Chapter 23: Sleeping prince

The boy was born to be a musician, a great one, they said.

His parents were musicians, so did his grandparents and his great grandparents. Even their great grandparents were also musicians.

Music coursed through his veins and breathed within him. If he bled, he bled music. If he cried, only music would come out, his dad told him so.

Music was his life, his blessing, his gift and curse.

Music is happiness, the warmth of his mother’s palms, her beautiful smile and praise. Music is anger, the fast and unbinding chord, the pain of his fingertips violently hitting against the white and black keys whenever he remembered the face of his bullies. Music is pain, the apprehension that his mom would never be there to pat his head again or showered him with smile and praise.

Music was everything to him. The boy did not know what he would be without music or what kind of a jokester of a pianist he would make, being unable to play the piano. Music was a binding chain of pain and grief. Music was a wounded heart and tearful eyes.

The time he spent with Mrs. Hạ Đông liberated him from music, not quite, but it did. He spent less time in his room staring at the dusty piano and less time hesitating about playing it. Once in a while when he returned home, he heard his father played the Vivaldi’s Winter with his violin while locking himself in the music room.

His father was a violinist unlike his mother and his grandparents, they played piano. He can play almost all the musical instruments, however, his specialty was the violin. He loved to perform duets with mom, he would play his violin while mom would play her piano.

The solo his father played sounded gray and painful, always since his mother’s death.

Sometime after Mrs. Hạ Đông’s dead, the headmaster adopted the boy as her own child since his father drown himself further within the strong wine and tears. He saw his father less and less, about once in a week. In return, he gained another father, another mother and an older sister.

His adopted parents were the kindest people in the world, and yet, their daughter was forbidding and abusive. Until the day he met this sister of his, the boy did not know that a girl could cause pain to him just as much as the boys.

In a sense, they were very similar, the boy himself and his sister. They were the black sheep of the family.

Bạch Đại Phúc, that was the boy’s name, given to him by his mother. Apparently, his father had a different name in his mind. However, his mother talked his father into relinquishing that right to her since she was the one who was burdened with the labor pain for over nine months. In the end, his father being the honest and family man he was agreed.

The word ‘Bạch’ could either mean white or pure and innocent, it was the boy’s family name.

The word ‘Đại’ meant great or greatness. The word ‘Phúc’ meant lucky or happiness. When combined, the word “Đại Phúc” could mean extremely lucky or a great happiness, however because of the structure of Vietnamese grammar, there was a great ambiguity in the boy’s name. That great ambiguity made Fearless could not help but wondered what his mother has wished for when she named him like that. Fearless could only guess his mother’s wish.

Depending on the context, the word “Đại Phúc” when labeled on a person could mean “An extremely lucky person” or “A very happy person”. However, it could also mean “A person who brings about great luck and happiness.”

When combined the boy’s given name with his family name “Bạch”, the meaning changed greatly. It could interpret as “A person who lives purely for happiness” or “A person who is both pure and lucky” or “A person who purely lives to bring happiness to others.”

That was probably his mother’s intention and wish when she gave that name to him.

Yet, such meaningful name could not follow the boy when he transformed to Fearless. In the Western culture, the first name is supposed to be the given name and the last name is supposed to be the family name. Thus, the boy was internationally known as “Phúc Đại Bạch” when he first joined the pro-league of Reign of Chaos. His name lost all of its meaningfulness and magic when it was reordered like that.

Worse, “Phúc Đại Bạch” somehow became “Fuck The Bitch” when it rolled off the tongue of most Westerner. Most Asian can pronounced it just fine, but Westerner just cannot pronounce it correctly. The worst violation happened was when a broadcaster screamed “Fuck The Bitch has done it again” during the semi-final of a Major league the boy attended to during his first year with The Alliance, and it was done during the international broadcast without any ill-intention or malice.

Bạch Đại Phúc was his name. Yet, the boy himself could not be more of a devil and he knew it. He was far from being “A person who brings about luck and happiness” like his name stated. He was not the kindhearted person his mom and dad were.

His older sister was named “Thùy Dương” by her parents, “Nguyễn Thùy Dương”. Her name was just as meaningful and contained all the hope and blessing from her parents as the boy himself.

The name “Thùy Dương” could mean “a gentle willow” or “a gentle sun”. And yet, her nature could not be further from that. She was a sadistic girl, a wild and insane bitch, almost too cruel. However, she was smart. She knew how to act in front of her parents, how to present herself in a favorable spotlight. In fact, she was more like a long lost sister to the boy.

They were one of a kind. Perhaps sensing that, she secretly abused him behind the close door and behind her parents’ back. Being her roommate, the boy could only zip his mouth. This older sister was his equal in concocting devious plans and being a drama queen. She was four year older and stronger than he was.

However, the time he suffered from her abuse did not last. It’s all changed drastically the day she stripped him naked and stepped on his weenie with that haunting sadistic smile floated on her lips. In the hope of retaliation, his weenie rose to the challenge, the only way it knew how. The poor bastard shot blindly within the darkness, more like spray and pray, three buck shots, and the rest was history.

Mrs. Hạ Đông was the boy’s teacher in the bedding matter and the boy became his older sister’s teacher in this matter that day.

The boy wasn’t sure if she desired it or simply curious about the matter. However, it did not change the fact that she literally begged for it every night or she would get it by force, not that he would complain since she treated him gentler than before. He wasn’t sure if this was the relationship between siblings but he knew that the stuffs they did every night was considered forbidden. However, it did not stop him or his sister to venture deep within their adventure every night. The risk of being discovered by their parents haunted them, and yet, it brought a sense of adventure and liberation to the both of them when they succeeded.

It was not just the sex that they grew addicted to, it was the thrill of being discovered.

Doing it with Mrs. Hạ Đông, it was love making. It was healing and soothing. Doing it with his older sister, it was simply sex and thrill, no more.

His older sister was a possessive bitch. There were countless ways for her to muffle her moan when they committed their deed, like biting her pillow or deep kissing, and yet she chose to sink her teeth into his shoulders every time like the rabid bitch in heat she was. She always had that pleased look whenever she ran her fingers on those purple and yellow jaw marks on his shoulder, “You are mine,” she said those haunting words while wetting those teeth marks with her hot tongue.

That scene made Fearless broke to a thin smile. That’s cute, he thought After knowing all sort of insane women, his older sister’s possessiveness and abusiveness became “Meh, that’s cute” to Fearless, but apparently, the boy did not share his sentiment.

In his developing mind, the boy pictured his older sister as a tyrant and himself as her favorite concubine, no more and no less. He was terrified of her and yet being very grateful for her existence.

She confirmed to him that he was not alone, that he was not the only black sheep out there in the world. Furthermore, just by being around her made him sharp. He was a devil of a child and so she was, his equal and superior. He had to constantly guess and predict her movement while he was living with her. If he guessed wrong, there would be consequences. Therefore, he was forced to predict her every movement correctly.

The boy’s older sister dreamed to become a pro-gamer while her parents hope that she would become a teacher like themselves. A pro-gamer she did not become, however a programmer, she did.

That’s pretty close, the difference was just an “R” and an “M”, Fearless remembered joking like that to her one time and she spilled hot tea over him. She’s really a cruel and insane bitch, not that Fearless hated her for that. His younger self thought that he did indeed hated her, little that he knew he was madly in love with her.

She was the first person introduced ROC to the boy and it was also her who made him into a magician.

“You have a magic touch,” she would quietly moan into his ears while they were doing the deed, “These magic fingers, they are mine, make sure you would never damage them,” and she repeated that to him again and again. She would repeatedly tell him those words after discovering just how much he starved for praises. She was really a devil of a child and she grew up into a devil of a woman.

Fearless chuckled to himself when he looked at the dumbfound reflection of his younger self through his older sister’s eyes. As intelligent as she was, she had no idea how those words confused the boy and how he would misunderstand her words.

In a sense, she made him a magician. Hated her he did, but he loved to listen to her honey sweet praise, and the boy hated himself for that.

There was a circus located two hundred meters from the school. The boy would always ask his adopt mother to allow him to hang around the circus. He learned card magic, coin magic, sleight of hand and illusion from an old illusionist in the circus. After a few months, he became that illusionist’s apprentice and assistant.

The boy wasn’t sure if he really loved magic as much as he did music but he really loved the “Wow” on his older sister’s face when he showed her a magic trick.

He kept learning and practicing magic every day. Sometime, he practiced his elementary coin magic and card magic during class with one hand, playing with the coins while taking note with the other. He thought that one day, he would become a magician in the future, and little he knew life had a different plan for him.

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“Is he sleeping?”

Croaky whispered as he pressed his chest against the grassy ground to avoid detection. His eyes pinpointed on the figure sitting next to the orange campfire.

“I don’t know. How about you go and check it yourself?” a reply came, quiet, shriveled and fearful. Gared, the bastard was quivering in his boots, probably stemmed from the realization that the opponent was a magic caster from the robe he wore. A large scale on a gray background, the Greyscale, famous for their eccentricity as researchers of magic as well as their powerful presence on the battlefield once they were hired as mercenaries.

Croaky immediately turned at his young companion who’s lying flatly on the ground just like him, “Bastard, just go. I have a bow. I can shoot him first before he can do anything to you.”

“No, fuck you. How about you give me that bow and go instead,” replied Gared.

“You are a terrible shooter. You are most likely to hit me instead of that magic caster. Just go,” Croaky convinced the kid. In the end, the fearful bastard had no choice but to listen.

Gared readied his knives as he crawled on the ground stealthily, approaching his unsuspecting opponent. He was a born bandit under Bloodbeard’s command, his father was a bandit, so did he, in truth he was nobody. The kid could not even fight but that would not stop Croaky from pushing the job of checking the opponent on him. It’s safer to stay in the distance.

Suddenly, the kid stood up and signaled Croaky to come, showing no concern of the opponent.

“He’s sleeping, drunk and asleep,” the kid said, tapping his boot on the magic caster’s thigh.

“I can see it. I still have both of my eyes,” Croaky replied, heaving a long sigh. That’s great, he did not have to fight against a magic caster.

“What should we do? Kill him and go back to report?”

“Yeah, let’s get it over with,” answered Croaky, drawing his axe out of his belt. This magic caster wasted him a night. He should be in the base at the moment, finding pleasure in those women who his companions captured while raiding the area around Madukat. Yet, because of this stupid magic caster who lighted a pyre, making Bloodbeard suspected that was a signal and ordered Croaky to investigate that he was here.

“Wait. This bastard, his hair is black. Is he a dark elf?” the dim glow from the camp fire revealed a glossy dark hair on the head of the sleeping magic caster. Croaky pulled the grey hood off the drunk magic caster’s head to have clearer inspection.

“His ears are round though.” Gared replied indifferently.

Croaky was disappointed, but not for long. “Who care, his face is like an elf. Maybe he’s a half breed born from a dark elf and a man. I reckon he would make heaps of coins if we sell him to a slaver.”

Croaky started to think how he would negotiate the price with the slavers who visited Bloodbeard’s camp from time to time to buy off the captured women and men.

“Are you stupid? He’s a magic caster.”

“Take away his staff and he’s no more than a normal man. Damn, look at this,” Croaky put his hand on the sleeping man’s chin, rolling his face left and right, “Shit, with face like this, selling him to a slaver would be a stupid thing to do. How many silver coin could I get from selling him to a brothel in Lamentia?”

Croaky remembered his time living in Lamentia as an urchin, a border city reside to the east of White Winter that famous for three things: gladiatorial games, whore houses and the local mead. He then looked at the sleeping magic caster, clicking his tongue, imagining those drooling rich women from Lamentia would tear themselves apart to have a bite of a creature as beautiful as this. Croaky knew a few men under Bloodbeard’s command would pounce over this creature and start humping regardless. “Let’s bind him and bring him back. We will divide the money just between you and me,” Croaky said as he made a plan in his head.

The kid nodded his head, then stopped, “What about Bloodbeard? What if he want this thing for himself? Should we hide this?”

Croaky clutched his head, finally remembered about the bandit lord, “Fuck… We just have to try our luck. Smudge his face with dirt and ash, maybe Bloodbeard would not notice.”

Bloodbeard allowed his men to take whatever they wanted for themselves as long as they listened to his command. However, there were time that the old devil would simply take away their trophy for himself. Croaky could not guarantee that the old devil would allow him to hoard this creature to himself.

Finding no way to transport the strange creature, Croaky smashed the magic gem on the creature’s magic staff and bound him to it. He and Gared towed the sleepy head away like a pig. Gared was greedy about the belonging of the creature, hoarding his large pack bag and putting it on his shoulders.

There were many occasion the creature surprised Croaky with his sleeptalking. Croaky thought the creature was awake but he wasn’t. He talked in a strange tongue, probably elvish tongue, and sang on occasion. Gared suggested that they should put something on the creature’s mouth to shut him up and Croaky immediately did that.

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To the young boy, ROC, Reign of Chaos was just a game that his older sister played on her PC. It did not mean much to him. It’s fun and addicting, but that’s about it. It’s just a video game.

One day, he was playing a single match against a random person online. It’s just the usual stuff until the twenty minute mark. He was overwhelmed by his opponent, completely cornered as he felt like his opponent choked the life out of his body little by little. This was the first time he met an opponent so strong. He went up against strong players before, however, never had he met someone so good at this.

The more he tried to defend, the more he felt like he was losing. In a last ditch of effort, he sent his warlord to the frontline, in the open field, using him as a bait. It was a gambit. The opponent bit into the bait and the boy did everything within his ability to punish that mistake. Yet, his inexperience allowed the opponent to come out on top of that deciding battle.

The match was an hour long, so much longer than the boy has expected. He thought he was finished around the forty minute mark.

Surprisingly to the boy, this opponent was very nice just as he was strong. There was no “Delete ROC and quit playing, noob.” or “Fucking noob, a waste of my time” or any similar insults that the boy grew accustomed to while playing ROC.

“You are strong. How long have you play this game?” his opponent typed in the chat box, all in English.

“You too. I have not played against someone who are just as strong as you. I started playing this game last year.” The boy typed in his mother tongue then used a translation app on the internet to translate his sentences to English.

“What time do you usually play ROC?”

“Seven”

“So around this hour. Do you play every day?”

“No, only during weekend and Thursday.”

“I want to play with you again.”

That sentence caught the boy’s attention, and he said yes, adding this strange opponent into his friend list. He started making schedule for that strange opponent to play single matches with him.

Feng Yi, was the name of his opponent, real name as he introduced himself. He changed his in-game nickname all the time so the boy did not know how to call him. The boy would ask him regarding the reason he changed his in-game nickname all the time, he just replied that he wanted to avoid attention from the people following his account. The boy did not understand it.

Feng Yi was literally the Wikipedia of ROC. He knew everything about ROC, the HP of any type of troops, their strength and weakness, the geography, the spells, the warlords, everything. He can simulate the skirmish between any type of troops against each other like pitting elven cavalry against dwarven cavalry, who would win and who would lose. He was very accurate and precise with his mental simulation. Furthermore, he was very strategic and cunning.

The boy became friend with Feng Yi through ROC for a year, playing over a thousand matches between the two of them both in single mode and multiplayer mode. Then, one day, Feng Yi asked a strange question, “Have you ever thought of becoming a pro-gamer before?”

“No, but my sister did.”

“She’s horrible. Tell her that there is no way she could make it to the pro.” Feng Yi typed. He played ROC with the boy’s older sister a few times and he avoided her like a plague since. He kept telling how bad she was, both her mechanical skill and personality.

“She will kill me, lol,” the boy typed as he chuckled.

“Do you wish to become a pro-gamer?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m good enough.”

“But you are. I’m currently assembling a real professional team. I want you to be a part of our team.”

“You are joking”

“I’m serious about this.”

The boy was stumped by that sentence. He had thought that Feng YI was one of those pro player in the world of ROC but he had never thought of becoming one himself.

“Before I forgot. How old are you?” Feng Yi typed on the message board.

“Fifteen, why?”

“No bullshit, bro. Tell me the truth”

“I’m fifteen for real. How old do you think I am?” the boy scowled at the screen. He did not know what so surprising about being a fifteen year old kid.

“Hey, please talk to your parents that I want to meet them in real life”

“What? Why?” the boy became significantly confused due to Feng Yi’s latest words.

“I have to convince them and you as well. Ask them if they are free during the weekend, I would like to meet them.”

In the end, the boy agreed. He did not know that offline meeting with Feng Yi changed the course of his life. He was set to be a pro-gamer since that moment.