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Chapter 21 - Tal and Tasya
🕑 Added 2024-06-14 04:09:45 +0000 UTCA day later, the group arrived at a rivertown called Flowing Town. It was a town that was built around a river. Mystical Array Valley was located upstream of the river. When the Mystical Array Valley was destroyed 2 years ago, Flowing Town received the most damage from the shockwave and earthquake. Most buildings fell and many died.
After 2 years, the town was not as bustling as it used to be but most buildings have been rebuilt again including the inn where the group was staying. Leyvi and the rest were having proper food and dishes. They had been eating roasted demonic beast meat for over a week and at this moment they craved other tastes.
Although they can survive without eating for a long time as a cultivator, the craving for good food never goes away. On the contrary, it became one of the few joys in the mundane life of cultivating.
The kind of food that Leyvi liked the most was noodle soup. He liked to try different kinds of noodle soup and right now he was eating the local specialty noodle soup. It is a spicy noodle soup where the broth is made from the fishes caught from the river.
Anda on the other hand, liked to eat rice, especially steamed rice. She would eat the rice together with chicken meat and stir-fry vegetables. Lilian preferred vegetable dishes and Stripey loved to eat fruits since he is a monkey.
The people of the Flowing Town were mostly mortals but the local big families would have a few Qi Refinement realm cultivators in them.
After enjoying delicious food, the group decided to walk around the town. Stripey left the group excitedly as he had been itching to do some vigilante work. He would jump from roof to roof and observe the humans. Should he spot any injustice, he would immediately jump into action.
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At the edge of the town, where the poor people live, a boy around the age of 12 years old was seen piggybacking a young girl around the same age as him. Around this area, many houses had not been rebuilt back because they were too poor or the owner died. The boy and the girl live in one of the wrecked houses but the room is still intact.
"Tal, are we going to the Chess Club now? How about you just leave me here? I'll wait at home." The young girl suggested.
"What are you talking about? How can I leave you alone? We are already on the way there, I'm not turning back." Tal replied. The young girl was his friend, Tasya. Both of their parents died during the disaster 2 years ago and Tasya's legs were seriously injured. She has not been able to walk since then.
During these 2 years, he has been doing some miscellaneous work to survive and support Tasya. She would always feel like a burden to Tal but he didn't mind. He already lost everyone related to him so he couldn't lose Tasya too or he would lose direction in life. She was the only one close to him left.
A year ago while he was doing one of his miscellaneous work, he came across the Chess Club. It is a place where people gather to play Chess, a board game that is popular in the entire world. It was such a popular game that countless people would study and master it. He was interested in it so he learned how to play.
To his surprise, he was quite good at chess. His playstyle is quite aggressive where he develops his pieces as fast as possible and leads his attack with the Queen piece. Oftentimes, he would sacrifice the Queen piece in the attack to trade for more pieces, and gain better positional advantages and tempo.
The old people here liked to play chess with him so they hired Tal to play Chess with them every day. Although he was good for his age, it was not to the level where a professional Chess player would be interested in him. He was good enough to make the Chess Club more lively.
And so, he would bring Tasya here every day to earn some money while doing something he liked. Tasya would also learn to play Chess but she was just average. Although she was grateful to Tal for taking care of her every day, deep down, she was ashamed to face him because she felt like a burden and couldn't help him earn any money. The more she saw Tal getting better and better at Chess, the more she felt like she was holding him back.
In the late afternoon, they would finish playing Chess. Tal would piggyback Tasya and return to the wrecked house. Tal would buy two buns for them to eat on the way back.
"Haha Tasya, today I beat that old geezer Buu again! When I started playing him I always lost, now I can win half of the game with him. My Yolo Queen strategy is getting stronger!" Tal excitedly chatted with Tasya on his back.
"Is it fine for me to keep holding onto him like this...?" She muttered. Without Tal, she would definitely die sooner or later. She would have this conflicted feeling every day. "I don't want to die....but I don't want to be a burden forever....why is my legs like this....."
"Oi Tasya what are you mumbling about? I can't hear you." In truth, he heard what she was saying, but he always pretended not to know about her inner conflict because he also didn't know how to comfort her feelings. He's just a kid after all. Even so, no matter how much conflict she was feeling, he would never abandon her!
At night, when they don't have any candles they just sleep early, and when they have candles, they would read books together under the candlelight while chatting. Unfortunately, tonight they were out of candles to use, so they decided to sleep early.
Although Tal always acted cheerful in front of Tasya, in the dark, while waiting to fall asleep, he would stare into the darkness thinking about how he could make their life better.
Suddenly, because his eyes were accustomed to the dark, he could see clearly two shadows standing at the door of their room. He felt goosebumps all over his body as he instinctively stood up in front of Tasya trying to confront the shadows.
"Who's there?? We are poor and didn't have anything here! Please spare us!" Due to his shout, Tasya had awakened from her sleep and dragged herself to the corner of the room. She felt scared as she noticed the shadows at the door.
"Leyvi! Why are you trying to scare them?" Anda slapped Leyvi's shoulder.
"Ouch...I was just trying to see his reaction. Look at this kid immediately trying to protect his friend. This is a man!" Leyvi praised Tal.
The next moment, the whole room was bright. Leyvi used his qi to produce light around them.
Tal and Tasya were a bit blinded by the sudden light so they put up their hands to cover their eyes. A few moments later, their eyes adjusted and they could see clearly again.
A man and a woman were standing at the door talking to each other. The tall man is a head taller than the woman. He has black-colored eyes and long black hair tied in a ponytail that rests on his chest.
The woman who was hugging his arm had a pair of blue colored eyes and she also had long black hair which fluttered from the small wind coming through the door. She had black marks around her left eye but Tal and Tasya didn't feel that it made her ugly. In fact, it made her smile radiate more warmth.
"Immortals, why have you come to a place like this? We don't have anything to offer you." Tal gathered his courage to ask them their intention in coming here.
"I come here to take you as my disciple. Are you willing?" said Leyvi while smiling. He knew normal people usually call cultivators Immortal. They were completely wrong but Leyvi didn't try to correct this misconception. Anda was silent, just watching.
"Whattt??" Tal was shocked. An immortal wanted him to be his disciple? He could become immortal too? Is this his chance to change his life?
"How about it?" Leyvi asked again, still smiling.
"Immortal! Can you take Tasya as your disciple too? Please!" Tal immediately gets all four limbs on the floor and begs Leyvi. Tasya behind him started to shed tears.
"No, only you. Come with me and leave her." Leyvi denied flatly. Anda was still silent.
"Then, I can only disappoint..."
"WAIT!!" Tasya screamed when Tal was about to decline Leyvi.
She quickly dragged herself in front of Tal and kowtowed to Leyvi.
"Please immortal! Take Tal as your disciple! Don't listen to him!" Her forehead hits the floor a few times while begging Leyvi.
"Tal! Agree to the immortal now! Listen to me!" She turned around with her bleeding forehead and yelled at Tal while crying. She doesn't want to hold him back anymore. She doesn't want to feel guilty forever.
"Please....." Her tone softened as she stared at Tal.
Tal was in anguish. What should he do? While he was mentally torn, he heard a woman's angry voice.
"Husband! How long are you going to test them!??" She twisted his waist's meat, with some force this time. She was quite angry at Leyvi. The girl even hurt herself and he was still watching like it was a drama.
"Ouchh...ouchhh...ouucchh!!! I'm dying! Anda my wife! Let me go, I was wrong!" Leyvi begged. It was really painful this time.
Tal and Tasya were dumbfounded by the scene in front of them.
Did the immortals come here to do a comedy skit?
