“Prodigal son? What do you mean?” I asked the restaurateur who had aroused my interest to know more about our new friend. He cast a look at Zhang Er’ge and chuckled. “Best you ask him yourself,” he muttered and he scrambled around the table, collecting all the mounds of bamboo sticks from our table before he left.

It was time to delve more about our friend. By the sound of it, Zhang Er’ge’s past did not seem disgraceful. “So, Zhang Er’ge. What did the proprietor mean by ‘prodigal son’?” I asked and Zhang Mingwang giggled as a preoccupied finger caressed the scar on his arm. “It’s all things of the past,” he remarked dismissively and I decided to prod no further. But a voice came from another table, yelling, “Zhang Er’ge? You self-conscious clod! If you’re reluctant to, then let me tell his story!”

We twisted our heads back and saw three men grinning as they came to us. The man on the most left was the shortest with a height that almost matched Chongxi. The one in the middle was bespectacled, his back arched and his hair white like a wizened old man. He looked almost as tall as the stocky man, if not taller. And with their taller companion on the most right, the one who had just spoken, they looked like a pair of severed fingers. The last man lumbered at least almost five foot nine, even though he was as gaunt as a pole, which made me wonder if his weight even exceeded fifty kilograms.

The short, stocky man looked just as doltish as Chongxi while the pseudo-old man in the middle looked haggard and weak. The scrawny too wore a set of spectacles and with the cigarette between his teeth, he looked like a scholarly bag of bones. Yet despite their normal-looking attire, none of them were giving off the “normal people” vibe, instead they looked more like delinquents and criminals.

“What do we have here? Wow, Murong Shiyan, as I live and breathe,” the scrawny uttered. I chuckled diffidently and remarked, “Ah, I’m sure everything you’ve heard about me has been exaggerated to an Olympic degree. What shall I call you?”

“Liu Siyang.”, “Zhu Fengwei”, and “Mu Haisong, the same Mu as the folklore heroine Mu Guiying,” Shorty, Oldy, and Scrawny introduced themselves in cue. Zhang Er’ge, still sitting between Na San and I, scowled with amused glee, “Mu! There we go again, you running around, sprouting nonsense about me!” Mu giggled and remarked to me with a wink, “Look at him brag.”

Mu turned out to be a talkative fellow. Despite his thuggish outlook, one could definitely see that he was a learned person from his speech and conduct. He reminded me of Yan Jishi, who, notwithstanding the strings of expletives that escaped his mouth, was also a nice person to be friends with.

Mu began telling us about Zhang Er’ge’s past. He once operated an internet cafe of his own. But his business turned poor and he lost money. So he sold the internet cafe to pay off the debts and left to work elsewhere. But without proper education since he was a boy, he could only work as bouncers or “crowd controllers” in night clubs and bars, while occasionally engage in shakedowns and extortions for loan sharks, until one day, he was cornered by a rival. He was attacked. Stabbed and cleaved that he almost died and the terrible scar on his arm was the souvenir from that fight.

In wine lies the truth. After a few rounds, Zhang Er’ge’s tongue became loose and he added himself, “You won’t be able guess how many friends I’ve gotten after working in the roughs for so many years. None! These three of them…” His finger pointed to each of the Three Musketeers before us and continued, “… they are the closest thing to friends that I have. They truly see me as a friend themselves. It’s not easy these days to find people like them. People like you, Murong Shiyan. And for that, I admire you. These three friends of mine have warned me, implored me, and admonished me countless times. But I was greedy. I always wanted to make big bucks. And for that, it nearly cost my life. Fortunately, I survived. So, that’s the end of my swashbuckling days. I now operate a small mini-market for a living.”

“Rome is not built in a day,” Mu commented affably, “You start small, building it up brick-by-brick. Like how you eat barbecue skewers.” He pointed at the mounds of bamboo sticks. “You have to eat them one by one. No one eats a whole roasted lamb at a barbecue stall.” Zhang Er’ge simpered and nodded, taking a draft of beer from his can.

Mu and his two friends drew up chairs of their own and sat down with us. He looked at Na San and me. “I heard a snippet of what you’re saying just now. You’re going to save that prince?” I nodded. “Be that as it may,” Mu chuckled and said, “I don’t think it’ll be easy to get him to give up his purpose. He could still remain an enemy of yours even if you saved him. He could never stop trying to use you to recreate that empire of his.”

I froze. My companions were still eating and bantering, froze too. Their hands paused as they were reaching for barbecue skewers and the entire table fell silent. The merriment suffocated immediately to be replaced by cautious and wary stares at Mu Haisong. Our conversation with Na San about Jin Qichen’s phantasmal ambition of reviving the Qing Empire was soft even amidst the noise in the busy restaurant. Yet how did he?! Lin Feng, his eyes narrowing with suspicion, voiced out the very question I was meaning to ask, “How did you know about Jin Qichen and his goal? Who told you about these?”

To our amazement, Mu Haisong merely smiled and pointed at his ear. Pseudo-old man Zhu Fengwei cackled lightly. “His ears are extraordinarily acute. Just like how all blind people are.” We stared dubiously at Mu Haisong, whose wriggling eyeballs under his eyelids seemed nothing unusual to us. He is really blind or…I gasped quietly and Mu snorted. “Ignore him,” he explained, saying, “I’m not blind. But my sight is terrible. So you can say I’m half-blind, maybe. But my hearing is good. Naturally good.”

That at least shattered the iciness that congealed about the table and everyone broke into laughter. Thank blood God that it’s just a joke… I grimaced quietly. So Mu was born with good hearing, just like how I was born with the Spirit Sight, and the rest of his companions each might have exceptional skill sets of their own.

“So, Mu, you said Jin Qichen would never give up. Why?” I asked and Mu smiled again. “It would not be easy for him to understand. People like him are stubborn. They would never listen to what you say unless the problem is shoved into their faces. Not until he feels the pain itself. It’s just like Zhang Er’ge here. He refused to listen to us no matter how painstakingly we’ve been trying to tell him. It was only after the fight that had almost claimed his life he understood. I daresay this prince is the same. For all we know he might have already realized what he is. A cannon fodder or a pawn. But he just refuses to accept it. He’s in denial. So don’t ever expect you’d be able to convince him. Remember that. This Prince Beile is like a part of the Earth. Headstrong and hard. No one will be able to change him. So we can only change ourselves.”

All around the table, nobody spoke. Simple words by a simple stranger, yet they rang so true. So true that all of us were left astounded. “Change ourselves, you say?” Big Sister spoke suddenly, “Do you mean we should help that stupid prince to rebuild his empire?”

“Hell, no,” Mu replied, his brow cocking up with interest, “Change the way you’re seeing this problem, not change your purpose and acquiesce to him. Changing your perception of this problem will lend you new angles and perspectives, allowing you other ways to solve it.” He ended with a look at Na San. Big Sister scoffed derisively again. I however mulled over Mu’s words which inspired upon me fresh insights. This was how I had always looked Jin Qichen as: an enemy. The very same role he had played in my deliberations. But Na San had changed this. He forced himself to change and plea for our help and this was how he had won our acknowledgment and respect.

So what happens if I look at things from Jin Qichen’s point of view? I wondered. He had lost both his parents since he was a boy, surrounded by slaves who bowed to his every beck and call, growing up being told endlessly that he was the heir to the line of emperors. The vision of the revival of the Qing Empire was something thrust into his arms whether he willed it or not and with time, he yielded and began to place faith into it, believing that it was his destiny to once again bring about the second coming of the Qing Dynasty. The dream that drove him to so earnestly covet the Shiyan Blade and hope with ferocious fervor that I would stand by his side. Everything looked so right and proper from his point of view. He was only pursuing his destiny. A purpose that he truly believed in that he would willingly become someone else’s pawn if it could see his dreams come true.

That thought filled me with a pang of sentimental relief as I exhaled lightly. What Mu said was indeed an inspiration to me and I have learned much after listening to him. “Good advice is rarer than rubies, they say,” I chuckled and said, “Yours is even more so, Mu. Thank you so much. I guess I understand now.” Mu merely emitted a coy smile, saying nothing. “Humph,” Big Sister snorted again and said, “What advice? As if there’s anything to be gleaned from the nonsense he just spewed! In the end, the prince is still an enemy of ours. Aside from being their stooge, he’s no different to the true villains hiding in the background.”

Mu made no attempt to reply. I rose up, hoping to assuage Mu for Big Sister’s brashness. Lifting my glass, I said, “Please forgive my big sister’s straightforwardness, Mu.” I reached over to fill his glass, but he quickly covered it with his hand. “I’m afraid I do not drink,” he muttered, raising his glass to show us its contents. It was Coke.

If he was offended, he was not showing it. He set aflame another cigarette, one of the many since he sat down with us, and took a swig. Mu might not be a drinker, but he was most definitely a voracious smoker.

He inhaled calmly and spewed a puff of smoke and gave Big Sister a fixing look, “True villains, you say? How would you differentiate who’s the villain and who’s not?”