Heaven-relying Sword And Dragon-slaying Sabre

Listening to her peal of laughter and seeing the twinkle in her eyes, showing her mischievousness, Zhang Wuji's heart was shaken. "How come her eyes look very much like Mama?" he mused, "When Mama swindled the old monk of Shaolin Temple just before she died, her eyes also shone like this." Thinking to this point, he could not stop tears from welling up in his eyes, and very soon the tears flowed down this face.

"Pei," the girl spat and said, "I won't take your cakes away. You don't need to cry. I didn't know you are such a useless fool."

"It's not that I am crying over your cake," Zhang Wuji said, "It's just that I am remembering a sad memory."

That girl had turned away and walked for two steps, but as she heard him, she turned her head and said, "What sad memory? A foolish-looking fellow like you also have a sad memory?"

Zhang Wuji sighed deeply and said, "I remember my Mama, my passed away Mama."

The girl guffawed and said, "Your Mama always gave you cake, didn't she?"

"Mama always gave me cakes to eat," Zhang Wuji said, "But I remember her because your smile looks like my Mama."

The girl angrily said, "You devil! So you said I am that old? That I am as old as your mother?" While saying that, she picked a piece of firewood and hit Zhang Wuji, twice.

If Zhang Wuji wanted to seize the firewood in her hand, it would be very easy, but he thought, "She does not know my Ma was young and pretty. She only knows that I look like an ugly freak; no wonder she is angry." So after she struck him twice, he said, "When she died, my Ma was very pretty."

With a serious face she said, "You make fun of me because I am ugly, you don't want to live. I'll pull your leg!" She bent down, acting as if she was going to pull Zhang Wuji's leg.

Zhang Wuji was shocked; his broken legs were just beginning to heal. If she did indeed pull it, then all previous accomplishment would come to nothing. Hastily he grabbed a handful of snow. As soon as that girl's hand touched his leg, he would strike the acupoint in between her eyebrows to knock her unconscious on the spot.

Luckily that girl was only scaring him; looking at the great change of his face, she said, "Look at your frightened face! Who told you to make fun of me?"

Zhang Wuji said, "If I intentionally make fun of Miss, after my both legs are healed, let me fall again and break my legs three times that in the end I become a cripple."

The girl giggled and said, "Alright, so be it!" She sat on the ground next to him and said, "So your Ma was a pretty woman. How could you compare me with her? Do you think I am pretty?"

Zhang Wuji was speechless for a moment, then he said, "I don't know why, but for some reason I feel that you are somewhat similar to my Ma. Although you are not as pretty as my Ma, but I like looking at you."

The girl bent her middle finger and gently tapped his forehead twice with her knuckle. She said with a laugh, "Good boy, then call me Mama!" But as soon as these words came out of her mouth, she immediately realized its inappropriateness; thereupon she closed her mouth and turned her head the other way, yet she still could not stifle her laughter.

Looking at her expression, Zhang Wuji vaguely remembered when his Mama chatted with his Papa on the Bing Huo Island, her expression was very much like this. All of a sudden he felt that this ugly girl was simply elegant and charming; her manner was sweet, and that she was not ugly at all. He could not help but staring at her with a dreamy look on his face.

The girl turned her head around and saw the way he looked at her; she laughed and said, "Why do you like looking at me? Tell me."

Zhang Wuji stared blankly at her for half a day. He shook his head and said, "I don't know. I only feel that when I look at you, my heart feels safe and comfortable. I feel that you will treat me with nothing but goodness. You will not bully me, harm me!"

"Ha ha …" the girl laughed, "You are dead wrong! In all my life, I like nothing better than harming others." Suddenly she raised the firewood in her hand and struck Zhang Wuji's broken legs twice, and then jumped up and walked away.

These two strikes happened to fall right on Zhang Wuji's broken bones. He was caught off guard and cried loudly in pain, "Aiyo!" But the girl only giggled and turned her head around to make a face at him.

Zhang Wuji kept his gaze on her as she gradually disappeared in the distance. The pain on his broken legs was unbearable. He mused, "Turns out all women love to harm others. The beautiful ones love to hurt people, the ugly ones also like to inflict pain on me."

That night in his sleep he dreamed about that young girl, also about his mother. Several times the images in his mind blurred between that girl and his mother. He was unsure if the face in his dream was beautiful or ugly, he only knew that the eyes were clear and bright, and both were mischievous and charming at the same time as those eyes were gazing at him. His dream brought him to his childhood past, when his mother often teased him by deliberately stretching out her leg to trip him. And then when he stumbled and cried in pain, mother would hug him and kiss him, while did not stop saying, "Good child, don't cry, Mama loves you dearly!"

He woke up with a start; suddenly a thought flashed in his mind, a thought which he had never suspected before, "Why did Mama like to see others suffer? Yifu's eyes were blinded by her, Yu Sanbo [third (older) uncle] was crippled by her underlings, the entire family of Lin'An prefecture's Long Men [Dragon Gate] Escort Agency was also perished under her hands. In the end, was Mama a good person, or was she an evil person?"

After gazing the continuously twinkling stars high in the sky for a long, long time, he sighed and said to himself, "Doesn't matter if she was a good or evil person, she was my mother." In his heart he thought, "If Mama was still alive, I would love her with all my heart." Again his mind wandered toward that peasant girl. He was baffled as why without any reason she hit his broken legs. "I did not offend her at all, why did she want me to cry out in pain before she was happy? Could it be that she really loves hurting others?" He wished she would come again, but he was also afraid she would hurt him with different method.

As his hand gently stroked the half eaten cake by his side, he remembered that peasant girl's expression when she said, 'So your Ma was a pretty woman. How could you compare me with her? Do you think I am pretty?' He could not stop himself from saying out loud, "You are pretty; I really love seeing you."

Indulging himself in this kind of fancy thought, he lay down for two more days, but that peasant girl did not come. Zhang Wuji started to think that she would never come again, who would have thought that toward the afternoon of the third day, the peasant girl appeared from behind the hillside, walking toward him with the bamboo basket in her hand.

"Ugly freak," she said with a laugh, "You have not died yet?"