Chapter 18 The Cruel Stroke of Fate

Lin Fengquan was stunned. But this was also the first time the young man saw the jade pendant for he asked the young woman, "What's that?" The woman replied, "Oh? This? My mum made a vow that I would one day marry the man who wears another half of this pendant. What a joke! I do not even know who that is!" Feeling humiliated, Lin Fengquan felt sorry for his mother who had truly kept to the very same vow all these years. He felt sad for her and thought, "Look, Mother! For all these years you have been faithful to the sisterhood you shared with that woman! But it seemed everything is nothing but a joke to them!" At a sudden loss of what to do next, he hesitated and left. Back at his hostel, Lin Fengquan began pondering on what to do next for the next few days. Since his childhood, his mother had mentioned to him of the engagement. But it seemed that there was no need for him to honor this vow. Still, he could think of no way to deliver the news to his mother. The truth would hurt her badly! After raking his head for ideas, he had finally come up with a plan. Lin Fengquan waited for two to three weeks until he decided it was time to act. He remained until night and set off to the new dwelling in the village. He climbed over the wall and up the roof of the house, and there he sat and observed. It turned out that the house was being prepared for a wedding tomorrow! There were people preparing ingredients for a small wedding banquet tomorrow! In the 80s, most wedding receptions were still held at home instead of restaurants. Hence the woman, now in a vivaciously beautiful outfit, had invited the chefs, the emcee, and other related personnel for dinner at her house before the big day tomorrow! Just then, a steward came to the table with a huge tray; upon it sat a roasted chicken. Standing over the top of the roof, Lin Fengquan flung a dart that zipped through the air and pierced through the chicken, shattering that plate below it. Unlike common throwing knives, darts have a cloth hung on its end like a red tail! It was a tool that most action flick aficionados would instantly recognize! Realizing that they had an intruder, the young woman screamed, "There's someone on the roof!" Proud of her skills, she leaped onto a table and a wall, before lunging up over the roof in pursuit. Lin Fengquan skitted swiftly along the top of a wall as he ran, the young woman chasing behind furiously. Presumptuous of her extensive knowledge in the surroundings, the young woman took a short cut to cut him off. Little did she realized that this was in fact what Lin Fengquan had wished for! He had planned to isolate her from the others to take her jade pendant! Seeing Lin Fengquan coming her way, the young woman lifted an arm to point at him and wanted to bark something, only to find that Lin Fengquan was instead charging headlong into her! He leaped into the air and used the same Twin Kicks technique – a left-kicking feint following by an actual kick with his right leg! She raised her arms over her head to shield herself but this diversion tactic allowed Lin Fengquan to land a strong blow into the woman's abdomen! However, unlike Yang Baoshan who fell on soft ground, Lin Fengquan and the woman were fighting on hard tarmac. A fall to the ground headfirst might injure her head! But being skilled in martial arts, the woman curled herself like a ball when she was falling to avert from more injuries and rolled on the ground. Without losing a moment, Lin Fengquan rushed forward and stamped a foot on her. He reached out and snagged away her pendant quickly and left. During the turmoil, everyone had gone out to help chase down Lin Fengquan. There was only an army officer who remained at the house. There was still no clear distinction of ranks in the army in that time; hence army officers wore only uniforms with four flapped pockets at the front. Lin Fengquan returning to recover his dart was hardly unnoticed by the officer who saw it as a chance to apprehend him. He dashed forward but Lin Fengquan, aware that law enforcement officers and army men were trained in the form of martial arts that specialized in grappling techniques; a school of Chinese wushu that originated from Taijiquan, knew that this variation had a terrible weakness: they were especially used to counter offensive moves; therefore their techniques would be ineffectual against opponents who were not the first to attack! Knowing that this was nothing but a gambit used to force his hand, Lin Fengquan surprised his opponent with a weapon; one that he himself had deigned to use – a chain whip! This was no ordinary chain whip – it was only one-meter long; shorter than most other variations of chain whips including regular horse whips used to drive horses. The length of the whip was tapered, from thick to thin, and was fully wrapped in red cloth with a handle at its end. But it was not why Lin Fengquan had deigned to use it in the first place. It was because the whip was made of strong tensile steel cables as thick as a thumb! Thirty-seven 15.5-meter steel cords were formed into each of these six steel cables which Lin Fengquan then requested the help of an old crane worker to help him furnish the cables into a strong and yet immensely agile whip. For this favor, Lin Fengquan had helped his grandson to produce 120 photographs for him. He had even enlarged two of these photographs as an incentive. There was once when a colleague in the hostel wanted to try out the whip. Instead, he injured somebody. With only a simple graze on the person's leg, the man's leg became terribly swollen. A simple shake of the whip was enough to smash the bones of a man's fingers. Therefore, Lin Fengquan produced his whip, bracing himself as the army officer bolted towards him. He leaped into the air and flailed his whip. With his momentum already moving to the front, the officer could hardly evade the whip that struck at him with the intensity of a venomous serpent! With a loud "smack" and a painful cry, the army officer fell backward. Lin Fengquan scrambled over and retrieved his dart and fled. When he had reached home, Lin Fengquan then lied to his mother, telling her that the family of her sworn sister had died. To his dismay, she refused to believe him, snapping at him harshly, "Speak no ill of others, you young fool!" Lin Fengquan showed her the pendant that he had taken from the young woman and lied to her that he had found the village, but the family had long moved to Tangshan where they perished during the 1976 earthquake. The pendant was handed to him by a relative of theirs, he told his mother. Hearing this, Lin Fengquan's mother crumbled into tears. Sometime after that, Lin Fengquan's father would then be hospitalized in Tangshan and was taken care of by Lin Fengquan's younger brother, Lin Fenghu who was also there in Tangshan to study. Lin Fengquan would visit his father twice a week. One day, he received a message from his mother to told him that she would be coming to Tangshan to see his father and she wanted him to take her to the site of the burial of her sworn sister's family. Lin Fengquan then brought his mother to a Catholic church in Wujiazhuang district of Tangshan and said to her, "Look, Mother! This was where they were buried. But we cannot burn offerings in here now, not with a church here!" Instead, Lin Fengquan's mother forced him to burned some offerings for the dead at the side of the road and even ordered him to kneel and bow to pay respects, much to Lin Fengquan's chagrin who repeatedly cursed and cursed to himself in anger. Uncle Quan then paused in the recounts of his tale and showed us the jade pendant, saying, "This jade pendant had been in their keeping for twenty long years. This was a token of immense significance, a proof of vows exchanged by two families for their children's engagement. I cannot allow them to keep this pendant further, not especially when they had no desire to honor their vows of marrying their daughter to me!" But he had barely finished and one of the women – the one that knew Uncle Quan – began sobbing. When his exclamation ended, she cried even harder. The militia officer poured her another fresh cup of water and said gently, "Please calm down. Let's talk things over." When she finally stopped crying, the woman wiped her tears with a tissue and said, "We were sisters; me and the young woman with whom you fought against. But you did not know the full truth of everything. It was I who was born on the same day as you! It was I who had shared a breast with you on that fateful day! But I had gone against my mother's wishes to marry you and married another man!" The woman began crying again. The other woman, her sister, dabbed at the older sister's eyes and swabbed her tears. A few seconds ticked by quietly until the older sister spoke again, "I had fallen for a man, that was why I spurned my mother's wish in the first place. Therefore, I found another man and first married him to keep my mother at bay, while I look for ways to approach the man whom I truly loved. But what a cruel stroke of fate, that the person whom I truly loved was, in fact, you! We were together in an English tuition class when we were young. I had fallen for you then, but I could find no way to confess my feelings to you! Until one day, I saw a girl waiting for you to finish class. I was so devastated that I went home and cried an entire night. Hence, my family secretly urged my sister to take my place to marry the person who would come forth with the jade pendant. My relatives then introduced an army officer to me. Feeling lost and depressed, I agreed to the union without giving much thought. The preparations for the wedding that you stumbled upon that night was in fact my wedding! I was supposed to be the bride the following day! But my sister, being the glamorous girl she was, dressed too awfully well that night, hence your misunderstanding!" Shocked with disbelief, Uncle Quan was instantly petrified by the sudden revelation! Even I myself was frozen when I heard this. This was a tale that I would never have thought it possible to take place in real life! A story from a Korean soap drama! I had never expected to know that Uncle Quan had such a conspicuous and illustrious past! What's more, no one had expected a twist that was only revealed at the epilogue of the whole story! Both parties began chatting about their families and found that their parents have all passed on. The older sister then spoke, "Can you lead me to where Stepmother rests now? I want to pay respects to her. I would not have survived infancy if not for her breastmilk." Uncle Quan replied, "Very well. But let me first pay respects to your mother, then I'll lead to my mother's grave." We then adjourned to a local temple where we bought some joss papers and other sacrificial offerings. The sisters then led everyone to their parents' graves where we bowed and paid respects. Just then, the younger sister said, "I have an errand to run. But please wait for me a moment when you're finished here. I'll be back shortly." When we have wrapped up everything there, we waited in the car. Not long afterward, we saw her walking in hurried footsteps back towards us, panting hard as she cradled an old photo album in her arms.