CHILD AT HEART (3)

"Why did Rick let his nieces stay at such a place for so long?" Lirzod's frustratingly asked. "Why didn't he just escape with them sooner?"

"It's not easy when you're dealing with women," the old man replied in a modulated tone.

"You, you got some enmity towards women, don't you?" Lirzod stared at the old man, narrowing his eyes. He wasn't aware that he hadn't taken a breath during the past few seconds.

"The situation asked for it, so I spoke about women," The old man said in a casual tone. "Both men and women deserve blame in unique ways, not by birth but through life."

While Lirzod's eyes were half-closed, his brows raised a little. "You talk like there's no good person in this world."

"Hohoho..." The old man laughed a little bit. "Ahem, tell me... Have you ever heard about, seen, or met a person whom you think always has good thoughts, speaks good words, and does good deeds?" His question made Lirzod think, but then the old man continued, "To put it in your terms, do you know anyone who never loses their temper?"

As the wind blew across his face, Lirzod stood, his lips forming a straight line.

"Child, the life of a martial is like the life of a snail."

Lirzod slightly nodded. "You might not progress as much as you want as a martial, no matter what you try, but still, the perseverance of not giving up in the middle is necessary. That's what you're saying, right? I've read these things in books already."

The old man sort of smiled. "The public books that you get to read mostly contain misleading information which takes you far away from the truth."

Lirzod's face hardened. "Are you saying I was wrong?"

"Of course, you are… wrong," The old man said as he raised his index finger and moved it back and forth at Lirzod. "But it's not your fault. Children of this age are taught what society wants, not what society needs."

Lirzod had a puzzled look. "I don't get you."

"In other words, I'm saying that most of the books you've read are likely rubbish." His tone filled with certainty made Lirzod pause. "To our eyes, the snail may seem to have a lot of perseverance, but in the eyes of the snail, it's dedication is commonplace and unremarkable to it."

Lirzod's half-closed eyes opened in full.

The old man continued, "There's only one belief that's common between us and the snails. It's the speed. Both the species can agree with no fuss that the snails are slow, in fact, slower than most. This agreement gave birth to another one."

"And that is?"

"The best pace to observe the events on earth is to proceed at a snail's pace." His voice sounded like a symphony of crickets. "In parallel, the best pace to observe the natural energies and emotions around you and grow as a martial is to walk your life as a snail would. When the matters concern others, even more so."

Lirzod's eyes enlarged further. "So, Rick... He's waiting for his nieces to take the first action."

"Now, you are on track." The old man smiled and then slightly nodded. "The three girls had never expressed their wishes or the desire to escape out of the palace. Rick's biggest motivation was to bring happiness to his nieces. In that estate, he saw plenty of it in the eyes of his nieces. And it left him confused. For sure, he's twice older than his nieces, but his heart was many times younger and pure. Regardless of how they used him, he kept smiling back at them from the bottom of his heart and waited for them to accept him, at least as a close friend if not as a family."

"The girls got brainwashed by that damn minister," Lirzod felt anger surging from within his stomach, and at the same time, he pitied the nieces. "They act close with others only when they have some use with them. These are all being turned into characterless women by that short guy!"

"Maybe, but the minister isn't entirely to be blamed."

"What do you mean?" Lirzod raised his voice. "Everything happened because of him."

"Yes, but it's the other maids at the estate who mostly spoiled those three girls."

Lirzod was startled. "That's..."

"I told you, the minister was a smart fellow," the old man said. "All he had to do was put a ten-ranked hierarchy, and throw a thousand women in his estate. In time, they will involuntarily degrade each other."

"I didn't think of that at all. Those poor women," Lirzod got tears in his eyes. "This minister... I'll never forgive him. That eagle-nosed bastard!"

"It wasn't his real face," The old man's words took Lirzod by surprise. "Even in the estate, he always wore a fake skin mask."

"What?" Lirzod couldn't believe those words. "Then show me his real face!"

"That wouldn't be of much use now, would it?" the old man began to turn into leaves, which then turned into thin air. And the visuals resumed. After the old man spoke the words, the visuals relating that incident showed up. "The maids respect the minister out of fear. Will the respect born through fright ever have a peaceful ending?

"Rick did his job more actively than ever. It was all for his nieces who aimed to climb to the second rank. They showed back additional respect in return. There was a special tree, called Spark Wood that's grown outside the estate. A tiny piece of its bark can arouse an elephant. Both the maids and the guests used it often. You can only imagine how the nieces' wills already got warped by the time Rick even showed up in the estate."

"Arouse an elephant? For what?" Lirzod mumbled as he watched the visuals.

The three girls poured oil in the way leading to the kitchen floor. The cook slipped on it and injured himself. As the temporary chef, Rick took the role. Having cooked for most of his life, he could easily be certified as a veteran chef, even though he lacked the style and body language. His nieces made him mix lots of Spark Wood powder in the milk supplied to guest rooms for that night.

At the dawn of the following day, it was the turn of the three sisters to tour the town. They left the estate in a hurry.

Before sunlight lit the top of the estate, the news of the death of ten guests and ten maids had rocked everyone. All the second-ranked maids had died, and so did the guests they served last night. The news shocked all the maids and workers, including Rick. At that moment, he realized that he was betrayed by his own family members. As far as he knew, he only added enough Spark Wood powder, which would result in a failure of good service by the maids, and they would get their limbs cut before getting kicked out. Unbeknownst to him, his nieces mixed a lot more powder in the milk. The tasteless powder fooled even the experienced guests and maids and took their lives.

If it was only the maids that died, there wouldn't have been much ruckus, but five guests died. It didn't take long before the cause of death was found out.

During the evening of that day, the three nieces came back, and the minister was waiting for them, which sunk their hearts into their stomachs. They had ordered their pet dogs to attack and kill Rick soon after they left the estate, but seeing how the minister was waiting for them, they were afraid.

Inside the main hall, Rick was lying on the floor, clothes torn and fully covered in blood. The minister told the three girls that Rick was their uncle, which stunned them to the core. Since Rick had already confessed that the three girls were innocent and that they had nothing to do with the killings, the minister gave them a chance. Whether they were involved in the incident or not, he couldn't be sure unless the maids showed their worth to him.

If it were any other girls, the minister wouldn't have shown much interest. But Rick's nieces were too good at their jobs and had a perfect track record. They were bound to become first-ranked maids and stay in the position for at least a decade. He couldn't afford to lose such products. That was why he gave them a chance to prove their loyalty by killing Rick.

Outside the estate, surrounded by hundreds of maids, the three nieces stood in the center, facing Rick, who could barely stand on his feet. With half-closed eyes and blurry sight, a great amount of blood dripped down his face.

The three girls held knives in their hands, but they visibly hesitated. The minister was watching them, but their hands never stopped shaking. Though they had made plans to get rid of other maids in brutal ways, they had never actually dirtied their hands in such a direct manner.

Under the pressure of losing their limbs at best, the three girls were forced to think. And to their luck, they came up with a plan. They let loose their dogs at Rick and watched as the dogs dug their teeth into his skin and exposed his bones. Many maids enjoyed watching him scream, but a few stayed silent. For their stressed lives, seeing a human get devoured by the dogs was a thrilling matter which made their blood rush. Maybe, even his nieces would have liked it if they didn't know that he was their uncle.

Though their uncle was getting eaten in front of their eyes, they didn't drop a shed of tear and just watched with blank faces, until the minister acknowledged their gesture and let them enter his estate.

The dogs then dragged Rick out of the estate and into the sugarcane fields.

Days passed. A new guy took Rick's role. The three girls became second-ranked maids. Though the clients stopped for a few days after the incident, that situation was never gonna last long. Guests kept coming again. The nieces also acted like the incident never happened. In just three months, the three of them reached the first rank and created a record. They were the first females to have reached the first rank in the span it took for a season to revisit.

On one full moon night, the three nieces were together with the minister in his private room.

"Then…" The old man's voice faded away, and now the visuals suddenly turned real as Lirzod himself ended up inside that room. It was like he time-traveled to the past. He could now hear what they were talking about. Given how they didn't see him, even though he stood right in front of them, it was obvious that he was invisible to their eyes. He called out for the old man, but there was no response. All Lirzod could do was watch the ongoing scene. To his relief, the four of them still had clothes on their bodies. Two of the girls massaged his legs while the third one took care of his upper body. Both of his wrists were covered in bands of jasminum foliage and flowers that served as wristlets in a sense. He sniffed the fragrance of the flowers, now and then, and made the girls experience the same.

"This Eagle Nose… He doesn't even work in the fields or practice any martial art, yet he gets massaged like this?" Lirzod clenched his fist. "Even I never got massaged by three beautiful women at once! This guy… how can I hit him?" He looked around for some object to throw at them. Just then, he saw a bunch of cashews and raisins lying on the table near the bed. "Oh!" Drooling a little, Lirzod silently walked there on his toes and tried to snatch the cashews. "Hehe." However, his hands went right through them. "Eh?" he was bewildered. "Oh, right!" he smacked his own head and then stepped away, "Hmm?" He stopped and bent down. There was a figure hiding under the bed. Covered in scars and bite marks all over his face and limbs, Rick was staring straight at Lirzod, though he wasn't visible. "That's..." Lirzod's eyes enlarged. "Heavens! He's still alive?"

"Sir Yizzy..." One of the three girls, Zhane said in an unsure manner. "Can I ask you one thing?"

"Sure, dear, but keep working on my collars."

"Yes," she put her delicate fingers to work. "Has any maid tried to kill you in the past?"

The other two sisters subtly glanced at him.

"Why are you asking about it now?" Yizzy, the minister, asked casually.

"Lately, we hear the word 'assassination,' drifting in the maids' dorms."

"Oh…" he closed one of his eyes and focused the other on Zhane. "Really?"

"Yes, sir."

"And, did you find anything genuine?"

Zhane put her hand on her chest as she looked into his eyes, "I think I did."

"Nicely done." He tossed one cashew in her mouth, startling Lirzod and filling his eyes with envy. "How many names come to your mind?"

She kept the nut at the side of her mouth and replied, "Just three."

"Names?"

"Zhane, Lavaerie, and Yigla!" Her words made the minister freeze. A needle came out of Zhane's mouth, while the two other sisters sat on his legs and grabbed his hands. "This is for everything you did." She covered his mouth with one hand and stabbed the needle on his chest repeatedly ten times. Though the minister screamed like a dog, his muffled voice was heard differently by the guards stationed outside the room.

"Sir Yizzy is quite fierce today," one of the guards said.

"He's with the Pink Trinity after all," the other guard replied with an envious expression.

Meanwhile, Yizzy got drilled with dozens of holes in his body, and Lirzod stood still, his mouth wide opened in agape.

After piercing his skin for more than a hundred times at different spots, Zhane stopped and began to pant. The other two sisters also took deep breaths as they stared at each other.

"H-He's done for..." Lirzod, with a shocked look on his face, looked at the minister who didn't blink once in the past half-a-minute, "I can't believe they killed him."

As Lirzod stood frozen, the minister suddenly took a deep breath and then blinked. He got into a seating position, with the three girls sitting around him.

"What the—" Lirzod was shell-shocked.

"How did it feel this time, sir?" Zhane asked.

A capricious smile forged itself on Yizzy's face. "Quite good." He could feel the surge of energy gathering about in his body. "This is unexpected, Zhane. You've climbed another level in your acupuncture skills. I can barely feel any pain."

"You are just praising me too much, sir," Zhane bowed her head, only slightly.

Yizzed turned to the other two and gently touched their chins. "Lavaerie and Yigla, you two look as thin as poles but are surprisingly strong. I guess you both are putting in some physical effort in your free time. Nice. Nice."

"We just want to be perfect in everything we do, that's all, Sir Yizzy," their faces blushed a little.

"If you three keep impressing me like this, you won't just be limited to this estate." His words lit up their faces. "If I recommend, you three may even be allowed into the Holy Brothel."

The eyes of the three girls turned as round as the moon. The three of them jumped on him and showered him with kisses.

On the other hand, Lirzod turned around and no longer looked at the four. "They were roleplaying?" He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. "No..." A shade of darkness crept in his eyes as he stood like a boulder. "Someone, please tell me that this is a dream."