The Blind Boy

The old man froze before turning to look at the woman who had appeared at the gate. His expression one of pure terror. Suddenly sound of footsteps where heard. They seemed to be coming from the left. A blind boy was walking towards them, in his hand was shiny steel cup. He wearing oversized old cloths. He seemed to be ten years old. This boy ignored Zhang Tianshen and headed directly to the old man before extending his steel cup to the old man. The old man had been watching Zhang Tianshen since the beginning. He naturally saw him follow the boy with his eyes. He also seemed to be guarded against the boy. All this factors led to the old man dropping money in the cup. Sometimes it is better to be stingy, sometimes it is better to not scheme, and sometimes ignorance is not bliss. This was such a time. The last thing the old man saw was Zhang Tianshen relaxing and the grandma smiling. He did not even know how he died. In the place where the old man was standing, a green glass marble appeared. It seemed to be the same sized as other marbles and had lighting like pattern in it. The marble itself was transparent, it was the pattern in it that was green. Zhang Tianshen walked over and picked the bead up before putting it in his pocket. The blind boy let out a small burp before saying with an immature voice, "That was satisfying. You held your end of the bargain, you can choose three things. By the way how does it feel to kill a thousand people? You humans never cease to impress me. I mean like how did you manage to do it with no one noticing? A thousand people disappeared in the span of a year and no one noticed. That's about three people per day. You practically made the whole city believe in ghosts. Wow, you are a real genius."

Zhang Tianshen ignored the boy's comments and stared at the boy. The boy seemed to understand and smiled. In front of Zhang Tianshen a giant translucent screen filled with items appeared.

However they all had one thing in common, they were eyes. Eyes of every color, there were so many eyes that Zhang Tianshen felt nauseous. He could not understand how this was possible. The boy seemed to understand him as it proceeded to explain, "This are treasures of heaven and earth, each holding a particular Dao. However this are not dual pupils, so choose carefully."

Zhang Tianshen sighed in relief, he almost believed for a second that those were the eyes of people, the people he had killed. Zhang Tianshen quickly started to browse the list not caring about the fact that he was standing outside. He stumbled his way through the list, not relying on anything apart from instinct and intuition. Every time he saw an eye that he felt right about he would mark it. Soon after what felt like an eternity to the boy he finally finished. Zhang Tianshen looked and found out that he had marked nine eyes. Looking at the eyes he felt that something was missing. He did not know what it was but that did not stop him from going through the list and marking one last eye. As soon as the last eye was marked, he heard the boy laugh, it was a pretty innocent laugh capable of making others laugh. Yet knowing who made the noise made Zhang Tianshen wary. In all his interactions with this boy, he had never heard him laugh. To Zhang Tianshen, that laugh was more life threatening than that old ghost. The boy acted as if he didn't see Zhang Tianshen's reaction and started to explain, "For every spiritual eyes of heaven and earth, there is a pair made somewhere else. Considering the rarity of such eyes, it is basically impossible to find the most basic pair talk less of finding a set. As you see there are ten eyes in the set you chose, meaning that each eye's side effect is cancelled out by another eye and that's eye's side effect is cancelled out by another. This keeps on going until the beginning eye cancels out the side effect of the last eye in the cycle. This is supposed to be impossible, but to think you managed to pull it off. You really are lucky but power has a price. You will lose your mortal eyes. You do not understand this now but in the future you will. It has to do with how compatible you are with the eyes. If you are not compatible, your eyes will become your greatest weakness. If you are compatible you won't need to choose a Dao. You will constantly be in a state of one with the world. The benefits are countless, it is a dividing line between greatness and mediocrity. As a gift I will help you fuse them or do you want to do it yourself?"

Zhang Tianshen stood there confused although he knew what each world meant individually, he did not understand what the general message is. He looked totally lost. In his mind he was cursing at the boy. However things that are done in one's head stays in one's head. On the surface Zhang Tianshen made his face go from extreme confusion to a look of enlightenment before saying, "I will fuse them myself."

The boy watched this with a smile expecting Zhang Tianshen to fail. Yet something unexpected happened as Zhang Tianshen fused the eyes together. Actually the fusing of the eyes is simple. One just has to arrange them in order of what cancels what, thereby forming a cycle. Once the cycle is formed they will fuse on their own. In Zhang Tianshen's eyes this eyes seemed to turn hollow. As his hands moved, he felt a strange connection to the eyes in his hand. As he continued to arrange them the eyes became more and more hollow. When he put the last one in place he could not see them. After he finished, he watched or felt as the eyes started merging together into a pair of eyes. It felt strange and at the same time blissful. He did not understand. The boy watched from the side with a look of astonishment. The woman that everybody had been ignoring watched all this with a greedy look on her face. She seemed to have dropped all pretenses. The fusion was only completed when night fell. Zhang Tianshen did not feel the passage of time during the process. After the fusion was done Zhang Tianshen looked at the two glass eyes in his hand while wondering what to do. Nobody around also noticed the shadow from earlier leaving Zhang Tianshen's body. No one noticed it standing behind Zhang Tianshen like a guardian while sneering at the sky where clouds had begun to gather in the dark of night. All this went unperceived by everyone apart from heaven. Looking at the glasslike pair of eyes in his hand Zhang Tianshen did not know what to do.