105. Calm Before the Storm II

“All I want is a refund.”

“I implore this brother to understand that we can only compensate after being unsuccessful for three days. Have a little patience and I’m sure the right girl will come along.” A deacon from a fancy restaurant consoled a complaining and dissatisfied customer.

“Can I at least get a bottle of that wine before I go?”

“Surrender your token and I will give you two of those wine.”

The dissatisfied customer is none other than Clay. Upon arriving at Gitlangan Central Valley, he went straight to participate on the “special event” his neighbors mentioned. It is located on the southwest area near a five hundred-meter long lake on a humongous fancy restaurant.

The restaurant is called “Lonely Soul Paradise”. It is a joint effort of every village and towns within Arizan Conservatory to give citizens a chance to explore and choose their partners. On the surface, it sounds like a typical dating program but it unique in a way. There is no sex involved and women have to be very careful with their choices as their choice will be a serious invitation for the man to visit their house later and rarely does it not end in marriage.

Every participant is interviewed before registering their real-time voice and holographic image and will be provided with token with a number on it. The second step is for men to browse the list and will only be allowed to choose ten candidates then later, the women will choose among those who liked them which eventually leads to a date. The date is controlled by the restaurant and for them to deliver the best and most romantic setting and unforgettable moments, the man has to pay up one hundred fifty crone registration fee.

The process of selection and elimination resets every hour and Clay has been unsuccessful for five consecutive hours now and from what he has heard, the longest someone had to wait was six hours. He did not plan on further embarrassing himself so he decided to give up. He could just have had left and disappeared silently however he is unwilling to part with his 150 crones as his entire savings for the four months of hard labor is 200 crones. He will have a major harvest but it is not in another three months.

Clay walked on the side of the lake with his two bottles of wine in his backpack.

Some petals occasionally drop from the cherry blossom looking trees creating a breeze of romance in the air, a perfect walk for two souls who just met but not for the disappointed Clay. His monkey instincts make him want to defecate and spread his feces all over the place.

*Giggles

(May I kiss at least kiss your hand.)

(But we are in public)

*Giggles

Clay passed by two couples and overheard their conversation. His face started to contort.

He thought to himself, “One more word and I swear to god, I will bomb this place with dung and incinerate this place to ashes.”

Sigh

Clay pathetically walked the crowded streets. Sometimes, he can’t help but think he is still on earth. He remembered a friend who once told him that majority of relationships starts with what he calls 666 principle. Accordingly, a man should have a six pack abs and or a six inch sword which equates to having a manly appeal and being able to satisfy a woman’s need in bed. The other is security. Only a fool would set aside financial security.

Unfortunately, he has none of those.

He does have six pack abs but comparing himself to the other candidates earlier, he looks like a little boy who is still drinking milk or like an Echo Male trying to compete with Alpha Males.

“Is there even such thing as Echo Males?” Clay asked himself as he asked for directions for his next destination.

Since the special event turned out to be a huge letdown, he wanted to look for Baran and have the contents of the flash drive revealed. He wants to at least commemorate his grandparent’s memories before completely taking over the residence.

“I’m Clay Nera. I was asked by a friend to meet him at room 205 F-wing? Can you kindly point me the way?” Clay asked a guard at the gate. He did not expect that Blue Roof is actually a school.

“Was it teacher Baran?”

“Old man with silver tooth.” Clay respectfully replied.

“He was just here ten minutes ago. Let me walk you over.”

Clay silently followed the guard and after a few minutes of walking, he was brought to an office or more like a teachers’ lounge where Baran is standing and waiting for him. He thanked the guard and left the door open.

“Why do I smell wine… . Did you bring wine from Lonely Soul Paradise?”

Clay smiled in embarrassment and scratched his head and looked to the window then said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Baran looked at him and mockingly said, “What happened to the council of ladies who are busy looking for your perfect mate?”

“Shut up and get off my back old man. Just turn on that thing on and help me view what ‘s in here” Clay handed the flash drive.

“Man, you look terrible. Why don’t you open that bottle inside your bag so I could have a taste?”

Clay retrieved a bottle of wine from his backpack and removed the cork while Baran is setting up the computer-like device. Since there were no glass around, he materialized his Qi and formed a shape of a small cup and drank from it bottoms up.

“Mhh… hh. Worthy of 150 crones. I feel like I’m going to a girlfriend tonight.” Clay placed the bottle on the table.

“There is only one file and it is a video, a four minute video.” Baran stood up and before Clay could sit down, he asked, “How many hours?”

“Five”

“Ha ha ha ha. What a loser. ”

Clay ignored Baran’s laughter. During the thirty minute flight earlier, they had some small talks but it was enough to know each other as connecting to someone with the same level of sense of humor is relatively easy and natural.

Video started playing.

There is a man in his early thirties drinking alone in a bar. From how it looks, it was closing time and a tattooed bald guy was cleaning tables and reminded the man to pay up and go home. The man walked to the counter where a lady was busy wiping glasses and handed his bill then placed a small box on top of the bill.

The lady got curious but when she opened it, it contained a ring. The lady jumped out of the counter and kissed and hugged the man.

Clay smiled and continued to watch the file. The man is his certainly his grandpa. After a minute, the couple went out leaving the bald guy alone.

“You grandpa must be so disappointed he may disown you if he knows you spent five hour at Lonely Souls ha ha ha.” Barn commented while drinking straight from the bottle.

Clay noticed only a few seconds were left on the video. However right before it ended, the bald man pressed a remote and a melodic piano started playing as he poured a glass of whiskey.

Clay wanted to stand up however he was stunned on the last seven seconds of the video. His heart started pounding and sat back down.

“The ending, can you replay the ending?”

Seeing Clay acting like a monkey who does not know how to operate the touchscreen monitor, Baran touched the screen and played the video again and skipped near the ending and marked that portion to play on repeat.

Clay attentively listened. On the third time it repeated, he could not control himself and closed his eyes trying to remember something from a distant memory. The music is cut off and he could only listen to the seven seconds of the introduction but this is enough for him to recognize this masterpiece. It is called Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2. It is the musical piece Kirsten played when he made his promise back on earth. He dreamed about it when he was hospitalized after drinking too much coffee.

“It’s called Fei Hong 25TH. It is one of the forty one musical pieces from Fei Hong Classics.” Baran closed the video and searched for the music then played it for Clay to hear the whole song.

Clay listened as the music played. It has already played for a minute and he could certainly confirm it is the same as Chopin’s.

“I wonder if this senior can tell me more about Fei Hong Classics?”

Baran suddenly noticed the change on Clay’s behavior. He wanted to tease him a bit more but Clay’s countenance did not look like he wanted to be made fun of. He had been a teacher for a long time so he knows when to stop, besides, he heard that Clay was in a coma and he did not know what is making Clay’s behavior turn 180 degrees.

“The database we have here is not connected outside but if you are looking for general information, this should suffice.” Baran searched for Fei Hong Classics and pulled up an article that looks like a Wiki. “I’ll be outside if you need me.”

Baran walked to the door to let Clay have some space.

Clay in the meantime read the article while listening to the music.

Fei Hong Classics is part of the information leaked to the public hundreds of years later after the Burning Sky incident from seven thousand years ago. Accordingly, a spacecraft from Immortal Green Mist Soul Sect docked at LX5 however an unknown spaceship suddenly warped out of nowhere and attacked.

Not long after the ambush, reinforcements arrived and the battle escalated. The unknown spaceship was at a disadvantage and in an attempt to save it crew members, it entered the atmosphere of MA6Z2 Planet. The battle was so fierce that the explosions were visible during a bright sky hence its name Burning Sky incident.

The battle concluded when the captain of the spaceship who is called Fei Hong detonated himself. Fei Hong is a 2nd phase Dao cultivator at the Divinity Stage and the explosion this cultivator caused created a space tear which eventually became the heart of 54th Cultivation School.

There are two images on the article as he scrolled down. The first one is the word NASA and the other is a portion of the translated text of one of the songs from Fei Hong Classics and it is the same lyrics from Midi’s Biography back at Gar Wahgar planet. It is written in English language and says, "Years wander, we breathe in and breathe out. Destination arrived, but have desires come to halt?"

Clay does not know whether to laugh or cry. Just as he was thinking about crossing the bridge and get married and move on yet in an instant, the same feelings which he wanted to bury found its way back bringing forth all memories and emotions of longing.

It is as if the world does not want him to really move on and n top of it, it felt like he should investigate more about Fei Hong.

The Chopin played continuously and Clay was not even aware more than an hour had already passed.

“I don’t know what kind of drama you’re going into but we can’t stay here long.”

Clay turned to his right and saw Baran waiving the empty bottle of wine.

“Do you have any regrets, old man?” Clay asked as he retrieved the second bottle of wine from his bag. His face looked like he had been thrown into the abyss.

“You’re not dying, are you? And what silly question. Of course we all do. Believe it or not, I was talented and qualified to join the ranks cultivators but I instead exchanged my slot for a meager wealth and a guaranteed position of being a teacher.

If I have only known that cultivators live longer and can have two wives. Don’t get me wrong but I love my wife and for the most part, I enjoy the moments I shared bed with her. But it’s different now that we are older. Now imagine if you are a cultivator allowed to marry someone younger.

People should only be allowed to die once they no longer have any regrets. “

Clay listened to the perverted side of Baran as he thought about pursuing cultivation once more to extend his life and make peace with his past.