No Time

Chapter 13: Shifu

My brothers and I have the same birthdays. Different times, but on the same day. Jing Ge said that Mom gave birth prematurely or waited a little longer to give birth to us on the same days. Then Yu Ge told us that it was because of our Mom and Dad being too cheap at that time and wanting to spend less on gifts and cake. My reaction was: =-=. Yu Ge really seems to dislike our parents... I don't know what to believe, but we were all born on June, 4th. Calix Ge was born on June, 8th, just 4 days from our birthday.

Calix Ge's mother, Irene Mercouri, already came to China and moved next doors. We still live in an apartment while she gets to live in a modern house... T-T Welp, Yu Ge says we already bought a super cool summer house, so I guess that's fine.

He also got me the chocolate fountain and a new whip! It cracks well and the leather is coated in sharp metal spikes. Such a cool looking equipment!

Lai Ge is the one who found these stuff for me, so I thanked him too. He got my money back after all. But we still had to put it in our main bank, it's a bit of a bummer.

In our country, school ends in mid-July, so we have to wait a little while for a summer break.

Since tomorrow's Monday, Calix Ge is going to Jing Ge's school with his mom to sign up. Miss Irene has a sharp accent, but she can speak Chinese well. She's definitely a smart lady!

Yu Ge has arranged a poison arts teacher for me and she's coming today! But he still hasn't found me a friend. I wonder if I'll ever get a friend?

Knocks came from the warehouse's back door. It must be the teacher!

I opened the door widely and smiled brightly saying, "Hello!"

"Hello" was the reply while I stood there slightly surprised.

It was a man! Not a woman! Boobs: None! It must be a mailman or something. That surely must be it...

"Are you Shui Bing? I'm your poison arts teacher, Lu Han. Nice to meet you."

"Ah?" was my dumbstruck reply. What else could I do? The older sister type Shifu that I was waiting for did not appear! Instead, there was a drop-dead gorgeous man!

Very handsome! Slightly curly light brown hair that looked silky, green eyes that stared straight at you, and pale skin. He was taller than Jing Ge and had a cool looking casual grey suit on. He could totally pass off as a girl if he put on lots of makeup and had a higher voice! This Shifu of mine, Lu Han, undoubtedly had a deep tone that just made you want to hear more!

"Shifu, aren't you supposed to be a woman?" I asked.

"My cousin uses my poison but they can't make any. She was fooling around with her identity and accidentally agreed to tutor you. She came to me for help since I'm the one who supplies her poison," Shifu replied in a leisurely tone.

"Shifu, you don't look like a Chinese person!"

"I'm from a generation of European people and my father's the only Chinese person from my family," he explained.

Hm, this Shifu doesn't scoff or make fun of what I ask! But I should test him a bit more to see if he could be a good teacher for me.

My brothers were shopping for furniture right now, so I just led Shifu into the sofa to serve him some tea.

"Shifu, how old are you? Do you have a girlfriend? Are you married? When's your birthday? Do you play any instruments?" I asked him in a spur.

Shifu was so calm as he replied, "I'm 20. No. No. July, 4th. I play the cello."

"Shifu, y-you're only 20?!" I spit out the juice I was drinking.

"Yes, I do look mature for my age. I lived in England prior to coming here to tutor you. This assignment is quite interesting. I get to tutor the 'Ragdoll'," he replied as if amused.

"Woah, how did you know?" I asked with deep curiosity in my eyes.

"I got someone to research on you. You only operate in China, you appeared several years ago. I have some people working in China and they told me that you were actually just a young girl. I was very surprised when they told me you were only 8 years old. And your name is the same as the mass-killing assassin, 'Shui Bing'."

"Is it that easy to find out about me?" I asked worriedly.

"I assure you, it's only because I have people in your underworld that I got to know about you. Each underworld organization has a network and unless they're enemies, they share information naturally," he calmly replied.

"Shifu, Shifu, are you in an underworld organization too? Maybe the mafia?"

"Mm, something like that."

I pouted since that didn't help me understand.

We talked for a little while and I found out that Shifu preferred frappuccino to black coffee and that he didn't like tea much but peach tea was nice. He seems to like sweet stuff a lot.

Shifu taught me the basics of poisonous plants. Even some common grass could be used as poison these days since there was so much pesticide sprayed on! He brought out a list of books that I needed to read and memorize. I would get tested on them and even had to know how to recite them backward... that's in 2 weeks... too short!

So, after 4 hours of tutoring, Shifu went away driving on a normal looking car. I bet he's staying under cover or something.

Miss Irene and my brothers came back. The warehouse was full of noise as they all came in. Yu Ge was as quiet as always, but the rest of them were quite loud. Miss Irene even bought donuts for us!

But, Yu Ge says not to trust her. It must be because we did buy her son after all. Jing Ge is too trusting, Lai Ge is just acting nice, and Yu Ge is ignoring her. I don't know what to do, but from knowing the various people I've had to kill, I can't trust her, but I took one donut from the box since Yu Ge said they were store bought. I honestly think Yu Ge's very innocent too. Even store-bought ones can have poison on them...

Ah, well, I just want to keep Yu Ge like that. He protects us and we'll secretly protect him back.

Oh, should I tell them of my Shifu being male?

Nah, let's keep that as a surprise for later!