A Wuxia Tale: Blade in Training

Documents

(WANG DAO)

I will admit, if anyone will ask me what I would like to know about my family's history, learning that someone pushed my GrandPa Wang to suicide is not even on my list.

And learning that it all happened because a mercenary assassin infiltrated a massive military base in HanZong decades ago, was not part of it either.

But as I read the documents left in my desk after someone clearly managed to enter my room while I was washing in the bathhouse of the guards' barracks here in Crown Prince Han's Palace, it's giving me a sense of nothing is going to get right in my world again.

First, who dared enter the room of the Crown Prince's personal close guard. Second, I will kill that person for sure. I don't care if that person is just a minor threat or someone bribed to do a task, no one should come close to me or to my space this way. A threat to me is a threat to the Heir of the Crown and any threat should be dealt decisively. That's Captain Ching's lesson he imparted on me.

But the papers are here. Documents. Old, almost flaky and legal looking documents that state a rebellion happened inside the HanZong military base that my grandfather and another general founded and built that resulted to my grandfather's death and threats to besmirch our family's name.

That was nothing new to me. Baba told me the story of my grandfather's sins and all his weaknesses. Or so I thought. These papers are giving me an idea that Baba omitted some details on his story.

"A shadow entered the base, killed generals and burned the whole military down..." I mussed at that part of the documents in my hand. "Who has the nerve to go into a lion's den and cloak himself while surrounded by a thousand enemies? Who..."

I froze on my feet. With my hair still damp and water droplets still clung to my back and chest, I reread those words on the documents in my hand.

"A shadow..." I said softly as my mind conjured the image of my Father killing those rebels in the Imperial hunting ground. Those rebels who kidnapped me with an intent to kill the son of the Master General. Was that almost four years ago? Just four years ago?

I closed my eyes before opening them to read further. I heard a chuckle suddenly ringing around me and I realized that sound came from my own throat. "Of all the ridiculous thing..." I slapped those documents back on top of my writing desk as the information there swirled around my head.

"Suicide? My grandfather hung himself? What?" I closed my eyes again as vile rose to my throat. I got to the pot just in time to vomit there. I shook my head as I wipe my mouth. "It's not true," I said to myself. "It doesn't make sense. Why would my Baba keep Father by his side if Father killed my..." I chuckled as I stood up and step away from the chamber pot. "It doesn't make sense. And an assassin that burned a military base. A whole militart base! What?!"

It's not true. A paid mercenary is one thing...an assassin is another. That's a crime. Being an assassin is a crime. It could get one arrested and punished. My Father was not an assassin. No, he is not...

That's not...in the realm of what I want my Father's former profession to be before he came into our lives. I thought he was a movement arts teacher, a weapon specialist or even a goverment spy. I will even accept Father being a hermit monk who studied the ancient ways of medicine using plants.

But an assassin? No!

"It doesn't make any sense! Ah!" I grabbed my damp hair using both of my hands as I walk away from the writing desk with the documents there. This is making my head spin. Forcing me to think. Forcing me to picture it all in my mind.