The Card Apprentice - The Ning Household
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The Ning Household
He sighed to himself since he didn’t know how many innocent people might have lost their lives getting mixed up in the chaos. He felt gloomy, not having realized that the situation would become so chaotic. While there would still have been pandemonium, no-one would have been killed If the apparatus hadn’t exploded on that card artisan that he had killed. If the ones killed had been those card artisans, he wouldn’t have felt bad at all, but when it spread to these innocent travelers, he felt very sorry.
He quickly got rid of all those extraneous thoughts, and strode away, quickly departing from the station exit.
As soon as he walked into a street, there were warning signs without leaving him any time to react, and he quickly found himself among a bunch of people who quickly surrounded him.
Catching sight of the activated apparatuses on several of their wrists, which enshrouded him in bars of light from their right hands, Chen Mu immediately chose to cooperate.
“Brother Dong, this is the guy! I saw it all very clearly, and this is the one. He struck first and then stirred up that huge chaos! Two of the Zuo family men were killed by him. Everyone stay alert, this guy is fierce.”
A short youth had jumped out in the stealthy manner of a thief, pointing at Chen Mu. The others took his reminder and were all poised to face a formidable enemy.
There were probably seven or eight in the group, all men, with a great range of ages among them. The oldest was about forty or so, having no need to whiten his face. What awed Chen Mu was the wavy blade hovering in midair above his hand.
The moon-white wavy blade was about half the size of an open hand and was floating calmly above his opened palm. From the start, the wavy blade had been very calmly floating there.
He was effectively showing off how fully tempered his control of the wavy blade was.
Still, that middle-aged fellow wasn’t the leader of the group, who was a youth looking to be about seventeen or eighteen, with most of the group being youngsters like that.
This youth was big and burly, and looked upright; despite his young age, he already had a dignified bearing.
When he found Chen Mu looking at him, he lifted his eyebrows and said coldly, “Whatever your eminence’s beef is with the Zuo family, it has nothing to do with us. But do you think it would do for you to just leave after instigating such a massive disturbance in Amay City?” He then shouted to the short youth, “Ah Xing, take off his apparatus.”
“Alright!” That short youth looked defiantly at Chen Mu, and swaggered over to him.
After some brief evaluation, Chen Mu understood the situation, and saw no room for resistance. He would be torn to pieces if he made the slightest move, as he was already firmly locked in by the uninhibited perception of the group.
He could also see from the expression and movements of the youth that they shouldn’t be underestimated.
Chen Mu was sneering to himself, having freed himself from one cage without realizing he would be entering the tiger’s jaw.
Ah Xing had a nimble hand and had removed Chen Mu’s apparatus in the blink of an eye.
With a slimy look, Ah Xing was about to remove the cards from Chen Mu’s apparatus, when the leader yelled at him to stop, “Ah Xing, there’s been no decision, and you can’t just take other peoples’ things! Hand it over.”
Ah Xing spat and then very honestly handed over Chen Mu’s apparatus to the young leader.
“Let’s go. We’ll take him back home, where the results will be for the patriarch to decide.”
They all flew up in a line. With the wind rushing in Chen Mu’s ears, this was his first time flying, although he was being carried between two of them.
The feeling of flight was wonderful, and Chen Mu was thinking that if he stayed alive he would certainly learn to manipulate the jet stream card.
After flying for about twenty minutes, he was taken to a large manor. It had an old-style garden, in which there were stone carvings that had aged through the years, with many of them moss covered. A long pavilion was winding around a lake, entirely constructed of wood, with pillars that were already grey and obviously just as old.
The mysterious ancient breeze on Chen Mu’s face filled him with curiosity about all the vegetation that was there.
“Who is this guy, Ah Dong?”
This was the most that anyone had asked in the whole trip.
They were walking along in a long wooden pavilion that was perhaps three hundred meters in length. The pavilion was built against a wall, and had exquisite patterns carved above each of the pillars, with some of them still having their gold leaf, and with the three-hundred-meter wall like a giant painted scroll, having the lively likenesses of many personages painted on it.
Even someone who didn’t know anything about the market like Chen Mu, understood how expensive such a long pavilion had to have been.
He kept silent all along the way, still not knowing what they were doing. From what he was seeing along the way, this was obviously a very powerful and wealthy clan, which had a long history.
“Brother Dong, it’s a good thing you’ve returned early, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to see your cousin.” A man looking like a middle-aged servant had hastened forward when he saw Ning Dong.
“My cousin has returned?” Ning Dong was quite happy, as he turned around to the rest of them and said, “You may leave, everyone.” Then he took Chen Mu by the hand, and chased on ahead, with the rest of them dispersing noisily.
Ning Dong was excitedly leading Chen Mu into the long pavilion, since his cousin seldom came back to the manor, living a simple life, and preferring to live alone outside.
“Cousin!” When he saw his cousin sitting on a chair talking to his father, he immediately cast Chen Mu aside, and strode right ahead.
His father immediately frowned, and said unhappily, “Neither big nor small, does such a big person have no etiquette?”
“Oh!” Chen Mu heard a familiar voice, and raised his head with difficulty, immediately seeing that the one sitting on the chair was awesomely Madam Ning, who was covering her mouth in astonishment to see Chen Mu there on the ground.
Seeing Madam Ning’s expression, Ning Dong asked as though something were strange, “You know him, cousin?”
Madam Ning had quickly resumed her calm, nodding, “Mmmm, he was the one who restored father’s ‘hundred changes’ cloak card.” Her father was Dong Ning’s grandfather’s younger cousin, the two of them having grown up together since they were little and having very deep feelings toward one another. Madam Ning’s father had died in his prime, while Madam Ning was still small, and she’d passed her childhood in the manor.
Ning Dong’s father let out a sigh, “Ah Yin, what were you doing looking for some outsider for that, with so many card master aces in the clan. Do you still bear grudges from what happened that year?
Madam Ning looked indifferent, “I’ve long forgotten what happened that year.” Then she quickly turned to Ning Dong, “Ah Dong, what’s going on here?”
Seeing what his cousin was asking, he hastily told about the scene that had developed in the underground tunnels. Because Madam Ning had something to do which required her to return to the manor, she had come directly there as soon as she left the station and wasn’t aware of what had happened afterward.
Hearing the horrors portrayed by Ning Dong, the gaze that the kind-hearted Madam Ning had turned to Chen Mu became suddenly disappointed.
Meeting her gaze, Chen Mu had an impulse to clarify what hadn’t been said just then, but just as the words were coming out of his mouth, he forcibly swallowed them back. He had realized that although he hadn’t killed all those people, it was directly connected with him.
Still, without knowing why, Chen Me really didn’t want that woman who had shown such concern and goodwill toward him to feel disappointed in him.
“I’ll leave now.” Madam Ning said with a very indifferent tone, even more so than before, “He really did help me to restore what father left behind, and so I, Ah Yin, make this request of you here, not to embarrass him too much.”
Then she rubbed Ning Dong’s head and left.
On the ground, Chen Mu’s face was ashen, and his brain was buzzing.
It was night before he was slowly restored to a clear head. All of the tortuous twists and turns in his heart had gradually smoothed to the coolness of silk, while he still felt some bitterness.
What could he do now? With his hands tied? He sneered at himself to ask.
His gaze was gradually restored to its previous coolness. Looking all around, he seemed to be in a prison. All his things had been taken from him, and it looked impossible to escape from that prison.
Unlike the ancient style of the manor, the jail was thoroughly modern. He was already there, and he was safe, and Chen Mu didn’t want to think about it anymore. Perhaps that little bit of concern shown by Madam Ning didn’t really belong to him, he wondered in his daze.
In his boredom, Chen My restarted his exercise gymnastics, since the jail was too small to do any other training. Three meals a day, sent in by someone at a certain time. The food was quite good, and Chen Mu ate it with great relish.
He was in the jail for an entire week, when he suddenly saw Ning Dong.
“Because of my cousin’s request on your behalf, my father isn’t thinking of killing you. And we don’t care about your grudge with the Zuo household. But we have jurisdiction over Amay City. As for the Zuo family, we’ve already sent someone to call them to account. But you’re the instigator, and you must naturally be punished. I am asking you if you would like to do hard labor.”
Ning Dong was looking very gravely at Chen Mu.
“What do you mean by hard labor?” Chen Mu asked with a calm expression. But it was a different expression than his usual one, since he was inwardly shocked. He could tell from Ning Dong’s tone that it was clearly not the first time that they had taken care of that sort of thing. Could it be that their power extended even to the police garrison in Amay City? The Zuo family in Eastern Shang-Wei City was far from extending that far.
“Since you could restore the ‘hundred changes’ cloak card, you must have pretty good card making ability. So, after you restore two hundred cards, we’ll let you leave. What do you think?” Ning Dong expression was conveying something.
“OK.” Chen Mu agreed without any hesitation, since no matter what, he would get out first before saying anything.
“Here are your things, it’s all there.” Ning Dong gave the sack in his hands to Chen Mu. Seeing the astonishment in Chen Mu’s eyes, he felt self-satisfied, and then said with some pride, “The Ning family would never casually take other people’s things.”
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