Chapter 106: Two Men and A Bone
The room was quiet. The soft humming of the computer monitors the only sound penetrating the silence.
Nian Zhen sat on a chair, his eyes on the monitor, which showed a blotch of blue and pink and nothing else. The outline of the time tunnel he had memorized while on his trips was encoded in a program he himself designed but it wasn't showing him anything but the shaded grey for fog, the blue for air. Nothing about a human body moving about during a search.
Nian Zhen ran a weary hand down his face. He was very tired and he was worried about An Ning more than he would admit. Was she okay? Was she lost in that vast complex which was the time tunnel? Did...did she miss him? As he misses her and longs for her and...He shouldn't have allowed her to go out there alone. He should have insisted that he go with her. He...
He got up and search for something to do to while the time away, to ease the worry in his heart. His glance suddenly fixed on the tunnel with its yawning mouth staring at him like the giant maw of a hideous monster.
He was afraid. Afraid actually of what awaited him when the tunnel finally disgorged its contents. What could have been a joyous occasion will now be uncomfortable for everyone concerned. An Ning, her parents and grandparents, and the twins, who were certain to accompany their elders in search of their mother.
He was the outsider. The unknown entity. The uninvited and unexpected. The nobody. Did the kids even know that Richard was their dad? How would he introduce himself to them? As their father or their mother's lover? Would they like him? Would An Ning even tell them his true identity?
These questions run through his mind like a list, programmed to repeat itself every five or ten minutes. Nian Zhen was on tenterhooks. He had never felt such a profound fear as he was feeling now. He will never allow An Ning to leave him ever again. He made mistakes and god knows he had suffered because of them but he'll be damned if that includes leaving An Ning just because his kids hated his guts.
That will never happen. Not again. Not as long as he has breath in his body. An Ning will stay by his side, even if it means he has to put up with his children's contempt. Even their hatred was better than An Ning leaving him.
The door opened and Gu Sheng entered.
He stopped when he saw Nian Zhen's expression. The other man was looking at the tunnel like he had just seen a ghost. His face was pale; a thin film of sweat on his brow and cheeks. His tense body shivering as if he was cold.
Gu Sheng frowned and walked towards him.
"You look very distressed, prince," Gu Sheng said. "Has something happened?"
Nian Zhen didn't answer, his eyes still focused on the yawning entrance to the tunnel.
"It's close to 24 hours now," Gu Sheng continued. "You'd better go and rest. I'll take over from here."
Nian Zhen didn't even acknowledge his presence. Didn't even blink. Or look at him.
Gu Sheng was getting slightly annoyed with his silence so he took a seat and did what Nian Zhen was doing, wait and look at the tunnel, waiting for An Ning and those other people to walk out from the other side.
The silence lengthened. The hours went by. It was now close to midnight. A day had already passed since An Ning left and entered the tunnel.
"Did you know that An Ning and I grew up together?" Nian Zhen suddenly asked, turning to look at Gu Sheng. "Our parents were friends. An Ning and I went to school together, the uni together, and I guess it was expected that both she and I will eventually get married."
"She told me you are the reincarnation of her husband but about growing up with you, no," Gu Sheng said.
"She was the scrawniest girl," Nian Zhen laughed softly, his eyes looking far into the distance. "She loved to climb trees, and flowers, and even then she liked eating sweets. But she was always scrawny and never put on weight."
Gu Sheng did not answer. His eyes were not looking at Nian Zhen but at the watery entrance to the tunnel.
"It was only when I was about to die that I realized that the scrawny girl was gone and I'm looking at a very beautiful woman whom I loved with all my heart," continued Nian Zhen. "Can you imagine that? I fell in love with my own wife when I lay dying by her side." Nian Zhen's laughter was bitter. "Karma was always a bitch, no?"
"Why are you telling me this?" Gu Sheng asked, looking at him with cool eyes.
"I don't know," Nian Zhen shrugged. "Maybe because I think you understand since you feel the same way about her."
"I don't love An Ning like that. She loved my father. I know you think she doesn't remember her life as my father's wife but she does. She doesn't consider it as living the life of another woman even with the soul change. She remembered my father. She loved him. She stayed with me all this time because my father asked her."
"But it wasn't her, was she? That An Ning was not her."
"Where are you going with this, prince? Why this jealousy of a man who can't hurt your relationship with my stepmother anymore?"
Nian Zhen didn't answer, just resumed watching the tunnel with brooding eyes.
The two of them sat far apart. The physical divide was deliberate, as if they refused to acknowledge that each of them was claiming a right to An Ning, a right she may not necessarily feel they deserve. But each of them wanted to fight for that right, for whatever reason, they wanted to own a piece of An Ning neither of them will ever have.
"Did she tell you if she was ever coming back to Yuqui?" Gu Sheng asked after a while, a frown on his handsome face.
"Why would I tell you if she did?"
"She didn't then," Gu Sheng nodded, satisfied. "So, you're not as sure of her as you might think."
"Listen here, you punk..."
"No, you listen. I am staying because An Ning is here. If she leaves then I will leave. With her. There's nothing you can do or say that will succeed in driving me away. I don't even care about Yuqui. It can rot to hell for all I care but I'm not leaving without An Ning. End of discussion," Gu Sheng's voice was harsh. The expression of resentment and anger on his young face very disconcerting.
It seemed to shock Nian Zhen because he looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time. Gu Sheng was tall yet gangly. Maturity had yet to catch up with him but even at fifteen he was already showing signs of the kind of monarch he will grow into in the future: decisive, intelligent, benevolent. He was not overly ambitious. The ruthless and domineering type who would wish to incinerate the world so he could have power and have his name etched in some kind of glorious history. Gu Sheng was the man Gu Fang was becoming to be after he fell in love and married Li An Ning. And his son was as fearless and brave meeting an enemy as Gu Sheng was now with Nian Zhen.
"What would it take for you to leave Chengdi?" Nian Zhen asked pointblank.
"Even if you give me Chengdi, the answer is no," Gu Sheng said calmly.
"She's not even your mother!"
"Is she your wife then?"
Nian Zhen was stumped, glaring at him angrily.
"You tell me about your and An Ning's childhood," Gu Sheng said with a contemptuous sneer so disconcerting to see on his usually calm and expressionless face. "I've had her as a companion for nearly a year. She took care of me. She kept me alive. And just because you're jealous you want to keep us apart. You should listen to yourself, prince. You're acting like a mad man in love with a woman you aren't even sure likes you or not. That's your problem. Not mine."
"Of course, An Ning loves me," Nian Zhen's voice confident. "You seemed to have forgotten she and I have kids together."
That seemed to stop Gu Sheng for he frowned and suddenly looked thoughtful.
"How old are these children you're talking about?"
"About your age."
"That old?"
"What's the matter? Feeling threatened?" Nian Zhen smirked.
Gu Sheng was silent, his gaze on the tunnel again.
They didn't speak so the silence grew. Gu Sheng stood up to close the windows when he noticed that it was starting to rain outside, the rain falling heavily on the roof. Lightning streaked across the silent night.
"This can't be good," Nian Zhen suddenly sat up, looking at the closed windows then at the opening of the tunnel.
"Why?"
"Rain always affects the time tunnel in a strange way. The last time I was there, and it started to rain out here, heavy lightning literally downed the tunnel with its blow. Thankfully, I was a spirit so I managed to escape."
"How did you do it? How do you travel in the time tunnel as a ghost?" Gu Sheng asked, genuinely interested.
"I don't know. I go inside and I become a ghost. Inside the tunnel, I don't have a physical body. It disappears and I literally turn into a ghost."
Silence again reigned between them but when Nian Zhen glanced at Gu Sheng he was surprised to see a look of something like puzzlement on his young face.
"What?" he asked.
"You disappear like a ghost inside the time tunnel?"
"Yeah, and why are you so surprised?"
"We retained our physical bodies when we entered the tunnel. An Ning and I. And Ban Chao. But you, you disappeared? Even the spirits who acquired physical forms can't even enter the tunnel without disintegrating but you disappear? Don't you think that's rather strange?"
"It probably has something to do with the fact that I found it first," Nian shrugged unconcernedly. "I'm not worried about it."
"But..."
"Look, what's that on the monitor?"
Nian Zhen scrambled to his feet and run to the monitor. A tiny point of light was moving on the screen. It was moving fast, tearing through each turn of the tunnel like somebody faster was following.
Both men watched as that point of light sped through the tunnel. Nian Zhen was actually stunned to realize watching the point of light that the tunnel was not really a tunnel but a maze, a giant maze with different exits. Nian Zhen merely inputted in his program the halls and turns of the part that he memorized. He never realized that the time tunnel was bigger than that. What force could make something like this using just a time machine? The entire structure looked complex, like a complicated giant spiderweb.
Thunder suddenly sounded outside. Nian Zhen and Gu Sheng flinched with surprise. Their eyes met then swiveled to that dot still moving on the monitor. Hearts in their mouths, they watched as the dot suddenly stopped moving. It kept shining but did not move.
Nian Zhen gripped the chair until his knuckled turned white. Then his body relaxed in a shudder when the point of light again moved, faster this time, almost hurtling frantically towards the open mouth of the time tunnel.
Twenty feet. Fifteen feet. Ten. Five.
The two men stood up and watched the entrance to the tunnel as thunder again roared outside. On the monitor, the dot stopped. And remained unmoving for several minutes.
Instinctively, Nian Zhen moved to the mouth but Gu Sheng's hand was on his arm, effectively stopping his mad rush.
The thunder this time did not come outside but inside the time tunnel. Lightning momentarily cleared the fog at the entrance so the vivid yellow color of something moving fast towards them came at them like a bullet train.
Nian Zhen and Gu Sheng watched open mouthed as the face of the yellow Volkswagen bus suddenly filled the entrance to the time tunnel as frightening and startling as the jaws of a great white shark. There was a hissing sound as lightning battered the entrance then the nose of the bus broke through then the body then it went flying above their heads as it crashed through the wall and door and landed without even a dent on the ground outside.
The alarm went off, shattering the quiet night. The headlights beamed like two malevolent eyes, literally freezing everything that came within its powerful beaming light. Two gazelles who were munching on grass some distance away, froze for a bit then continued on calmly before disappearing in the denseness of the woods.
The doors opened and a young voice excitedly spoke out:
"That was an awesome drive, grandpa! Do it again!"
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