Chapter 117 - She's A Girl

It was an unfortunate day when Feng Xuan had lost her mother. Yang Baozai had been a slender, dark-haired girl of thirty-six. Her big eyes were the color of coffee that seemed to say that she had a thousand secrets inside of them. Her skin was pale and her face was intelligent. The smile on her lips knew well that she was a beauty. Even after having raised a child, she had not looked a day older than twenty-five.

Feng Xuan's head was leaning against the window of the car as her mother's usual litany went from one ear and out in the other. She fought the urge to grab her headphones from her bag. It was just the same thing over and over. Her mother's angry and shrilling voice was crawling on her skin.

"You are NOT to return to that place," her mother said. Her face was read and she looked like a dragon ready to breathe fire. "I will have to talk to your father about this."

Surely, later that night her mother was going to throw a fit while her ever calm father would watch her pace the room, shouting, making reasons on why her daughter should not return to her 'killing' lessons. Her mother's main point: "She's a girl!"

Feng Xuan knew how the conversations went because that was how loud her mother's sermons were. Even though she would close her bedroom door, she would still be able to hear fragments of the conversation if she listened hard enough.

"Lizhao, my love, you cannot let your daughter be in that world. She was supposed to be a wife. She has to know about the house—making menus, cooking, gardening, party plannings, sewing clothes, interior designing, and household. She does not listen to me anymore. Tell her to drop her knives. To let go of the guns. To quit getting herself beat up in her trainings—"

Most of the time, that was where she would stop to listen and scream to her pillow. Don't take this all in the wrong way. Feng Xuan loved her mother and her mother loved her. They had plenty of great memories together. But it was Feng Xuan's growing involvement with the mafia matters that had started her mother's prodding in her life.

Her father, Feng Lizhao, the softie he was for his wife, would usually succ.u.mb and agree. But the bigger softie he was for his only daughter, one 'Father, please let me go back' and she would be on the way to her next martial arts class.

Feng Lizhao had discovered Feng Xuan's talent with knives and with moving her body when she was young. She had been a plump child, devouring sweets as she saw them. But when she had turned six years old, she had grown curious with the weapons she saw in the house. Often times, her father's men train with themselves at their backyard, with blades or with their bare fists.

Her father saw the excitement in her eyes, or the way her body would jerk at times like she wanted to get into the fight herself. One day, he brought a man Feng Xuan had never seen before. His bald head seemed to shine under the sunlight. His eyes looked terrifying under thick eyebrows. But the friendly smile on his lips lighted his whole face.

He crouched down in front of Feng Xuan. "Your father told me you're interested." He produced a dagger from his waist and threw it. It spun in the air before sticking itself on the trunk of her treehouse. "Do you want to learn how to do that?"

Feng Xuan, fascinated, eagerly nodded her head. Before she had been given access to weapons, her trainer, The Marshall, had taught her the basics of martial arts to improve her hand-eye coordination and her overall movement.

When her mother found out about it, she did not say anything because of the big smile on her child's face as she recounted what she did that afternoon.

Weeks passed and Feng Xuan trained everyday. She shed her weight like an old skin and ate a lot of protein. Sooner than later she was light as a feather. It was as if she was a bird when she jumped; when she moved she was swift and fast.

After a whole year of training, The Marshall had come to Feng Lizhao, "Your daughter has great talent. Would be a waste not to utilize it."

"What do you mean?"

"She'd make a fine assassin."

Feng Lizhao laughed. "I'm not making my daughter a murderer."

But another set of months flew by, it was not just The Marshall who was starting to see what Feng Xuan could be. Her parents had a long discussion about.

"Your daughter is turning into a monster!" Yang Baozai said as she stepped outside the bathroom. "You need to inject her with some humanity before it's too late."

Feng Lizhao, afraid of his own daughter's potential, agreed and enrolled his daughter in ballet lessons.

"I don't want to go," Feng Xuan whined while she was in her pink tutus. She pointed to her shoes. "Those hurt!"

Feng Lizhao held his daughter by the shoulders. "Think of this as an exercise to improve your flexibility."

It worked for the first few months. It was less training and more ballet. Then one night, Feng Xuan burned her pointe shoes and said, "I'm not going to go back to ballet."

It took a lot of convincing. It was not until her mother had banned her from her trainings that Feng Xuan agreed to take gymnastics—for her flexibility again. Surprisingly, Feng Xuan stuck with it.

But one afternoon, it was her father who took her to class. "Do you still like what you're doing?"

"No," she said. Feng Xuan was now thirteen years old by this point. "But it's the only way I could still take my trainings without mom getting in my way."

Feng Lizhao sighed. "Why do you want to train?"

"I need strength and my own power." Feng Xuan rolled down her window and breathed in. "I am going to run the mafia with you. And with that other person who handles it. We're going to be a great team."

"Yes, we are," her father smiled. "Now, you and I are going to have a secret."

Her father had taken her out of gymnastics and brought her to a newly purchased training center. Feng Xuan returned to her whole day of training that day.

Two years passed before her mother found out that when she dropped Feng Xuan at gymnastics, another car would take her away to training—or 'killing' lessons as she called it. Her mother had found out about her and her father's little secret. When they get home, both of them would be in so much trouble.

Feng Xuan knew what she was going to be when she grew up. She was a woman in a man's world. A lot would want to take her down. The puzzle was, why was her mother trying to stop her from becoming the first female mafia lord in Chengshi?