The Card Apprentice

The idea was beautiful, but reality was cruel, and the road would be twisty.

Without talking about that token card, he had never even heard of any of those other eleven one-star fantasy cards, which would be a huge challenge for him. But still Chen Mu didn’t feel the difficulty. On the contrary, he felt very happy. He would be focusing all of his attention on making those few cards.

Expecting Copper to return, he imagined that it would not be so easy then to concentrate on his research like he was.

* * *

The students who were passing by diverted their paths upon seeing Zuo Tingyi’s nasty face as he was returning to school. Just then he heard a small group of students in a discussion.

“Have you heard that the cracking group broke several pieces of the school equipment yesterday?”

“Cracking group? You mean those cracking that something like “Chance Encounter” thing?”

“That’s the gang! Considering themselves to have such ability, ha! Wanting to crack someone else’s card play, what a bunch of fun!”

The one speaking was the exemplar of schadenfreude; taking pleasure in the suffering of others.

“How many pieces of equipment? Aren’t they all experienced? How could they break the equipment?” asked another who couldn’t restrain himself.

The one who first brought it up made the hand gesture for seven, with a mysterious face.

“Seven pieces?” The people around him were shocked. “How could that be? Seven pieces of equipment? How could that even happen, can you tell me brothers?”

The one spreading the news got everyone’s attention, rather pleased with himself, “I’m not too clear on the details, but it’s definitely the case that damages on seven pieces of equipment were submitted. Some friends of mine were among that cracking group, and yesterday they came wailing to me with the bad news.”

“Seven pieces, yikes, they’ll owe a lot of money this time!”

“A lot more than a lot of money, there was a lot of really expensive high-grade equipment among those. Someone calculated that among the thirty people, each one of them would have two million Oudi loaded on their backs. This brother held onto me crying all night, wailing inconsolably.” The one talking was shaking his head, as if mourning a death. “His two years’ spending money was all wiped out.”

Everyone sighed.

Walking behind them, Zuo Tingyi’s mouth curled into a sneer, not being sure if he felt like he was getting even, but his expression did brighten up a bit. What he wrote off for that piece of analytical equipment was twenty million Oudi.

He wasn’t distressed about the money though, being more concerned with his feeling of frustration. He felt as though he’d been slapped in the face, which hurt his pride more than anything else.

That damned card play! He was gnashing his teeth and cursing inwardly.

* * *

“I’m back.” Copper blew into the room shouting and dragging along packages of all sizes. He’d brought them all for Chen Mu, mostly containing things to eat.

“I wonder what this guy has been doing in here these past few days.” Copper was muttering to himself while pushing open Chen Mu’s door.

Crash! Came the sound of a large pile of stuff falling over.

The whole room was piled everywhere with all sorts of things which looked bizarre to him, and beneath his feet were still more things scattered all over the place. He surmised that this was the stuff he’d just knocked over.

A pair of eyes brimming with anger came up from behind all the stuff. The fire coming out of those eyes made Copper quake.

“I . . . I . . . I came through the wrong door.” His voice faded and he dropped the large package that he was carrying, as he turned right around stretching a stride and fled.

He didn’t come back to Chen Mu’s place until around nightfall.

Once again, he pushed open the door to enter, and it looked as though he had come to some stranger’s house. Everything was as clean as new, and all the things that had been scattered about were now already sorted out and stacked in the corners.

Chen Mu was just then bent over putting things in order, and didn’t raise his head, but asked with a very calm tone, “You’re back?”

Seeing that Chen Mu wasn’t angry, Copper was immediately all smiles, “Yep, yep, it wasn’t that I missed you, I just came back.” Then he plopped his butt down on the couch, and the old couch squeaked in protest for a little while.

“Where did you go? Did you have fun?” Chen Mu asked with curiosity. He had never left Eastern Shang-Wei City and knew very little about the rest of the world.

“If was fantastic!” When it was brought up, Copper became obviously excited. “I went to Fana City in the Fanasi District, where those Cisirio Falls are a wonder of the human world. If you haven’t seen it with your own eyes, you really don’t have any way to imagine what kind of a scene several hundred waterfalls of all sizes gathered together and arrayed in front of you would look like.”

It would look like several hundred really big silver soup noodles? Chen Mu thought for a while without coming up with anything, and then in full agreement said, “There is certainly no way to imagine it.”

“Do you know what the most famous building complex in the Fanasi District is?” Copper asked enticingly.

“I don’t know.” Chen Mu said very directly, shaking his head.

Copper’s face quickly took on a disdainful look, “I know you don’t know, tut tut, that’s right, how would a blockhead like you even have any spiritual pursuits? It’s one of the most glorious masterpieces in the history of mankind, the Bitter Solitude Temple Group.”

“The Bitter Solitude Temple?” Chen Mu asked not understanding, “The Bitter Solitude Temple that is one of the six?”

“You have no culture.” Even Copper’s look of contempt was too contemptuously lazy even to show, “That Bitter Solitude place isn’t just the Bitter Solitude Temple, but upwards of a thousand continuous temples and shrines, which together comprise the Bitter Solitude Temple Group. The Bitter Solitude Temple is only the most representative temple, when actually there are several of the temples among the whole group whose history is much older than it.”

“Oh.” Chen Mu said with a quizzical look of understanding while not understanding, to prevent Copper coming closer to explain any further.

Copper and Chen Mu were obviously two very different people, wanting and liking very different things, but the two of them trusted one another, and accommodated one another.

“What have you been busy with at home these last few days?” Copper looked all around, the fleeting glimpse from when he’d pushed open the door had made a deep impression on him.

“Making cards.” Chen Mu handed Copper a glass of water.

“Any results?” Copper asked interestedly as he took the water.

Chen Mu shook his head, “Not yet. There are a lot of complications.” For these past few days he had used up all his energy to make just one among the twelve cards, but he had consumed a third of the materials. He estimated that what was left would never be enough to make all twelve cards.

“I can’t help you with that.” Copper shrugged his shoulders, and got up and said, “I’m going to see how our card show sales are doing and see if we can sell one or two more sets.

“You are so right!”

Chen Mu stood right up, with a look as if to say that he was ready to sell a thousand sets right away, suddenly driven crazy by money. “Card making sure does use up money. It’s all about money.”