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Part 3
Page 1
"You want to help her because you want to help
Sanzo.
"It wouldn't do well to get too involved in her
development.
"Guard her. Watch and see.
"If it happens, it will be soon.
"You make a better knight than a king, Kougaiji."
Make a better businessman than a king, Kougaiji
thought ruefully, pretending to listen while he tabbed through a vidscreen
portfolio and someone droned about oil drilling in Texas. Make a better
anything than a king. In all, I'm a pretty lousy monarch. Most sovereigns
at least have a country...
If there was a window in this board room, he'd be
staring out it and not even caring what he looked like. This was boring.
It had always been boring. He had to keep doing it, had no other options,
but it was still so dull it numbed the brain like an anesthetic. He wanted
out of here.
But he'd taught himself patience somewhere in there,
and exercised it now. He'd survived years of warfare and torture and then
after that the agony of nothing to really do for a few hundred years,
so by contrast waiting a few hours in this stuffy room should have been
a piece of cake. It usually was a piece of cake.
"You want to help her because you want to help
Sanzo."
Sanzo was in there, but Kougaiji wasn't sure
Kanzeon Bosatsu was so right about hir observation. Shujuan had her own
life; he wasn't overlooking that. That records man was supposed to be getting
in touch this afternoon...
"Your majesty?"
"Ah. Yes," he said, rising.
Afterward, the Americans present swore blind the
king sounded Canadian. Or possibly French.
Maybe he should invest in a turban or something.
When Song Guonan had been initiated into the Shujuan
Gang, the first thing Wenlong and Jianmin did with him independent of their
leader was take the boy aside and teach him what they tentatively called
a game. It was called Capture the Shu-rin.
It works thusly:
1) Acquire for oneself either a hefty length of
rope or a durable net.
2) Wait until roughly three in the morning, when
the girl is sure to be asleep.
3) Pounce.
Jian and Wensley were compelled to warn their younger
member that as simple as it sounded, it required a lot of technique and,
naturally, some blind risk-taking. And not caring what damage you might
find inflicted as Shujuan awoke under the restraints and started fighting.
Shujuan struggled in a way that put in mind a cat forced into a bathtub,
complete with scratching and hissing, and occasionally teeth.
It was the best game Guonan had ever been taught,
at least after he was assured that despite objections Shujuan sort of needed
this. When he asked why that was, he got mumbles and awkward shuffling,
so he let it go. Anyway, he was only allowed to play it so often.
When it was finished and their leader/boss was properly
restrained and shouting curses muffled by the duct tape Jianmin had courteously
slapped over her lips, they picked her up and carted her away to her mother's
house. Generally they ended up dragging her. And Shu-rin's mom was waiting
to take her when they arrived. She had cookies. And sedatives, but only
Shujuan was given those.
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