HI:
Hope everyone is enjoying it. I check the Traffic for this tale and I should get more than one review. Please...good or bad...I live for reviews.
Chapter 16
I Challenge the White Snake
Spread fingers touched the surface of the teak door. Red polished nails scraped the dark brown façade sending a cold snap of air into the backroom. The shaking figure cringing behind the fragile entrance called for her sister.
"Bai…Bai, I need you."
The stunned young woman recoiled from the door. She feared to touch it again.
"You can feel my power. My power fortified by Buddha." His deep voice filled her ears. "Count these moments. They are your last."
"Who are you? Go away. I have done nothing to you or anybody." Xiaoqing trembled as her life's energy seeped from her spirit. "This potion, its too strong." Hanging her head down, "Bai, help me." The whisper preceded her gasps for air.
"I am Li Kai of Henan. My temple will welcome me back with the ceasing of your evil." Inhaling to the point of a swelled chest, the disgraced monk blew a gale of air toward the floor sending the yellow powder under the door.
'No!" A scream rocked the backroom, as Xiaoqing choked in uncontrollable gasps.
The yellow powder whipped around the backroom slithering in the air.
"Demon, prepare." The door swung open sending the barely conscious young woman rolling toward the back wall. Her coughing continued, as she put one hand over her mouth.
Bewildered by his explosive entrance, Xiaoqing's expression softened releasing the tension in her face.
"I can not defeat you." She appeared to ease her pain by accepting this fate.
"Good is always more powerful than evil." His words acted as a hammer, bringing her head down further.
"Send me back to the world of serpents." Lifting her chin up, strings of hair hung over green eyes, his form remained clouded. She widened her vision to no avail. "I surrender. "Condemn me and I will join my sister." Xiaoqing's expression showed total submission. "My sweet sister was already dispatched by a holy man."
"Liar…evil deceiver. As you mislead the poor men you enslave with your magic, you think you can deceive me?" Taking a golden emulate from his pocket, he approached the cowering Xiaoqing.
Enslave?" Whispers left her lips. "Enslave who? I've been trying to do that for five hundred years." Her short giggles stalled the monk's approach. "These human men are too confusing for me." Taking a breath after a short coughing fit, "a human girl opens up for them and then they sleep." Xiaoqing shook from the simmering humor traveling up her chest. "Not that they ever opened me." Mucous shot from her nose as she belched a chuckle. "I've been waiting to be misused for centuries." Amid a round of coughs, snickering surfaced.
"You think this is funny? You have no respect for the order and harmony of the world?" His words spoken with strength and confidence.
Li Kai lifted the emulate over his head, he intended to touch her brow. The act will turn the immortal back to her true form, though retaining none of a giant snake's power.
"Do it, so I may join my sister." Xiaoqing prepared to slink away, an eternity as a serpent.
"Demon, I know of your trickery." He laughed; "Your sister is here in this town. She has ripped a foreigner's soul and dragged him to immorality."
"Oh, shut up. You embarrassment to Buddha." She shouted.
Xiaoqing pushed on her hands hoping to rise. She failed.
"My sister took a suffering warrior from the West and relived him of immense pain." Lifting her face inches from the floor, "she mended his soul. You are a fool, just as all you holy men are."
"You blaspheme. Demons can never mend a human's spirit." He sneered, snorting with disgust.
"Oh, you are a fool. You are worse than any I have met." Her black hair matted and sticking in all directions, she continued. "She mended it."
"Mended it. Never!" He cried out.
"You are blind to the true meaning of life." Propping herself up on her arms, Xiaoqing pushed her exhausted body upward "Let me tell you how." Xiaoqing straightened her back and stood straight. "She sucked the pain right outta him." Her laughter sapped the strength needed to stand. The quivering body fell backward, as skin on her forearm began to change color. "You see I have no power to battle you. Spare me the drivel of a disgraced monk and transform me."
"Transform? Yes, I will. But so you know when you lie helpless slithering about." The emulate lowered, he reached under his oversized shirt and ripped a large blade from a scabbard strapped to his chest. "Your existence will cease."
Her eyelids blinked as if from the reflection of the dagger.
"Kill me?" She shook her head. Kill me?"
Disbelief took hold of her mind. Monks do not kill even pestering insects are spared.
"Yes. I will pave my way to Nirvana with this sanctified blade."
He raised the knife.
In an instant the back wall of the room burst apart sending small slabs of wood and splinters into the air. Numerous fragments from the flying debris decorated the man's torso. He snarled as his hand tore one from the left side of his face.
"Cursed you unholy serpent devil."
Blood emerged from both cheeks as he advanced. He showed no fear of the White Snake. This holy intervention will earn back his rightful place in his temple.
As the half transformed Xiaoqing slid into the corner amid broken glass and pointed chips of wood, Bai raised both hands thrusting her palms toward the advancing figure.
"You fool. You dare to challenge an immortal?" Her words filled the room.
"I will overcome you. You harlot of nature." A spinning gale of wind engulfed his form. The debris from Bai's volatile entrance swirled about him.
No, Bai," Xiaoqing's transformation stalled upon her sister's arrival. Returning to her human form, the young woman moved toward her sister.
"My sweet Mei Mei, those that hurt you will suffer in kind, as I have a surprise for this unholy man." Bai lifted her arms causing Li Kai to hover in the air. The defrocked monk began to spin.
"No, sister. He is a monk. You can not kill him." Xiaoqing knew their existence as immortals depended on knowing the limitations of their breed.
"Do not worry sister, I will not slay this disgrace to Buddha." Bai's reassuring words did little to calm the anxious Xiaoqing. The young woman clasped her hands together to beg her Jie Jie.
"Please, my sweet sister. A true goddess, the great and magnificent White Snake." A cocoon of thick silk formed around the struggling man, as Bai guided him to
the ground.
"My Jie Jie, the world we live in will be void of welcome. We will be outcasts
and desolate." Xiaoqing dropped to her knees. "Please, even though he has been banished from his order, do not do this."
"Do what my sweet child?" Bai's question preceded furious knocking on the front door.
"Bai, the women must have heard the battle. We are found out."
"No, sweet Xiaoqing. This foolish man still had enough power to encase the shop with the wall of harmony." Bai's lips rose at their edge, exposing gleaming white teeth.
"Are you sure?" The worried sister asked.
"Go and check. They heard nothing of this chaos. You will see that all these women want are herbs and tonics to pep up their poor husbands after ten hours in the tea fields." Bai pointed at the cocooned figure on the wooden floor, "something to keep their men hard even if the rest of his body lies limp." She twirled her finger at the collection of broken glass and shattered wood melded together clinging to the silken surface encasing the monk. It began to reduce its size. Bending down to put the cigar shaped object in a brown paper bag. "Go now, I must return to Nine-Bends before my angel awakes."
Bai flew with no regard of discovery to be with her angel. The night sky over Fujian lacked inquisitive eyes to stall her flight. Poor hard working people populate this region. Rich in spirit and resolve, they labor with great diligence to better the lives of their families. People such as these do not waste their evening looking at the darken sky. Time as that is meant for rest.
Angelo began to stir. His eyes opened to the stroking fingers of Bai.
"My angel, we have time. We have time." A wiggling tongue invaded the dreary eyed man's mouth. Its length frightened him to consciousness.
"What? Where were you?"
"My precious, you sleep so soundly. I did not want to disturb you." Dragging her fingers along his bare chest. Angelo quivered. "Oh you feel my power." Her smile sent an anxious feeling through his soul. Blue eyes widened as if moist jewels on display.
"Bai?" His words were forced out, weak and uncertain. "What are you doing to me?" His breathing turned into a deluge of staccato-like breaths.
"Be not frightened my sweet love. Bai is here." Her dark iris glistened. The vision they held became visible to Angelo.
"Your eyes…I've seen that before." He tried to lift his head.
"What? Angelo you are shaking." Bai held him by his shoulders. "What do you see?"
"A monster." His last words before unconsciousness brought him peace.
BROOKLYN
Fahai left the Brooklyn Temple sometime after mid-day. The trip to JFK Airport would pass, as the private limousine afforded ample time to meditate. The expense of such a conveyance supplied for this special sojourn.
"This is what I have been preparing for my whole life." The sound proof partition of the vehicle did not interfere with the young monk's need to whisper. His mission held secrets never to be revealed to humans, secrets that would challenge beliefs in modern science and religion. Fahai whispered in a tone softer than the statement before.
"I challenge the White Snake."
Note to Reader:
Fahai will add more gasoline to the brewing fire. Jane? Will she go to China to see her Angelo? I'm sure, Bai will welcome her with open arms.
Thanmks...GG
