The Card Apprentice

The thought of making such a high-level card just for an exercise routine was so absurd that Chen Mu wanted to slap his own mouth.

Chen Mu again remembered his own speculation when he had completed those actions himself and the figures darkened. Could that be the first step?

Right! The first step! That’s what the old voice said at the time, “The first step is to please complete the eighteen actions!” It looked as though there might be some other new mystery behind it.

He had been scared by the card himself. He had to travel around such a huge bend to become clear about such a simple problem. Chen Mu mocked himself for having only just then cleared up the logic of its thinking.

Chen Mu had just found another life goal which was to break through to understanding that card’s mystery. The other was to improve his skill with fantasy cards. The fantasy realm in the mysterious card had excited Chen Mu enormously, though it far exceeded his comprehension. To attempt to make a three-star fantasy card wouldn’t be practical in the short term, but he could still make his own fantasy cards more realistic, like the fantasy realm constructed by that mysterious card.

He would still have to go on making the one-star power-cards every day, which would put him far into the red with his time.

While munching his hard bread he was arranging his life from then forward.

Bam! Chen Mu nodded with satisfaction, as he pasted his fresh new plan on the wall, right out of the oven.

As far as Chen Mu was concerned, his life wouldn’t change a bit. The one thing that pleasantly surprised him was that he had improved his efficiency by half in making the one-star power-cards. He wasn’t sure if that was because of his training to improve his perception, but now when he made one-star power-cards, they came out extraordinarily smoothly, with the hand fulfilling the heart. This then gave him more time to put into the other two items in his plan.

However, those other two matters would make slow headway. Chen Mu could accomplish only half of those eighteen movements. The demands of these eighteen actions on his inner body – strength, release – all required their own appropriately calibrated responses. However, those few days of exercise also greatly improved his body’s fitness, which could be considered an unintended side-benefit.

On the matter of the fantasy card, his advances were minimal. Wanting to make fantasy seem real is no trivial matter. All he could do was to relentlessly examine everything around him, over and over again. Chen Mu wasn’t anxious in that regard. He knew that it would be a slow-moving cumulative process where being anxious wouldn’t do him any good.

Pocketing the one-star power-cards he had made; Chen Mu went over to Uncle Hua’s general store.

Uncle Hua didn’t look very well, but he was very happy to see Chen Mu, “Old Mu, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, what have you been up to lately?” which was immediately followed by a nasty fit of coughing.

“Is anything the matter?” Chen Mu had a somewhat concerned look, since Uncle Hua was one of the few sincere people in that world. And he cared about Chen Mu.

Uncle Hua forced a smile and said through his wheezing, “Don’t worry, I may have just caught a cold. Your Uncle Hua is old, but he’s strong. What about you recently? I haven’t seen you sending along your power-cards. I’ve been afraid that something had happened to you.”

Seeing Uncle Hua’s wan look and noting a sour smell which wasn’t coming from him, Chen Mu smiled broadly to say, “I was able to get something done. I stopped for a bit recently while I was learning how to make a fantasy card.”

“Eh? Did you learn to do it?” Uncle Hua became interested.

Chen Mu nodded his head, “Uh huh, but I only learned how to make one-star and two-star cards.”

“Ha! I’d guessed that Old Mu could surely learn to do it, being so smart and so hard working. You certainly do have a bright future.” Uncle Hua was as pleased as though he had heard about his own nephew’s prospects, though the rise in his spirits brought on another bout of coughing.

Chen Mu didn’t know what to say, as he looked worriedly at Uncle Hua.

Uncle Hua’s wan face turned ruddy again after he finally stopped coughing, and he smiled, “You have to be very diligent, Old Mu. I’ve always wanted to have a fantasy-card advertising sign. Ah, the best would be to show the remote purple orchid, which was something special from our home town.” Uncle Hua’s eyes took on a heavy look of homesickness.

“Ahh!” Chen Mu nodded vigorously.

Chen Mu’s heart felt a little heavy after coming out of Uncle Hua’s general store.

“Blockhead!” Chen Mu heard someone calling him and turned his head around to see an overdressed man running toward him.

It was Copper, who used to go around with Chen Mu on the street. But then he had been taken in by someone. His relationship with Chen Mu wasn’t bad, and you could say that he was one of Chen Mu’s few friends. The family circumstances of his adoptive father and mother were quite good at that time, and he would look after Chen Mu from time to time. But not long before, his adoptive father and mother had passed away, and he had no choice but to break off his studies and go back to a half-vagrant situation. Chen Mu was naturally dispassionate and taciturn, so substituting a different character “mu” (for wood), Copper called him ‘Blockhead.’

Copper was looking slovenly wearing a gaudy shirt that was too big for him. His hair was a mess, and he wore two giant hoops in his ears. On his feet he was scuffing along in a pair of obviously filthy sandals. His manner of dressing startled Chen Mu.

He stopped and waited for Copper to come over.

“Hey, I finally run into you on the street! Have my eyes blurred, or has the world changed?” Copper said with an exaggerated look.

“I came to sell power-cards.” The two of them were quite familiar with one another, and Chen Mu had no intention of indulging in happy talk.

Copper nodded his head knowingly, since he understood Chen Mu very well, “You coming out for a stroll is like the sun rising in the West.”

“Oh, right, I’ve recently found some work,” Copper indicated with a mysterious look.

“What work?” Chen Mu asked rather interestedly. Copper’s adoptive parents wanted the very best for him, always encouraging him to go to school, which was something Chen Mu yearned for in his dreams. But they hadn’t considered a calamity falling from the sky. Copper’s adoptive parents were killed in a car accident, cutting off all sources of income, so that he had no choice but to cut off his studies. This knucklehead was quite firm about it. Chen Mu knew that a person like Copper had a much fiercer kind of pride than ordinary people did. If it were him, Chen Mu figured that he would do the same as Copper.

Copper had always diligently looked for work. During those few days, Chen Mu had been immersed in making a fantasy card, and breaking the code of that mysterious card’s world. He didn’t have the leisure to be concerned with anything else.

“I found some work in a little card-show studio, mainly doing odd jobs for the screenwriters.”

“Card show?” Chen Mu knew what card shows were. A so-called card show would use the moving images that were conjured from the fantasy card to perform a story. How many fantasy cards got used would be determined by the length of the fantasy card story. In general, each card show would need about twenty to fifty fantasy cards. The characters and animals in the card shows would, for the most part, be treated with some exaggeration. They would look extremely cute, making people quite fond of them.

Card shows had already appeared thirty years before, but they really only started catching on ten years before, as an up and coming new industry.