Mother Theresa

In the humid valleys of southern China, where the Pearl River coiled like a silver dragon through emerald rice paddies and mist-shrouded bamboo groves, lived a young man named Lin Feng. He was no warrior. His hands were callused from the plow, not the sword. The villagers of Qinghe called him “the shadow boy”, thin as river reed, slow to speak, and forever bowed under the weight of scorn. He had no martial skills, no family name worth boasting, and no one to defend him when the world pressed down. His father had been a simple rice farmer who refused the Crimson Lotus Sect’s demands. The sect, a nest of black-robed cultivators who fed on fear and blood oaths, wanted the family’s ancestral plot. It sat atop a hidden spirit vein, they claimed. When Lin Feng’s father spat at their envoy, they came at midnight with crimson flames dancing on their blades. By dawn, the hut was ash. His mother, his little sister, and the father who had once carried him on his shoulders, all gone. Only Lin Feng survived because he had been downstream fetching water. He returned to smoke and silence. For three bitter years he endured. He slept in the village stable, ate scraps, and worked the fields of men who mocked his grief. “Weak blood,” they sneered. “The Lotus would have taken you too if you weren’t so useless.” At night he stared at the stars and wondered why Heaven had spared him only to watch him rot. One monsoon night, when the river roared like an angry god and rain lashed the banks, Lin Feng could bear no more. He walked into the churning water up to his chest, then deeper. The current clutched his legs. “If the gods will not listen,” he whispered, “then let the river take me.” He let go. Cold darkness swallowed him. His lungs burned. Then, in the black heart of the river, light bloomed, soft gold, like sunrise through silk. A figure stepped from the current itself: a woman taller than any mortal, robes of flowing jade and silver scales, hair drifting like river weeds woven with starlight. Her eyes held the calm of deep water and the fire of judgment. “Child of sorrow,” she said, voice like rain on leaves, “your cry reached the Azure Court. I am the River Guardian, ancient before the first emperor. I have watched empires rise and sects devour the weak. Your heart is pure steel beneath the rust of pain. Will you accept my gift?” Lin Feng, half-drowned and trembling, could only nod. She pressed a single finger to his forehead. Liquid fire poured into his veins, warm, endless, alive. “I grant you the Mandate of the Eternal Flow. You shall see the black rot in men’s souls. Your hands will command water and wind to nourish or punish. Strength enough to topple tyrants, wisdom enough to build what they destroy. But remember: the river gives life and takes it. Use this power for justice, not revenge, or it will consume you.” When Lin Feng broke the surface, gasping, the storm had quieted. He climbed the bank, soaked but glowing with new life. His thin arms now carried the weight of mountains. His eyes saw auras: faint gold for the honest, oily black for the corrupt. He began small. The village landlord, Master Gao, had doubled taxes and beaten farmers who complained. Lin Feng walked into the man’s hall during the monthly collection. Gao’s guards drew swords. Lin Feng simply looked at them. Their blades rusted to nothing in their hands. He touched the ground, and water rose from the earth, gentle as a spring, flooding Gao’s granaries just enough to spoil his stolen grain but spare the villagers’. Gao confessed every bribe, every beating, weeping like a child. The villagers watched in awe as Lin Feng forgave the man, then stripped him of his title and gave the land back to those who tilled it.

This is a story I know well, one that still tugs at my heart whenever I think about it. It unfolded right here in Nigeria, in the bustling heart of Yoruba land, where the air carries the scent of pounded yam and the rhythmic beat of talking drums. I was close to it all, close enough to witness the joy, the cultural dance of two worlds coming together, and the quiet heartbreak that followed. Let me tell you about my friend Olusegun and the Igbo girl who stole his heart. Olusegun was a true Yoruba son, born and raised in Ibadan, with roots that ran deep into the ancient city’s red earth. He was a hardworking engineer in his late twenties when I first introduced him to Chioma during one of my visits to Abuja around 2018. Chioma was from Enugu, a bright-eyed Igbo girl of twenty, the daughter of a modest trader whose family had fallen on hard times after her father’s illness. She had dreams of studying Business Administration but no means to chase them. Olusegun, with his warm smile and steady ways, took one look at her quiet determination and decided she was worth everything. “Bros,” he told me one evening over bottles of Star beer, “this girl go shine like gold. I go send am go school. No be just love, na investment for our future.” Their love story bloomed like hibiscus flowers after the first rain. Olusegun didn’t just pay her fees at the University of Ibadan; he became her anchor. He drove down every other weekend with baskets of fresh plantain and egusi from his mother’s farm, teaching her to make amala the way his grandmother did while she showed him how to pound fufu without lumps. They blended their worlds so sweetly, Chioma learning Yoruba proverbs like “Owo la n fi iyawo fe” (It is with money one marries a wife), and Olusegun practicing Igbo phrases like “Ka chi foo” to greet her family over the phone. He even attended her Igbo cultural nights on campus, dancing awkwardly but joyfully to the highlife music while she wrapped her gele perfectly for his family events.

Another way of using insecticides Kids don't try this at home.

Sometimes, the smartest person in the room is the one playing the fool. Law 21: Play a sucker to catch a sucker. Appear dumber than you mark.