A Dog Father Cannot Beget a Dragon Son

[Interlude] (1)

"Fucking Gu coward," began his first memory. Followed by, "Piece of shit. Die. Die." 

He remembered a quiet room with bamboo mats. There was a door, for all that it was a door, the panels were knocked ajar and the fabrics in between were ripped so that anyone could peek in and see what went on inside. He wished people would.

"Get out," she said to him. "A customer is coming." And so he scampers away. 

Customers come every day, and he was long familiar with this routine. His mother will generously lather on makeup and plaster on a smile, ready to greet the next customer with her gentle beauty and not a hair out of place. In those times, he hides out in the kitchen, where one of the assistant chefs slips him food and tells him stories about his mother, and why he should pity her. 

Then he'll return to find his mother brushing out her hair, wet marks of passion already fading from her body. "Oh, you're back," she'll say, and start pulling up her garters. 

** 

"Your mother fell in love with a bad man," said the assistant chef. "She wanted to marry him and be with him forever, but instead he left her and made her raise you all by herself."The janitor had a different story. 

"Heh. That idiot thought she could force a marriage with a CEO by having his kid. Jokes on her! He paid her to silence her!" 

His mother's story cut straight to the heart of the issue. "You were a mistake. I shouldn't have had you, and now you're dragging me to the bottom. Leave me alone for one second! Get out of my room!" 

** 

A wealthy looking man came to visit his mother. Though he did not know that man, there was a small niggling in his brain. 

(...Fa...ther?) 

His mother smiles the next time she sees him. It's a beautiful, blooming curve smelling of his mother's natural jasmine, and suddenly he can find it in him to hope. 

This could be it."Little Song~," his mother said, happily. 

This could be--- 

"I've talked it over with your father," 

---it. Please let this be--- 

"And we've decided to give you some learning experiences at the local temple!" 

---a wasted breath, and his mind slowed to a halt. 

For the first time in his life, Gu Song breathed in and finally lifts the lid on that simmering, deadly pot of anger.

** 

In the dead of the night, he stood outside his mother's room and heard:(

"Baby, please, let us start over again." 

"Gu Huo, I'd love that more than anything." 

"Oh, my lovely, my gorgeous. I've hurt you so much." 

"No, you were worth the pain. You'll always be worth the pain." 

"Let's start over, to a time before Gu Song. I'll do this right this time, I promise. Let's not keep around those old memories of heartbreak." 

A breathless "Yes." 

"I don't want you to carry around a reminder of all that pain. How about we give you a break from Gu Song, and in that time I'll woo you all over again?" 

"Yes.") 

Fakes, the both of them. 

**