon there were seven or eight servants surrounding the rockwork hill worried sick.

Although the Count of Southernland was in His Majesty’s favor, neither his rank of nobility nor the post he held was of great importance. Naturally the income wouldn’t be very impressive. Even if there was quite a bit of income, the majority of the money wouldn’t be spent on his mother and a baseborn son. Therefore, the Count’s Manor didn’t have many servants.

Seeing the worried faces of the people at the foot of the rockwork hill, Fan Xian let out a sigh and eventually climbed down.

“I am just doing a little bit exercise. What’s there to worry about?”

The servants obviously had grown accustomed to the Young Master’s odd habit of speaking in an adult’s tongue. Wasting no time, they quickly grabbed him and sent him into the bathtub.

After Fan Xian had been thoroughly cleaned from head to toe, he was soon picked up by a servant girl. Holding the Young Master in her arms, the girl caressed his face, grinning jokingly.

“Young Master is as pretty as a girl. I wonder which little miss will be so fortunate to be your bride when you grow up.”

Fan Xian didn’t reply and kept a stupid look. He didn’t want to flirt with a teenage girl through the tongue of a four-year-old kid. He would never consider such a tasteless act – he’d rather wait till at least six before taking on such grand challenges.

“Time for your nap, my little boss!” The servant girl smacked the little kid gently on the behind.

For the servants, it was always beyond their understanding why the Young Master of the Count’s Manor, who had began to demonstrate clear signs of naughtiness and disobedience despite his young age, would display the kind of self-discipline and assiduity only shown from grown-ups when it came to certain things: for example, taking naps.

For anyone who had a normal childhood, it would probably be difficult to forget in the old days how great battles were fought against those big devils who forced them to take naps in the beautiful and enchanting sunshine of the early afternoon.

Among those devils, some were called Dads, others were called Moms, and some were even called Teachers.

Young Master Fan Xian never exhibited the need for anyone to force him into a nap. Every day by noon, he would put on the most lovely and innocent smile and submissively go back to his bedroom to take a nap. He also wouldn’t make any noise during the nap.

At first the Old Madam had great doubts, and even assigned servant girls to monitor the kid, thinking he was just pretending to be taking a nap and would make some kind of trouble in bed instead. For the next half a year, their close monitoring only revealed that the kid was truly sleeping very soundly. So soundly that it proved to be quite difficult to wake him up.

Ever since then, the servant girls never paid more attention, and only kept their watch outside while the Young Master took his naps.

It was the summer time. Naturally, the servant girls were quite weary. Leaning slightly, they swayed the fans in their hands occasionally, as small flying insects danced swiftly in the breeze.

……

……

After returning to the bedroom, Fan Xian climbed into bed. Lifting up the bamboo matting on top, he gingerly pulled out a book from the secret casing he hollowed out himself.

The cover of the book appeared slightly yellowish, as though it was quite aged. There was nothing on the cover, not a single character, other than a few silk fabric patterns embroidered onto the edge and the corners. It was unclear whether these patterns really meant anything, except that the end stroke of each pattern curled up, like clouds flowing in the wind or the large and loose sleeve corner of ancient robes.

He opened the book gently and turned to page seven. It was the drawing of a naked male figure whose body was covered by some vaguely seen red lines. Whatever paint was used to draw these lines, it must have been special, because it seemed to have created this visual illusion that the lines were slowly flowing toward a certain direction.

Fan Shen^[2] heaved a sigh. With the look of a mere four-year-old, he dared not reveal his true self. Luckily he had this book to help him kill some of the boring time.

The book had been left for him by that blind youngster named Five-Bamboo, when he was still an infant.

Fan Shen always remembered that blind youngster, the servant of his mother in this world.

Many years back when he had found himself trapped inside the infant’s body, the youngster held him in his arms. During the journey all the way from the Capital City to this port by the sea, the blind youngster probably thought that he wouldn’t remember anything for his young age, however, the soul of Fan Shen was not that of an ignorant infant. Along the journey, he could clearly sense the sincere consideration for the little baby coming directly from the blind youngster’s heart. There was no pretending.

For whatever reason, the blind youngster left right away as soon as he escorted the baby to the Manor of the Count of Southernland, despite the Old Madam’s strong urging for him to stay. Before his departure, he had placed the book right next to the little baby.

This had troubled Fan Shen for quite a while. Shouldn’t this servant be worried about the possibility of him starting to practice things out of the book blindly? But soon he thought of the answer. Being a young kid, there was no way for him to recognize the writings in the book. Then of course such a problem wouldn’t have existed.

Fan Shen happened to know the characters of this world, and after such a dramatic reincarnation, he’d have no problem believing in things such as ghosts or celestial beings. He had no doubt that this book, which looked very much like a prop in a Hong Kong TVB TV series, contained the secret methods of developing some sort of inner energy.

Too bad the book didn’t have a name. Otherwise, he could have asked those kids on the street about it and find out whether this type of inner energy was any good.

Fan Shen couldn’t help but giggle when he reflected on these thoughts. Since God gave him the opportunity of a second life, he’d better cherish it. A manuscript for inner energy was something great that he didn’t have in his own world. Even if this nameless manuscript was no good, it didn’t stop him from practicing it ever since he was one year old.

One can’t really start any earlier than that unless someone starts training as a fetus still inside their mother’s womb.

There was absolutely no one else in this world, including those few Supreme Grand Masters who were pretty much regarded as deity beings by the common people, no matter what kind of geniuses they were, who could have started developing inner energy almost right after birth like Fan Shen did.

“How do you call this? This is called the early bird gets the worm. It’s also called the slow walker needs a head start. Besides, I am no dumber than those who are just starting their training,” Fan Shen thought to himself.

He could already feel a stream of inner energy slowly circulating around his body following the lines shown in the book. That was a very relaxing feeling, as though a warm stream of water was rinsing every inch of his inner organs.

Gradually, his mind went into a trance, and soon he fell asleep comfortably in bed.

---

[1] Remember, “Xian” means leisure, idle and unoccupied.

[2] I guess the author used the original name here because he wanted to emphasize that the main character felt more like being himself when he didn’t have to pretend to be the young kid.

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Joy of Life: Volume 1 Chapter 1

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Volume One: The City by the Sea
-- written by Maoni

Chapter 1: Story Gathering^[1]

Port Danzhou was located at the east end of the Qing Empire. Although a city by the sea, due to the fact that the several ports further south had already been developed and the sea route to the western world had also been opened, the empire’s trade center had moved to the south, and the port city gradually showed more and more decline. The once bustling harbor had quieted down over the last few years.

Seagulls flew about the city freely and no longer had to worry about harassment from those loathsome sailors.

The original residents of the city, however, didn’t feel too big of a change in their everyday lives. It was true that their income had declined, but the emperor, His Majesty, had exempted the city from taxes several years ago. Therefore, life wasn’t bad. Besides, this seaport city was so beautiful. Now that it had become quiet once again, it naturally became even more livable. That was why occasionally some influential people would choose to build their manors here.

Because it was too far from the Capital City, very few officials stayed. The only one that somewhat qualified had to be the Old Madam living in the west part of the town.

It was said that the Old Madam was the mother of the Count of Southernland in the Capital City, and chose to live out her life in retirement in the city by the sea. The residents of Port Danzhou all knew that the Count of Southernland was in great favor with His Majesty. That was the reason why he wasn’t assigned a position outside of the Capital City like usual, and instead, stayed in the Capital City and got a job in the Ministry of Finance. That was why everyone showed plenty of manners and respect to the residents of the manor.

But kids are ignorant of such things.

It was a fine and warm day. Adults mostly found themselves sitting inside a wine-house, enjoying the salty humidity blown in by the sea winds, together with the preserved plums and wine in their cups.

In the western part of the town, just outside the backdoor of Count of Southernland’s manor, a group of teenagers surrounded the stone steps. Shoulder to shoulder, they filled the entire opening. What could they be doing there?

If one got closer, he would find a very interesting scene. It turned out that all these lads were listening to a four or five-year old kid speaking. The little boy had a pretty face. His well trimmed eyebrows and his crystal-clear eyes looked as though they came out of a beautiful painting. Although his young voice was that of a little kid, the tone of his words clearly showed the arrogance of a senior. With a sigh, he gestured with his little arms.

“Truman walked up to the wall, and saw a staircase, so he walked up the staircase step after step. Then he found the door. Pushing the door open, he walked out…”

“What happened then?”

“Then? Then…he naturally went back to the real world.” The little boy pouted, as though he was quite weary of such a retarded question coming out of someone much older than him.

“It can’t be! Shouldn’t he go seek out that Hanny…something…?”

“Harris,” another teen picked it up.

“Right! Shouldn’t Truman find that Harris guy and kick his butt to vent his anger? He was locked in for so many years.”

“Nope.” The little boy shrugged.

“That was no fun! Young Master Fan Xian, today’s story is certainly not as good as the ones in the last few days.”

“Which ones did you like?”

“A Dreamy Journey to the Far, Far Away^[1]!”

“The Story of a Charming Wanderer^[2]!"

“Bah!” the little boy named Fan Xian stuck his middle finger out at the older kids around him. “Fighting, killing everywhere is bad for your health! Digging everywhere for treasure is bad for the environment!”

A loud, angry voice arose from inside the manor all of the sudden, “Young Master, where did you go again?”

The older kids surrounding him also stuck their middle fingers out in imitation and shouted in unison, “Bah!” Because of the large number of people involved, it was a much grander effect. Grinning triumphantly, they quickly scattered and disappeared into the nearby alleys.

The little boy stood up from the stone steps and swiftly whisked the dust off the underside of his pants. Then he turned and dashed into the courtyard. Before he closed the door, he shot a quick glance toward the young, blind shopkeeper in the small grocery store across the street with his shrewd eyes, while a complex emotion, something completely inappropriate for his age, flashed across his face, before he tenderly shut the door tight.

This was the fourth year after Fan Shen first came to this world. Throughout these years, he finally realized it was not a dream. He had indeed arrived at an unknown world. This world appeared to be identical to the world in his memory, but seemed to also have many differences.

By eavesdropping on conversations among servants in the Count’s Manor, he eventually figured out his status: he was the baseborn son of the Count of Southernland. Just like any TV series about powerful and rich families, the status of a baseborn son made him an easy target for all kinds of evil schemes from people such as First-Aunt^[3], Second-Aunt^[4], and others. He happened to be the only son of his “supposed” father. For the sake of extending the Count’s bloodline, he was sent to the city Port Danzhou far away from the Capital City.

After so many years, he gradually grew accustomed to his new identity. Trapping an adult’s soul in the body of a child was certainly a very different experience both biologically and spiritually. If he were any other normal person, he probably would have gone mad – however, conveniently, Fan Shen happened to be a patient with non-functional muscles and lived in a sick bed for many years. His difficulty in mobility during this life was nothing compared to the miserable state in his prior life. As a result he found himself without much discomfort living inside the body of an infant.

The most discomfort was actually his name nowadays. When he had been about one-year old, His Excellency, the Count in the Capital City, sent a letter and bestowed a name upon him: Fan Xian^[5], with a middle name Anzhi.

This was not a good name because it sounded just like the cuss word in his original hometown – “Fan Xian”, which meant having nothing better to do.

Since his outside form was just an infant, it was impossible for him to voice his objection.

In his prior life when he had been treated in the hospital, especially in the early days, he could at least still turn his head around. So he frequently begged that lovely little nurse to buy pirated DVDs and books for him.

After living in the Count’s Manor for an extended period, he could tell that the Old Madam only appeared to be cold in manner, but inside, she doted on him very much. The slave girls and servants also didn’t regard him with any special treatment because of his status as a baseborn son. Though, the pain of not being able to communicate with others bothered him very much.

Could he have discussed with the slave girls that he was actually from another world? Could he have told the home teacher that he actually already knew all the characters in the books?

Therefore, he often snuck out of the Count’s Manor from the side door and played with those children of the poor on the streets. His favorite activity was to tell stories to them, stories from movies and novels in his own world.

It was as though he wanted to keep reminding himself about something, that he did not belong to this world. The world he truly belonged to had movies, the Internet, and YY novels^[6].

He didn’t know why he told the story of the movie: The Truman Show. The plot of the movie was plain to start with; besides, there was no Jim Carrey to make people laugh. He should have clearly known that these teenagers of Port Danzhou would have no way of liking it.

But he told it anyway, because he always felt that absurdity deep inside his heart. He was on a dying course. What made him reincarnate inside this body? He couldn’t help but to remember that movie…. Maybe, all these people, the streets in front of him, even the seagulls flying in the sky, are just props intentionally arranged by someone, just like in Truman’s world.

Truman eventually discovered the falsity of the world he lived in, so he resolutely took the ship and found the exit.

But Fan Shen, no, he should be called Fan Xian now … knew that he was no Truman, and this world truly existed. It was not just a huge soundstage. Therefore his act of telling stories every day, to remind himself that he was from a different world, was something truly absurd by itself.

---

[1] A popular Internet novel.

[2] Another popular Internet novel.

[3] First wife of the Count.

[4] Second wife of the Count.

[5] Here “Fan” is the last name, and “Xian” is the first name. In Chinese, “Xian” means leisure, idle and unoccupied. “Anzhi” means relax and be content and came from the verse, “Once here, then relax and be content,” which originally came from the book “The Analects of Confucius.”

[6] YY stands for Yi Ying, which means being as ridiculous and impudent as your mind will let you. The main character in such YY novels would always have the best fortune in the entire universe and eventually have all the fame, money, and power and become epic heroes, kings or gods in this ridiculous and non-logical world the author created. This novel itself could be classified under this genre.

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This has nothing to do with robots or translations. But isn't this kid simply amazing?