The Daily Life of a Disciple

Chapter 2

It was only two weeks later that I was able to finally meet Jin shixiong though the reunion was purely by accident. I was at second senior brother's peach blossom yard, in one of the tree branches plucking off ripened peaches (without second senior brother's knowledge or consent) because tenth was willing to pay big money to get them, when I saw a beautiful drunkard staggering his way through the peach blossom maze while taking chugs of wine from their calabash in a daze like fashion.

It was rare for senior brother Jin to get drunk, and I could tell he was drunk by the unfamiliar hazy look in his eyes, strange because he holds his liquor well. I had remembered that there was once where I had accidentally turned fifth's robe pink whilst I was washing it with shizun's red ones and fifth shixiong was so mad that he hanged me upside-down with a spirit infused rope tied to an unsteady branch and left me there for an entire night. When Jin shixiong had found out he dragged fifth out and drank him into a stupor with a record of forty-six cups in a drinking match.

I threw a peach at Jin shixiong to get his attention. I saw shixiong's willowy eyebrows knit as he looked up and there was a hazy look in his phoenix eyes before recognition sets in and he gave me a noncommittal lopsided smile that didn't look quite right.

Shixiong looked drunk and like he's been run over by a vegetable cart, it was the first time I'd seen him so unrefined and unkempt (unkempt by Jin shixiong's standard). The sash on his robe was fastened in a slipshod way and even his outer garment slipped down one of his shoulders which were so unlike the clean-freak shixiong is.

"Come down shidi, keep your shixiong company." To be honest, I don't think I should, a sober shixiong was dangerous enough as he is, I'd really rather not gamble with a drunk one whom I'm not quite sure recognizes which shidi he's talking to.

When Jin shixiong saw how uncooperative I was, he spoke in a louder tone. "Ling Ling." Ling Ling? There's no way in hell I'm going down now. Jin shixiong only calls me that when I'm in deep trouble. He'd always say it with a voice meant to enchant, soft and placating like how a mother calls out to a young son from the fields to come back home, but the next thing you know you're scooping poop from the magic beast den.

But Jin shixiong was tenacious. "Are you coming down, or do you want this shixiong to carry you down?" So down I go, because I know left to Jin's shixiong's devices, I won't just be 'carried' down as he puts it.

"Are you scared of me shidi? Why so cautious at the sight of me?"

"I've doted on you have I not? More so than any of the disciples" He had, but he wasn't always so nice.

He ran his hair through his fine locks, but I know the frustration stems from more than just my lack of reaction. He held his head in his palms for a moment, and I waited until he was ready to tell me what he wanted to say, but I was taken aback just a little when shixiong raised his head because he had looked as if he was about to cry. His eyes were glistening and his face scrunched up so grief-stricken and I realized he was trying his best to hold it in. Shixiong sighed a shaky breath.

I thought he was going to open up, to tell me of his sorrows and difficulties, of how he had the weight of the entire world he was struggling to carry and shizun's expectations to boot which might have been heavier than the weight of the world. But he did not, and he was still drunk. Very drunk.

I sat with my legs folded on the ground as I count the damage points done to second shixiong's peach blossom field. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen... twenty-one. There were twenty-one potatoes planted in the soil so far along the trails which Jin shixiong had graced in his drunk presence. But shixiong was still planting them, with his trusty sword he once fought millions with who dared intrude our sect, but that sword was now reduced to dig the earth to pave way for new potatoes. If shixiong's sword could speak it'll be crying now.