Short Stories

Becoming a Bullied Outer Disciple

Bai Yun was suffocating. He begged silently for help, but he couldn't even move. No one entered the ward, either. After a bit, he decided it wasn't worth it to panic if it was so futile, so he reflected on his life. But mostly suffocated. 

No one had come to visit him. It wouldn't even take a few generations to forget a person named Yun existed. When he was born, and for most of his childhood, he was treated like an ink stain, unsightly and indelible. Back then, everyone had gone to such lengths to suppress him till he turned bitter, yet now he was dying in a hospital ward, and nobody came to help him.

The hospital was clean and cold, smelling of disinfectant. Tracing the moonlight falling throw a slit in the blinds back to the moon and down to an apartment in another city, one could see inside.

The room was cramped and barely furnished. It smelled like old man and paper sculptures littered the area. Most of the furnishings were already ruined by claw marks. A dog paced anxiously by the door, waiting as it had done for those few short years, yet somehow outliving its master. Under the old blankets on the bed was a cat, lying where it always had but unable to fall asleep somehow.

The night was long, and the dog's whimpers turned to whines as the cat finally closed its eyes.

......

Hao Yiran stood in front of a dead body. The skin was leathery and full of wrinkles, and the eyes and mouth has creepily fallen open again. 

"-yeah, thank you very much, Mr. Lu."

He closed the phone after confirming the transfer of his body, and stood there for a moment, watching. The corpse wasn't a pretty sight at all. Even in death, this old man could be mocked.

"Yo, Ah'Yi, that bastard's finally dead! As your good friend, how about I take you out for a drink? I promise not to bring any more girls, okay?" 

An arm slumping at Ross his shoulders pulled him out of his daze. He glanced coldly at the other man and shrugged off his arm. He let out a mocking 'heh' towards the body on the bed and left without a second glance.

Hu Yuan chased after him, thinking 'what was up with this crazy guy? He can't possibly still be mad from last time? I said I wouldn't bring any girls. Tsk.'

.....

The door of the apartment slowly unlocked with a click. The dog pounced towards the person entering with an excited 'woof', but it wasn't the person it wanted. 

Hao Yiran entered and looked around. The place was still musty, and everything had a thick layer of dust. The lack of furniture made the place seem even more desolate without any person inhabiting it. The cat approached him with an imploring 'meow'. He picked it up and it purred against him.

"......"

Hot tears rolled off his cheeks and fell onto the cat. He bowed his head, but there was no one to tell him to look up or wipe his face for him, now. The person who had fed this cat till it's fur was shiny, the person who would fold paper in this tiny room had passed in a hospital ward while he wasn't there to accompany him.

He squeezed his eyes shut as he thought about those days before their estrangement, when he would pat him on the head and scold the teacher who said boys couldn't cry. His limbs were already aching at that time, so he would slowly hobble to his side and coax him.

'It's okay, it's okay, Ran'er. Grandpa will help you hit those bad kids, alright? Grandpa used to do martial arts. Back then I was called the Roaring Dragon, very fierce. Come on, why don't I teach you so they can't hit you any more? Don't cry...'

"......"

........ 

Bai Yun had a long sleep. He was resting peacefully, and didn't want to wake up, when a  bald monk chased him around with Buddha beads in his palm. He was even older than that bald donkey, but he still chased him from east to west until Bai Yun stopped in exhaustion. 

"What do you want, I don't want to donate to your temple." He said miserably between breaths.

The monk's face turned red. "Do I need your money? Go, go! Gogogo!"

He curled up into a ball as the monk whaled on him and screeched miserably, pained all over his body.

Then he opened his eyes. He was laying on his back, and his whole body ached. Coupling that with the feeling that he shouldn't be in this situation made him express his feelings quite succinctly.

"Fuck." But there was someone else in the room.

"How dare you curse-!" A fist landed on Bai Yun's face. Then a blow aimed towards his stomach.

'!!!'

'Who was this?! This youngster hits harder than that monk,' he thought miserably as he rolled off the bed and crawled like a dog, evading the impudent kid. 'Can't this old man get a break, you're disrespecting your elders!'

 In his frantic-ness, he did not register that his body was much lighter than it had been for the past decades.