— *As a warning reminder to my readers and everyone! Chapter 47 will trigger you with familiar experiences of family drama. 48 is where you go! Go there now! This is my last call! Ignore the second paragraph!*
— Are you still reading this? Are you ready for the drama? Okay, you asked for it. Here lies the bitter reunion of the father and son. And brief strong languages occur below. Good luck. . .
Volume Three: Deng Wa
Chapter XLVII
A Disgraced Buck
Le, the father of Iron Antlers, wasted himself in the cell, crouching on the structure with his knees he fastened. This cell, not only one, but a whole chamber of prisoners, whined its metals as if it thumped, breathing the dragon prison. He and all the convicts were in the dragon's heart. Many waited for their execution dates this week or ahead of the following month. This week was his final time, and there were no visitors of his to say goodbye to Le; he had wanted to see one since one of his students departed from him after Gongmen Battle.
My son.
Le dreamt Wang every day. He was cornering himself in his chamber at Lu Academy. The father lit wax candles and dragon's blood scent sticks before Le knelt to his meditation position, praying to all the Gods that his son could come home. In his desperate times, he had failed what was supposed to change his life after his wife gave his son birth: family. Le attended not to ignore the child's eyes and promised his wife Chuju to retire from Shaolin Courts. His unlikely friendship was started when he met Master Owl, one of General Bear's lieutenants of Emperor Huangdi's Resistance and a high-rank judge of the Shaolin Member. Both planned their retirement once they expected their wives' deliveries: Li's son by November and Owl's daughter in December.
Things went south once the controversy spread like flies; a horrible discovery could have ended Le. His people wanted this monster dead who did terrible things. On the night, Wang and his mother strolled in the Yellow River Valley for a night after Summer Solstice began. Li granted his companion's help to give Owl's daughter Dong Mei a tour once the girl's father needed to meet his senator colleagues. Real friends and closest would do such favors; you help them, and they return your favor. Repeat. That night gave him a blessing watching Dong Mei since Le strongly wished to have his daughter (having children of son and daughter was the best for a family).
Le bought her an expensive garb as Owl wished to give her something promising, her favorite purple color, which represented a royal house honoring one of Owl's dear colleagues.
"This night is passing, my dear," Le predicts, crossing the bridge with Owl's daughter. "Your father is expecting you to come home."
"Just one more trip, Uncle Li. Please?" Dong Mei begs.
The deer grins as the water ripples surge underneath them. "Oh, my child. You know your father is always in expectations. Your mother should be baking cookies and bread once you get home."
Dong Mei lights her tangerine eyes at him with encouragement. "Can you, Wang, and Chuju come to my father's house?"
"My lovebird wishes me to stay, sweetheart," he answers. "I have something for my boy to educate him. He will more likely be my first student to teach in class."
"Oh! What kind of class, Uncle Le?" she chirps.
He chuckles in the middle of the bridge. "A kung fu dojo."
Dong Mei's snow wing pats his right arm. "May I be your student? Please?"
Her words keep the deer having strong desires for her as he visions her partnering with his son Wang. He regards capabilities that all Kung Fu masters follow philosophies from their teachers, brains with knowledge, physical and mental to students, and risks for not only on duties to protect the weak at all cost, but their fates could occur, deaths, killers. With uncertainty, as Dong Mei's father had experienced traumas during his duties with General Bear, Le wishes to keep the girl at a distance. "I am not sure. You will have to convince your father about joining the class. Could you keep a secret for me, Dong Mei?"
The girl squirms her looks at him. "Friends do not keep secrets."
Le chuckles once more, kneeling ahead of her. "It is a big surprise for him," he points out. "I like to see his face priceless, just as he wanted to have a temple for us. Together, your dad and I can be Masters."
Her eyes cast to her clawed feet. "I always wanted to be a warrior."
The deer's hoof rests under the bird's beak, her head rising. "Oh, little birdie. You are so much more than that. One day, I will have him by my side, and you can partner with my son."
"You mean it?" she tweets, spreading her beak wide.
"Yes, my Princess."
Once tweeting with giggles, Dong Mei launches on him, clenching her wings around Le. Unexpected, the deer receives her tiny beak blessing on his cheek. "I wish I had the best father than my own, Le. . ."
With iron shackles (improvements for eight-point pressure cuffs, sharp pins took its fastening bite in his wrists, preventing him from starting his brawl), the former Lu Disciple Master ambles toward the center court, standing on the Yin-Yang platform. The material surface was made of silver marble. Around him are spectators and high councils giving their stares at him, swirling into casualness and hostility. People mentioning Le had witnessed and met him before, regarding his behavior, as they read his character too well. His witnesses stand behind him to his right: three former students, the Nine's Defender, and Master Owl.
The round table towers ahead of Le, which members of Shaolin Councils are from districts of martial arts. Four sitting on their chairs are Master Sheep's sister of Wugu City, Master Yak — the monk in orange saffron, Master Antelope of Yellow River, and Grandmaster Shifu of the Valley of Peace.
The fifth volunteer is a well-known subject who is loyal and a dear friend of Emperor Huangdi. From Gongmen City stands a bovine in silver garb with flared-up shoulder patches and a white robe with a yellow belt. The coat matches the color of his fur from the storm he was born, dedicated by his late friend Thundering Rhino. Emperor's Wisdom calls himself Master Storming Ox.
Five rhino guards of leather armor in front of the round table arm their halberds and axes, positioning in command while glaring their eyes at the defendant.
"State your name in the Shaolin Court, defendant," Master Storming Ox uttered.
"My name. . . My name is Master Le, Lu Disciple instructor, father of Wang, the Iron Antlers, and a husband of Chuju."
Shifu beside the bovine proclaims. "You managed to mistreat your former Lu Disciple students teaching Kung Fu in terrible aspects of your vision. By allowing inappropriate behaviors and harassment toward your pupils, you have violated the codes of conduct. Do you deny it?" Shifu queried.
"No."
The yak monk expresses his fruity voice, grated with mumbles. "You attempted your conspiracies by forcing your students to rampage Prosper Valley and assassinate the Nine, including Master Storming Ox's son Niu, the Nine's Defender. You stand accused of attempts of aggravated assault. Do you deny it?"
"No."
"Your physical actions setting your situation between you and your son are somewhat tangible, Master Le," the antelope speaks out boldly. "You stand accused of domestic violence against Wang, the Iron Antlers—"
"Wang is not a child anymore," Le interrupts, unveiling wrinkles from his glare. "Where is my son?"
"This matter mentioning your son's whereabouts, Master Le, is not part of this court's critical case," Master Storming Ox silences him. "Answer Master Antelope's question."
The deer trembles his head, looking down at his feet. "I deny it."
"LIAR!"
One former student, Han, criticizes his teacher. "My brothers and I witnessed you attacking Wang, even after training!"
Master Antelope has commenced pressuring Le with another statement. "You stand accused of stalking Master Owl's daughter, Dong Mei, by wishing everything in your power to hurt her. An early report suggested a rumor mentioning Dong Mei, who was abducted and tortured. And her mother confirmed the information of the incident, indicating injuries."
The deer sets his eyes on the antelope, full of defiance. He could hear Dong Mei's distortion of cries in his head, his head showing brief trembles. "Are you the one who assaulted the girl, Le?" Master Antelope asks.
Le clenches his teeth behind his closed lips. "No. . ." he muttered his low growl.
"Do you deny your accusation, Master Le?"
"I deny it!" Le bursts his roar, grimacing at the Council and all spectators. "None of you were in Yellow River Valley and sought the girl in trauma! The girl was in high spirits on the night of Summer Solstice before we went to the last known area the next day. Dong Mei and I bought ourselves the finest tea at the Yellow River's Tea House. That warthog and his group of bandits attempted their scheme; they poured sleeping medicine into my cup and had me drugged."
The deer admits once he looks upon the silver marble floor engraved in Yin-Yang. "Those slimes did what I never laid my hooves on. . . A month after my wife left me, the girl only remembered that she was on me — left with severe harm. She thought I was the one who took her to the Tea Province."
Shoving in from the crowd, somewhere behind the bench, the sow snaps. "Stalker!"
"Child predator!" the porcupine grimaces.
And the whole court rumbles with a pool of subjects joining their outcries.
"SILENCE!" Master Storming Ox intensifies his low growl, deadening the court into silence. The deer feels the giant bovine's voice of grinding metal shivering in his spine, his fists are unsettling as he sees observers ready to jump on him, but rhino guards defend their positions from them. Many eyes hunger, fists, and talons prepping their grips as if planning to tear this criminal apart.
Somewhere amidst the pool of gathering emerges a small silver head. Thinking too critically that silver is trustworthy and wealthy but has enigmatic and deceiving side effects. This color does not match what he had thought of another criminal who slaughtered pandas, but a figure of snow-white feathers in silver hanfu is among the group. Whose eyes of tangerine glittering at Le's eyes pulse its reflective tears.
Dong Mei. Le silences his gasp under his throat.
With the distraction, while the deer settles his eyes on the bird, the giant bovine remains his stand among the four councils, fixing at the defendant. "You stand accused of the crimes of high treason. Four counts of attempted murders against the Fellowship of the Nine, seventeen counts of domestic violence, thirteen counts of misconduct and mistreatment, and one child predator," he states in the records. "How do you plead?"
"Goodbye, Dong Mei. . ." Le mutters, so long to watch Dong Mei's tears drenching her beak.
The bovine's snout pressures with a harsh echo. "Turn to the Emperor's Wisdom, and answer the question, Le."
"I am guilty, Councils," Le pleads, whose face bents wrinkles, fixing his brown eyes at the Council.
"Do you wish to confess?" Master Storming Ox demands, glaring.
The deer grated his harsh breaths while puffing in annoyance. "Is that what you wanted to hear? I am guilty of everything I have committed. I tried to save my legacy — from corrupted masters and people like you, SLIME!"
Master Ox stomps his heavy fist. "Your legacy does not concern subjects in the courthouse, Le," he snaps his crimson eyes. "Your title as a master now strips away by the orders of Shaolin."
The bovine stands among the round table. "The defendant is guilty of domestic violence, child abuse, and now disorderly conduct for interruption, rejection, and insult," he announces. "As Emperor Huangdi's Wisdom, the head of the Master's Council of Gongmen City, I sentence you to your execution date at the end of December. The Council banishes you to northwest China. There sleeps the deathly dragon. Inside Jiānyù Prison. Do you have any last words?"
"YOU ALL FRAMED ME!" Le clenches his teeth, flinching cuff chains. "I HAVE NEVER BECOME A CHILD ABUSER! I TOLD YOU THE TRUTH! THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!"
"Send him away, Nam!" Master Ox orders a rhino officer, and Nam and his correctional guards escort Le toward the Yin-Yang gate, where bystanders burst their outrage toward the deer.
Nam, a captain officer of Anvil of Heaven who served the late Commander Vachir (now does with Jianyu warden), hurls Le in the cage carriage. He latches the metal once a group of hordes storm from the marble stairs of Shaolin Council, spitting vulgarisms at the deer. Rhino guards circle around the carriage, their axes and halberds shoving the riot back.
"STAND BACK!" the officers shout, and around thirty rhinos storming from the front carriage commence barricading with support. For a moment, the deer sitting on the carriage stool ignore all eyes as soon as Nam orders his guards to start heaving the vehicle.
The sun from the cloud webs tears its light apart, the rays shining upon the Ying-Yang gate; Le follows the beam, and behind these axes, brilliantly pulses of snow white coming out of the entry, he glimpses his old neighbors. Master Owl and his dear beloved wife, in their silver silk garbs, wrap their vibrant wings around their daughter Dong Mei, who watches the whole drama, perturbed.
The deer could see the girl he had not seen her and the Owl family in years, all grown with tears. A special relationship, you notice he cared for his neighbors, and this crime, proclaimed his innocence, destroys his honesty. The last thing Le motions his eyes beside these birds stands a figure of brown fur. Matched like his own, and one's yellow hanfu that details its root flowers growing with antlers.
I am coming home.
A boar with a black mohawk mane in front of the horde spits his tongue. "YOU ARE A MONSTER, LE! You made your son a Jade Slayer, and he took my daughter!"
"Wang is NOT the Jade Slayer!" Le clenches the metal bars.
Something in the boar's pocket had his hooves crush the scroll paper; he throws it to him, and Le snatches after a rhino guard shoves the spectator back. "See that wanted poster to yourself, coward!" he roars last time, disappearing into the angry crowd.
Opening the crumpled scroll, Le finally sees the green eyes he feared hearing news about in all of China. Hard to be convinced that he had heard the new Jade Slayer attacking a few cities across China. The wanted picture is his son, filling his breaths in his lungs.
"Somebody is close to the spike gate! We are almost free!"
The deer began to shake off remembrances as soon as his cellmates strengthened their cheers and whistles, roaring. Le stumbled his heavy steps as links behind him dragged his weight, slowing him down; he went for the metal bar and peeped at his left side. The spike gate's gaps radiated pulses of emerald, boosting its rumbles.
And the door blasted to bits, forcing all prisoners to retreat their cover.
Swirls of green and basil crept on floors, twirling as they swam at every corner and touched every being. Cold yet stirring, Le uncovered his head from the debris. A loud bang from his left rammed, and the boar prisoner struck twice. "Hey, you," he broadened his clenched teeth. "The day is coming, Le. While I am free with my boys soon enough, you will know how it feels to mate with the wrong child. Oh, my brothers will —"
A line of zipping whiffed under his neck and plunged his whole throat.
The boar coughed the rest of his splotches, crashing to his knees. With rupturing wheezes, the prisoner grimaced at the eyes of jade glooming close. Another emerald quill hit his head, instantly silencing his misery and leaving the stream of his gores.
"That will not be necessary," the voice behind the smoke articulated.
Twenty light beams darting with their billowing sheets summoned Jade Warriors, alive with slick and hardened flesh, standing beside cells. The whole heart started thumping its metal grinds once convicts died their joys as they recoiled from stone glares. A leopard jombie with a crown jewel emerged in his upper right corner, snarling at cellmates before another figure behind the clouds dissipated into shreds.
The leopard's mate stood by, whose round mane and eyes of green banged Wang's cellmate's door, silencing horrors before the following figure emerged with towering antlers. Months after the aftermath of the Gongmen Battle, Le thought he could never see someone in his life again. And finally, filling such spirit, his son was ahead of the cell, whose eyes faded to brown, but you could see his sclera dying its shadowy basil.
"Wang. . .?" he gaped. "You—You are here."
"Father," he greeted in nonchalance.
"By the Gods. You are here!"
Sobbing, Le reached out his hooves and braced Wang, but bars refused to pass through with his antlers. "My boy! You have no idea how long I have been looking for you."
I know what you will do to me when I return to you, father.
Without making his father suspicious, Wang patted his shoulder when shutting his green eyes, accepting his hug. "Listen, this chamber does not allow visitors," Le warned him, sniffing. "I am on death row, son."
"Oh, I changed the rule with my servants," his son said, dimming his green eyes. "For the sake of my entire life before starting to reign the world, I wanted to pay my visit to the prison to let me see you in person."
Servants? Reign the world? Le glanced hard at his son's eyes, now glimpsing at the dead prisoner, whose blood crept out of the cell.
"What on Earth?" his voice croaked with dread, and his son's eyes dimmed green, now brighter than before. "Wang, your eyes."
"Astonishing, aren't they?" his son displayed his sinister grin. "Now I see everything from one's perspective. Hundreds, closely thousands."
He remembered the boar outside Shaolin Court Temple, who threw a crushed scroll at Le. The picture was what he thought of those people mentioning his son, a nightmare to all the souls. "Do you know what my eyes mean anything to you?" Wang queried.
Le widened his eyes, stepping his foot back once. "I kept hearing about this 'New Jade Slayer' rampaging with Jade Warriors in all of China for sports," he gripped the metal bars, dreading. "Was it you, my boy?"
"All those weaklings were screaming for help and masters avenging their people, and they call me a tyrant, the one who you created me as a weapon," Wang said, whose hoof streamed emerald veins, the tip of his fingers casting sparkles. "This jade of mine is an absolute pure. As the original Disciple who built our house for the sake of our generation, you defined purity, ambition, and lack of softness. By sharing your knowledge with me, a paramount tale to restore honor and clear our house name, I now understand the purpose of our family's future. Our ancestor was a disgraced soldier who did nothing but fight to the death with his fellow brothers of the Great War. Ever since the ending happened, they pointed fingers at him and claimed that he conspired to send messages to enemies by ending the war. Our ancestor was no informant, Father. His loyalty ruptured into a puff of smoke, and he lost all of his circle of trust, becoming an outcast.
"For five hundred years and beyond, his children and their children, and you before our forefathers proved to offer Emperors restore our house redemption," Wang glowered his eyes on his shoulder toward his father. "All of you failed."
The deer with shackles shook his head. "I had to continue our legacy," Le admitted with guilt.
"Did you? You and your descendants are morons," Wang doubted him. "This lineage has always become a failure, and I will alter to a new beginning."
Le held his muzzle's breath from defying in uncertainty. "And how will you carry our lineage?"
The Iron Antlers began, crossing his fists behind his back. "Our ancestry blood will propel to new changes, despite building one stone at a time went down to crumbles. As you can see, one had almost built a perfect world to seek a new life after many eyes pointed at descendants who labeled us traitors. We waited more than five hundred years for the Emperors before the Song Dynasty to pardon us. Neither of those cows gives a shit about us because they know our heritage too well. Not. One. Emperor who will give our family house a second chance."
Wang chuckled and guffawed, pitching a sinister laugh. "Do you know what is funny, dad?" he fastened his view at his father. "They are royalty buffalos because when they do not believe any blatant lies and see us as the fools, they spray their poops at the front door and call our second chance 'Bullshit.'"
A few convicts around the heart cages snickered, and Wang approved hearing their laughs. "You see? They all know who those dipshits are, and they despise criminals like you."
"Huangdi is the competent being, son," Le was frightened at his son's behavior. "Why in all the Gods do you say things like that?"
"So did you curse at people, father," Wang retorted, humming with inquisitiveness. "Whatever happened to that friend of yours who curses a lot? I heard that bear who smokes his cigar a lot was your best friend."
"I never met him, boy. It was only a curse dream!"
So it was only a fantasy then.
Wang spread his lips in understanding, shaking his head. "All Emperors are right about us, and I cannot blame them. That plan of yours, giving a second chance to Emperor Huangdi, father, is bullshit," he scowled, snouting. "You should have known better last time. And yet, generations have been wasted in the graveyard for nothing."
"Why are you telling me this with all the insults now?" Le sharpened his glower.
"I believe I am here to share with you about my ambition, father. Instead of being pardoned, I find ways to adapt to my newest course. Something that all the eyes shall face the newest chapter above all," Wang stated. "Overlords waste their time debating each other like rascal children in classrooms, see who is dominant. Either of them wins, so they sit on their thrones and do nothing but bully subjects and make filthy secrets behind their doors. Instead of children arguing at each other's throats, they will go to their corners for a time out. Let the adults conqueror at the front door of the Forbidden City, and that buffalo buffoon will bow to someone's feet after his resignation. Would you like to know what he will call the next ruler?"
Le unveiled his dreaded look, bathed in white from his son's eyes. "What will Huangdi name this fool?"
"This no fool will be known as — The Jade Emperor."
What? Have I known that story before? Le reflected.
After his son's training, Le kept his peep at Wang in the scroll library of five hundred scrolls (volumes for dynasties and kung fu, twenty for literature, ancient history, and the Great War tales). One book was given to him by a friend of Wang's mother, who cherished the legend of four dragons who fed their people in care before they gave in their souls to become great rivers of China.
After Wang went to his chamber, Le entered and sought a Jade Emperor in velvet green hanfu robes sitting on the Throne. A goat ruler.
With realization, Le burst out his guffaws in solemnity. "For twenty-three years, that myth of four dragons and their Jade Emperor has been such a big motivation to you, and yet, here you are, following that inspiration. You think you will build a new dynasty by dethroning the Gentle Dragon, whose great-grandfather inherited this existing dynasty?"
"Believe it or not, father," Wang clenched his sight, "my eyes do not lie."
"Are you MAD?!" Le snapped. "You cannot beat him. You cannot slaughter all of the Emperor's guards!"
"I can, and I will with my army," Wang said, his head reaching closer to his father's cell. "I am far more ruthless than you. And that storm is com—"
What stopped his final word ahead of Le, Wang caught a flash of dying silver light, which pulsed its yellow dawn. A white feather with black dots, Wang remembered. Something more significant in his heart made him reminisce magical memories of Dong Mei, daughter of Master Owl. Around the peach tree, with giggles and senses of happiness, the boy felt soft strokes of her wings clasping on his hoof, crashing on flowers.
"That feather means something, is it?" Wang surged his chilly breath. "Is it, father?"
Le picked up Dong Mei's feather with its tangerine scent, stroking. "They were good neighbors at our old home in Yellow River Village, Wang. I should have invited Master Owl and his girl to my house. His daughter would have wanted you to be her soulmate," Wang's father said.
I am always her closest friend. Wang stepped back, trembling his head.
"I saw Dong Mei, son. She and her family were there at the Shaolin Court Temple; she is all grown and does not stop tears. Gods, the bird is such a sweet being," Le quivered his lips, clenching his eyes closed. "Has she spoken to you?"
Wang lastly sought Master Owl's daughter outside her cottage, who begged him to come home. Her haunting voice of grief and hopelessness clenched his heart, wrenching his face. "Dong Mei never paid her visit to your temple, and neither does she see me anymore," Wang cracked his voice, disheartening.
Le sought his son, who stretched his brows upward. "Is that why Mom left because of her?"
"What? No!"
"Do you think Mom should have deserved to come back and steal me from you? She left me! She left you! You pushed her away!" Le screamed.
"Son, please—!"
"What were those words you said to Mom? Thinking I should wear a dress with her and dance around the country?"
"Wang, stop!"
"SHE'S NOT COMING BACK!"
The heart of eighty-one prisoners stumbled its racing heart, its steady pulses slowing after Wang's echo cry. Two stags wrenching their heads away let out their stream of warm tears. "I wished none of these were real," Wang quavered his crushed voice. "All I wanted happiness is when you and Mom never separate yourselves because of me. After all these years, you lived in your house full of shame, disrespecting our ancestor who had lost his glory in the Great War, and somebody burned it all to the ground!"
Le wobbled his long sighs, blocking his muzzle from his eyes, shedding tears. "You broke me. You broke my friends. You forced us to toy with everyone who thought we were losers. And still," Wang came close to the bar. "You are the worse piece of shit I have ever known you."
"I wished I could have taken everything back. I am sorry, Wang, for everything!" Le wavered his hooves, links clanking. He outstretched near the bar door. "I beg you to hear me, son. Give me a chance to get you to live a happy—"
"No! There's no chance for a family with the abuser in our dishonored house. That disgraced fool rotten his boy in the Monastery. Thanks to you, you created a monster," Wang clenched his teeth. "Your pride fills nothing but satisfaction and joy and narcissism ideal, trained all weaklings, including me, to become your students as full of retards, never taming monsters."
"That's not fair. . . Please — forgive me, Wang," he winced, weeping once his bruised knees collapsed.
"Revenge tastes like rice wine, isn't that right? It is the best drink than being soured. A wise sufferer once said what comes around goes around. And you deserved the pain how I feel."
With regret and broken, Le attempted to reach his hoof near his son's wrist, and Wang deflected away, forcing his father to look at him hopelessly.
"One way or another, you will stay rotten in the cell to contemplate a new era that thrives my ambition. Aiming for the next dynasty will fill joy and happiness; on the other, the rest of the people shall see hate and bloodshed at those who made victims. There will be hanging — one corpse in every mile in any direction. The Great Wall will mount headless beings, sending a message to foreign savages who would dare enter my territory. All temples will plant warriors' heads on spikes: honor, dishonor, and rebellion. In my throne room—"
"WANG!" Le cried. "Why in the name of all the Gods will you do cruel things?! I am your father! You cannot do this to me!"
"More cruelty than Emperor Buffoon's justice system. This new system will prove fair to see no killers running in the wild, no longer killing for sport, no longer stalking children, and I will improve those laws," Wang grumbled.
His son was so sporadic in antagonizing Le with all his hatred as convicts mumbled their whispers — yet, Le could see all of the prisoners' disappointing looks, to their perspectives claiming he was the fault to blame for creating his son a monster. But the whole tragedy behind Wang was not how they could comprehend the ancient specter who snared the boy.
"Let me ask you one last question, Le," his son stared at him. "Do you love your family or Master Owl's girl?"
Full of innocence, Le opened his mouth, utterly in pain. Wang was all looking for his father's expression. Proven remorseful, he pressed his query against him. "Is it so ravishing for you to touch that girl and do everything you can to harm her?"
"I would never. I WOULD NEVER—!"
Wang slammed his father's cell door. "DO YOU LOVE YOUR FAMILY OR THE GIRL?"
"I LOVE you and your mom, son! For all my heart!" Le admitted, breaking his sense into a broken deer. His sob amplified the whole heart chamber, flooding despair. "I am sorry for everything!"
Wang's temperament of loathsomeness submerged to calmness, the feeling of calamity receding. He had enough of sharing his father's pain, the regret that there would be no such thing to heal once more, and Wang knew his connection of the father and son was at its end. Nothing to continue down his path with Le.
"Then you should have never let my mother go," Wang said, lessening his rage. "Goodbye, Le."
Wang's father started looking at his son walk away. "No! Come back, Wang!"
"It's over. We are finished."
"YOUR MOTHER IS ALIVE!"
He sought his son's foot lift into hesitation. "She was there with Owl family. Go home and see her. It's all you wanted to bring your mother back. Please set me free. Come home."
My mom is gone. He only saw a ghost, thinking she was real. It was only fantasy.
So instead of turning back, Wang continued forward as the heart chamber stopped beating its grinding metals. He would never forget his father's haunting cry before he escaped his father's reality. "WANG!"
"You did well, my apprentice. You will place your father's head on your Throne one day."
Standing still on the ice platform, listening to the hollow distance of horrors underneath him, Wang stroked his tired eyes, full of shame; he impacted his soul, crushing his father's heart. "I wish not to, Master. Placing his head on the spike will keep me reminding terrible memories. Le was a terrible father. I am no longer his son," Wang crooned. "Instead of him, I know someone who will be my trophy."
His fists gripped. "I am ready to finish this quest, Master Deng Wa. Now, this time, I will kill them all. The Nine and the people of the Prosper Valley and Gongmen City. Masters of Jade Palace and citizens of the Valley of Peace. The Emperor and his two daughters. And every Master in China. Wherever Xing and Kai are, villagers of Tanhuang will die with them!"
"Then let us assemble our army. Let me unleash prisoners but your father. They will serve you."
Behind the deer, the badger specter crept out of Wang and assembled their Jade Warrior scouts, their orbs darting back into the heart's chamber, swimming in cells. Each one stifled in their bodies, one by one, unleashing sharp quills in their lungs and throats. All of their screams fluctuating here and there ceased to its existence. Many stood proud and in command behind the Iron Antlers.
Deng Wa, swimming back in Wang, pulsed his fruity tone. "All prisoners are under your command."
"Let's go hunt."
A/N:
— I warned you, readers. Are you okay? Did this dark chapter trigger you? I hope you all have not experienced this trauma, impacting you with familiar experiences. This will be the last time posting a dark chapter like this is going too far. As I may have written from the first book or early chapters of The Trinity, I must balance light and dark tones.
— The Valley of Peace is where you heal better there. Are you willing to celebrate Winter Feast with me, my fellow readers? Let's go then!