Owen Jones
The Disallowed
Din had been to a dozen such sessions before, although never for something as serious as this. She had asked about a stomach complaint once, and about her periods a few years ago and most recently she had asked whether she would get married soon. She was not afraid of the setting, only the outcome, but she knew that she could only sit and wait
and observe, for she did find it fascinating.
The Shaman slowly unwrapped the first parcel containing the stone, examined it careful y, sniffed it and put it back on its banana leaf, then picked up the leaf containing the moss and sniffed that, before replacing that on the mat before her.
The Shaman looked at Din solemnly and, after a few minutes, spoke.
“The one you are concerned about is very il . In fact he was very near to death when he produced these samples, but he is not dead yet… Some of his internal organs, particularly those concerning the cleaning of the blood are in a very poor state… The ones you call, I think, the kidelies in Thai, have stopped working altogether and the liver is failing rapidly.
“This means that death is imminent. There is no known medical cure.”
The Shaman shuddered again and shape-shifted back to old Aunty Da, who blinked a few times and wriggled a bit as if putting on an old tight dress and rubbed her eyes.
“It wasn’t good news, was it child? You know that when I am under possession, I can’t always hear everything, but I caught bits of it and I can see by your face that it is going bad for your father.”
“The Spirit said that Paw wil surely die soon, as there is no medical cure for failed kidneys and liver…”
“I am sorry, Din, you know that I am very fond of your father…
Look, I’ll tell you what, I’ve picked up a few tricks myself over the years apart from possession. Let’s have a look now… Yes, the stone… see where your father spat on it? No marks! That means no salts in his spittle, no salts, no minerals, no vitamins, no nothing, only water.
“Now, the moss,” she sniffed it from a distance and then brought it closer to her nose. “The same! Smell this!” She held it out for Din to sniff, but Din was reluctant to smell her father’s urine. “Go on, it won’t bite you!” Da said. Din did as she was bid.
“No, smell, just a mossy smell”.
“Exactly! Men’s urine smells like cat’s piss if you keep it wrapped up, but your Dad’s doesn’t. Therefore, there is no meat in it to go rotten.
Therefore, your Dad’s blood is water too.
“You can’t live long with water for blood can you? Stands to reason, doesn’t it? Your blood takes al the goodness around the body, but your dad ain’t got any, and that is why he’s so weak al the time!
“You get off home now, find out if we’re too late, and if he’s stil with us come back and get me on that scooter of yours. Go on now and hurry!”
Din fairly flew out of the door and ran back home.
While Din was away checking on her father, Da prepared herself to leave, for she knew in her heart that her Heng was not yet dead, not completely, anyway. She selected some herbs and put them in a bag, splashed water over her face and tied her hair down with a headscarf because of the slipstream of the forthcoming motorcycle ride. Then she went outside to wait for her niece.
Din arrived a few minutes later in a cloud of dust.
“Quickly Aunty, Mum says to come quickly, because he is about to pass on.”
Da mounted the scooter side-saddle, as befitted a lady and they took off with Din’s long hair whipping her wrinkled old face painful y and her trying to dodge it. As soon as they arrived, Da hopped off, for she was nimble for one so old, and was ushered into the house.
“Thank you for coming so promptly, Aunty Da, he’s up in the bedroom.”
“Yes, I guessed he would be in bed and not in with his beloved goats!” She lifted the mosquito net and sat on the wooden floor next to his head. First she looked at his skin, then his hair and lips and final y she opened his eyes and peered into them.
“Mmm, I see… show me his feet!” Wan hurried to uncover her husband’s feet, then Da leaned over to squeeze them and get a closer look.
“Mmm, I have never seen such a serious case of lack of meat in the blood as this before. Do you give me permission to tell your children what to do for a while? Good I wil return soon, prop your husband’s head up on a few pil ows, I wil send Din in to help you while Den helps me outside.”
“Yes, Aunty, of course. Anything to help my dear Heng.”
“Al right, let’s see what we can do, shal we?” and with that she got up and descended to ground level.
“Din go and help your mother, Den come with me, we must all act swiftly and precisely.”
Din was quick off the mark and Den asked what he could do to help.
“Go and get me the strongest cockerel you have! Quickly, lad!”
When he returned with the bird under his arm, Da took it from him.
“Now tether your strongest bil y goat to a stake so tightly that it can’t move an inch – sitting or standing is al the same to me.”
While Den rushed off, Da perched on the edge of the table, slit the cockerel’s throat, drained it’s blood into a bowl, tossed it’s lifeless body into the vegetable basket on the table and then hurried upstairs.
“Din,” she said on arrival, do you have any goat’s milk, or any sort of
milk in the fridge? If not, take a jug and get some fresh, please, girl.”
She did not need to be told to hurry, she was gone.
“OK, Wan, is he awake?”
“Not really, Aunty, half-and-half.”
“Al right, you pinch his nose closed and I’ll pour this blood down his throat.” She squeezed his closed jaw with her thumb and middle finger to open it, pushed his head back and poured a few mouthfuls of chicken blood down his throat. Da guessed from the way that Heng spluttered like a petrol car on diesel that about half of it was going down the right way.
Heng opened his eyes slightly.
“What are you two old witches doing to me?” he whispered, “That was horrible!”
“Ah, I thought so,” said Da, pouring more in, “too rich, he needs to be weaned on to it.”
When Din arrived she said, “Fresh milk, stil warm from Flower, our best goat.”
Da took it, mixed it 50-50 with the remaining blood and poured it down Heng’s throat as before with the same result, but a little more resistance.
“See that!” she exclaimed, “he’s getting stronger already! Heng is trying to fight us, he’s resisting. Maybe he’s not completely lost yet!
“Al right! Wan, you carry on with the milk, but keep half of what is left. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She went down and called to Den.
“Is that goat ready yet?”
“Yes, Aunty, he’s over there.”
“Good, come with me.”
Da put a nick in the goat’s jugular with her razor-sharp penknife and siphoned off a few hundred mil ilitres
“See how I did that, boy? Try to remember, because I think that you’ll have to do it every day from now on.”
They both went upstairs where they were surprised to see Heng talking with his wife and daughter as a hospital patient might after a general anaesthetic – groggy, weak and hesitant, but coherent.
Da mixed the goat’s blood half-and-half with the remaining milk, but gave him the neat stuff to try first.
“Oh, Aunty, that is disgusting! Oh, dear…”
“Try this then,” she said, handing him a glass of pink liquid.
“Yes… that’s quite nice… What is it? I can feel it doing me good already.”
Heng drank it eagerly.
“It is, er, a milkshake with herbs… Good is it?”
“Yes, Aunty, very good… very refreshing. Is there any more?”
Wan looked at the old Shaman who nodded. Wan poured another glass and helped her husband drink it.
“Oh, I am glad, Heng,” said Da, “I think that in this milkshake we have found the solution to your predicament, although I am sure that we can refine it a little more yet. Perhaps we can find other ingredients to alter the taste from time to time, so that it doesn’t become boring, you know.”
“Yes, Aunty, I knew that you would come through for me.”
“Anything for my family, it was my pleasure to be able to help,” she replied and gave him a genuine, if rare, warm smile.
She mixed the rest of the blood and milk with some herbs into about a pint of milkshake and then said:
“Heng, I think that you ought to rest now. Look, here is more milkshake for later and I wil show your family how to make it for you downstairs now, OK? You take it easy. Cal me if you need me. Bye for now and get well soon.”
Once everyone was seated comfortably on the big garden table, and Wan had handed out refreshments of fresh fruit and cold water, Da took control of the family meeting.
“As I said before, I have never seen such an extreme case as this, but it seems that my experience and the Spirit Guides have led me to prescribe the correct solution.
“However, so far, we have only used what you might call ‘emergency resources’. Let’s face it, we have given Heng the blood of animals that do not eat the same things as we humans do, so he wil stil be missing certain vital ingredients.
“What we really need to do is get him a regular and constant supply of blood from animals that eat what humans eat. The better the match, the better it is for Heng.
“Now, we al know that not everybody eats exactly what it’s body requires every day, so we might assume that Heng wil not require that either, but if we only give him chicken blood, he wil miss out on a lot and only that part of him that is ‘chicken’ wil thrive and survive well.
“The same if he only drinks goats’ blood, because grass cannot be sufficient for humans in the long term.”
“So, what are you saying, Aunty Da?” asked Den, “That we need to find him monkey blood?”
“Well, that is in the direction of what I am saying, yes, Den, but monkeys don’t eat exactly what we eat either, do they?”
She let the import of what she was saying sink in. Din got it first.
“You mean, Aunty, that Dad wil need a regular supply of human blood?”
“Yes, Din, that would be the easiest way to go and maybe the only one in the long term. If you cannot find a regular supply of human blood, you will need to give him large quantities of blood from many different kinds of animals to make up the human diet. For example, pigs eat a lot of what we eat, but they don’t eat much fruit and they don’t eat pork.
“I suppose you could keep a few ‘donor pigs’ just for Heng and feed them food especial y to make the right blood and supplement that with the blood from other animals, but again, it would be a lot of effort. You could make a cocktail of chicken, goat, pig, dog and cat blood and keep it in the fridge, but no-one has done that before to my knowledge… the results would be unpredictable at best.
“The solution is really as plain as the noses on your faces and it is human blood.
“We checked your father’s samples at least seven hours early and yet the evidence was clear.
“Your father has no blood!
“None at al !
“Not even a drop!
“I’ll show you.” Da reached into her shoulder bag and took out the moss wrapped in a banana leaf. “This is your father’s urine sample.
Watch.” She set fire to it. “The fire is spluttering a bit due to its dampness, but see, no colours in the flames, so no vitamins, no salts, so nothing in the blood. He only has water in his veins, even if it is stil reddish.
“We could bleed him a bit later and check on that, if you like. If he had real blood, the moss would have dried out by now and would show colours as it burned.
“Same with the stone, look! Heng spat here, but no ring of salts, nothing, so again, just water. Your father has no blood in him.
“Not a drop!”
“Is that bad, Aunty Shaman?” asked Den.
“Bad? Bad? Boy, a person cannot live without blood!
“I love you very much, Den, but you can be so stupid at times! Sex on the brain, I suppose, like al boys of your age!
“And it is just ‘aunty’ outside the sanctuary.
“Your father has turned into a vampire… has he been biting any of you lately?”
“No, Aunty, but maybe he’s been biting the goats, we wouldn’t know about that,” replied Den.
“Oh, this is very serious, very serious indeed. I have heard of cases like this, but never seen one in al my … my… er, vast experience.”
“Wow,” said Den, “Dad has turned into a Pee Pob, a vampire? Wait till I tell my friends! Heng - Pee Pob! That’s fantastic!”
“Wil he die soon?” asked Din.
“We are trying to save him, Din, we’l do al we can, but that means that you cannot tell anyone. Den! Do you understand? No-one, no-one at al , you stupid boy!
“Are you sure that boy is a Lee, Wan?” She flicked an accusatory glance at Wan, who was scowling back at her with as much disrespect as she could muster towards an old woman who had just saved her dying husband’s life.
“So, there it is. Those are your options. Ultimately, it is your decision –
al four of you - since you are going to have to procure the ‘remedy’ and Heng is going to have to take it al his remaining life for there is no cure for this condition.”
Da al owed herself to slump back against one of the roof supports and closed her eyes as if she were closing a book and had ended the session. The family looked at her and then at each other wondering how they were going to get out of this one.
While Aunty Da appeared to be in a trance or even asleep, the other three debated what they should do next.
“Well,” said Wan, “we can’t really get much blood from the locals, can we? Most of them wouldn’t give you the skin off a cold rice pudding, leave alone a pint of their blood and we can’t afford to buy it from them.”
“We could capture tourists and drain their blood into bottles and then store it in the fridge…” said Den.
“We don’t actual y get many tourists up here, do we, Den?” said his mother with a click of her tongue.
“We could try the cocktail of different animals’ blood and we could al donate a pint of blood each per month,” chipped in Din.
“Mmm, I don’t know how much blood a person can give in a year, but twelve pints sounds a lot to me – nice thought though, dear.”
“Perhaps some members of the extended family would be prepared to donate some blood from time to time, your father is pretty well-liked around here…”
“We could offer to buy al the blood from people who die,” offered Den.
“You have to get the blood out of a body before it dies, I think, love, otherwise the heart has stopped and there is nothing to pump it out.”
“We could hang them up by their feet and put a tap in their throat …
or their heart … or both?”
“I see, so when someone’s dear old mama dies and everyone is crying about that, you propose to rush around there before she’s cold and ask if we can tie her up by the feet and drain her blood into a bucket for your father to drink later, eh?
“How well do you think that would go down?”
“We could offer to take some before…”
“Don’t even suggest such a vile, stupid thing!”
“How about babies… Maybe not, eh?” said Den and then fell silent, al his suggestions having been rejected so far.
“In summary, then, so far we have first, col ect blood from members of the family and second, make a cocktail of animal blood, neither of which we are sure wil work.
“Anything else?”
“We could … no, maybe not…” said Den.
“Come on, out with it, stupid or not,” said his mother, “we are desperate and have to consider every option.”
“Well, I could become a Moslem… then I could take four wives and that would provide four more blood donors… and if they have, say, four kids each, then that’s another sixteen donors and…”
“Yes, OK, Den, thanks for that! I wish I hadn’t asked now… Next thing, you’ll be suggesting that your sister goes on the game and charges two pints a go!”
Din blushed deeply at the very thought and was shocked that her mother had even said it, but Den was nodding in thought until Wan kicked him.
“As far as I see it, we have two more problems that we haven’t even considered yet,” said Din. “Aunty Da said that really, Dad has to approve our plan because he has to drink the stuff and we need something for tomorrow.”
“Perhaps we can use goats’ blood milkshake for tomorrow, since your Dad seemed to prefer it to chicken flavour, but yes, you’re right, we do have to do something more permanent soon. We can ask Aunty about that later. As for your Dad, he’l just have to eat what we give him and be thankful for it, until he is strong enough to sort out his own dietary requirements, but I’m sure he would be grateful that you thought of him.”
When the three of them had retreated into their private thoughts for a few minutes, Da ‘woke up’.
“Did you manage to come up with any new ideas, or should I say solutions?”
“No, Aunty,” admitted Wan, “Den had a few imaginative ideas, but
they weren’t really feasible. Unfortunately, we are left with the very same proposals that you made several hours ago.”
“Yes, I thought that that is what you would say, but to be total y honest, this is not an easy problem to solve. I, too, have drawn a blank in my meditations, but it is already getting late in the afternoon and I have become tired, so could one of you kids give me a lift home and we can al sleep on it?”
They waited for Den to come back before having a bite to eat, checking on the animals, taking it in turns to shower and spending the last few moments of the day together prior to going to bed early, for they were al drained emotional y. However, the truth of the matter was that none of them wanted to go upstairs alone with a vampire up there, so they preferred to al go together.
Wan didn’t even want to sleep with him, but she felt duty bound to, so being the eldest, she led the way, candle in hand with the children hiding behind her quaking.
They stopped at the matrimonial bed and stared. Heng was sitting bolt-upright in bed, his pale skin and coral-coloured eyes glowing in the darkness.
“Good evening, family!” he said in a low, gravelly voice.
The three of them got into their respective beds, but they could not take their eyes off Heng, who never moved, but just stared out before himself.
(back to top)
3 PEE POB HENG
When they did wake up in the morning, having fallen asleep eventual y from exhaustion, Heng was completely covered by blankets with a pil ow over his head.
Everyone got up and went downstairs as soon as they possibly could, passing by his bed quickly.
“Wow, Mum, did you see Dad last night?” asked Den. “His eyes and his skin fair lit up the room, but it was his eyes though, wasn’t it? They used to be black on white like ours, but now they are red on pink… It must be because of al that blood, I suppose.”
“I don’t know, my dear, but I suppose you’re right. You’d better get some more and take your sister with you to get some more milk. Do you
remember how your aunty got the blood?”
“Yes, Mum, I’ll take it from a different bil y goat though, shal I, to al ow the last one to heal?”
“Yes, good idea, Den. Use a different bil y goat every day for blood and Din can fol ow her normal milking routine. For the time being though, al the goats’ milk is for your father, OK? He needs it far more than we do and we don’t want him getting hungry in the middle of the night, do we?”
“No, Mum, definitely not! It took me ages to get to sleep last night. I was scared stiff that Dad was going to get and start walking about, maybe looking for something to eat – or someone.”
“Don’t you worry about things like that for now, Den. I’m nearer than you, so he’l go for me first, but if you see a shrivelled up, bloodless sack of skin in his bed, move out. Same if you see four red eyes looking out at you from behind our mosquito net one morning.”
“You bet, Mum! I’ll go and get that blood right away. Where’s Din?”
“I don’t know, perhaps she has already started. You get on with your job and I’ll go get Aunty Da on the motorbike – I think we’l stil need some help with your father. You and your sister wait for me to get back before you go up to see him, al right?”
“Yes, Mum, you don’t need to tell me twice, but what do we do if he comes down here?”
“I don’t think he wil … he was fast asleep when I got out of bed, but we won’t be long anyway. If he does get up though, just don’t let him kiss you good morning.”
Wan returned ten minutes later with Da, who had been sitting on her own table waiting for the inevitable visit from someone in Heng’s household. When they got back, Heng had not come down, Din had col ected the milk and Den was almost ready.
“OK,” said Da, “for now I recommend 50-50 goats milk and blood with a teaspoon of basil, half of coriander and a sprinkle of this. Give it a good stir and there you are. Give him a half litre in the morning and the same at bed time. That should be enough for now. Oh, and never give him any garlic, it is very bad for vampires! Let’s go up and see him now.”
“Before we go up, Aunty Da, I ought to tell you that he spent most of last night sitting bolt upright in bed gleaming like a beacon with pale skin, and pink eyes with red pupils. Oh, and when he spoke to us! Oh, my Buddha! I’ve never heard anything like it. He said ‘Good evening, family’
in such a strange, deep voice… it was really scary.”
“Never mind that now… let’s go and have a look at him.”
They went upstairs with their flask of milkshake and entered the
room. Al the shutters were closed, so it was pitch-black inside. Wan stepped outside again, took a candle from its holder, lit it with the lighter that hung from a string nearby and re-entered the room to join Da, who had ventured closer to the bed where Heng slept.
The candlelight revealed nothing new, so the ladies tied up the mosquito net and sat either side of the bed. Wan pul ed the covers back and there he lay, on his back, naked, arms spread wide like Jesus on the cross, eyes open, two deep-red circles in pink almonds set in a ghostly, expressionless mask, his lips, two smal streaks around his mouth.
Wan looked questioningly at Da, who was studying her patient. She put the back of her hand on his forehead and was not surprised to find it at room temperature.
“How are you today, Heng?” asked his wife.
“Hungry… no thirsty,” he said, the words tumbling out of his mouth like boulders rumbling down a mountain in a rockslide.
“Al right, my dear, sit up then. We have some more lovely milkshake for you.”
The ladies rearranged the pil ows for him, helped him sit upright and then covered him with a blanket.
“Drink this, my dear,” said Wan, “it’s the flavour that you liked the most yesterday.”
Da poured some into a tumbler and popped a straw into it for him.
Heng drank two glasses of the pink liquid with a green froth of herbs and seemed to perk up. He pul ed himself upright and looked around as if for the first time.
“You like that, eh, Heng?” asked Da. “I can see that you are a lot livelier now than when we came in. Do you think that you’ll be able to come downstairs today? The sunlight might do you some good… you look a little pale… you’re not used to staying in are you?”
Heng looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language and then looked at his wife.
“Do you want to go to the toilet, Heng? It has been a while, are you feeling all right down below? Do you want to go to the toilet now or shal I bring a bucket up for you?”
“Yes, good idea, I want to go to the toilet downstairs, but first some more milkshake.”
Since neither of the women knew how much he should be taking, they let him drink as much as he wanted and Heng finished off the whole litre. Da sat back and observed while Wan helped him get dressed. As the milkshake took effect, Heng became more active.
“Come on then, dear, let’s get you dressed and downstairs.”
The ladies took an arm each and helped the trembling man to his feet.
He was like a bicycle with a wobbly wheel. When they got him outside onto the landing, he flinched a little at the bright light, but so would anyone have after spending a day and a half in a dark room. Den and Din watched their father descend the stairs like a dipsomaniac assisted by his aunt and wife.
They were horrified that he looked so frail and so different. Heng had always been thin, but now he was gaunt, as white as snow and with two red almonds for eyes. They moved over when he perched on the table for a breather.
“Den do you stil have those old sunglasses? I think your father needs them today, because his eyes are a little sensitive.”
Da said, “Can you get Heng to the toilet alone, Wan, or do you want Den to help you?”
“No, I think I can manage.”
She led him away, Heng using his free hand to shield his eyes. When they put him back on the table fifteen minutes later, he seemed exhausted by the effort.
“Din, nip upstairs and get a sheet and a couple of pil ows, wil you, please? Your father is going to rest down here today to get some fresh air and sunlight. He has never spent so much time indoors in his life, so his body is not used to it. Look at the state of him…”
Al the while, Heng was looking from one speaker to the next, but not seeming to comprehend the conversation. They made him comfortable with the bedding and Den produced the sunglasses with jet-black, mirrored lenses that he had been so proud of a decade ago when they were fashionable.
The result was that Heng looked like some weird bird propped up against a roof support in his glasses wrapped in a white sheet.
“Well, children, I think that you had better go and prepare some more milkshake for your father. He seems to be very hungry today and that is a good sign. It shows that we are doing something right!”
“You’re feeling a lot better today, Paw, aren’t you?”
They al waited for his reaction and then he nodded, looking remarkably like an owl. Den and Din left giggling, finding it very difficult to equate the creature on the table with their father of only twenty-four hours ago.
“Do you think I should cook Heng something to eat this evening, Aunty Da?”
“It won’t hurt him, if he’l eat it, but it’s no substitute for the
milkshake.”
“Heng, wil you be wanting something to eat with us later?”
Heng cocked his head from side to side and stared at his wife.
“What are you cooking tonight, Wan?” asked Da.
“Chicken or pork… whatever he likes.”
Heng continued to look from one speaker to the other like someone in a country where he doesn’t speak the language.
“Why not ask him? He hasn’t become stupid, or at least I don’t think he has.”
“What do you want to eat this evening, Heng, pork or chicken?”
He looked at her for a few seconds and then said:
“Kid…”
“Which one? Anyway, Heng, you can’t eat the children… it wouldn’t be right.”
“Not our children… Goat children… We have a few or not?” said Heng
“Yes, we stil have a few, but I thought that we were going to keep them to add to the flock.”
“Just one kid.”
“Yes, well, al right, Heng, seeing as you’re sick, I’ll cook you a kid chop tonight and the rest of us wil have some pork.”
“I want mine rare, barbecued, not curried, Wan. I have a hankering for some meat, real red meat.”
The children were most relieved that their father had no intention of eating them just yet too.
When it looked as if Heng had gone to sleep to wait for his dinner, Den asked his mother whether she thought that he would want to eat them one day.
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so, Den, not if we keep his appetites satisfied, not that we know what they are yet.”
“Aunty Da, what do you think of Heng’s condition?”
“I think that it is very interesting… very interesting indeed. You wil observe that yesterday, Heng was knocking on Death’s Door, but now he is becoming more active by the hour, although he does not appear to be the same Heng that we al knew and loved so well.
“We shal have to see what this new Heng turns out like or maybe we’l just get the old one back once he gets used to his new diet and recovers from the time he had without any real blood in him.
“Your guess might not be as good as mine, but I wil admit that I am in new territory here and am playing it by ear, but with some suggestions from my Spirit Friends, although one did say that it would be kinder to
just kil him and let him start life over again.”
“What do you think of that suggestion, Wan?”
“Er, to be honest too, I think that it’s rather a drastic measure, don’t you, Aunty Da?”
“Yes, I do, I wil agree with you there, which is why I haven’t suggested it, but it is stil an option, if things get out of hand.”
Throughout this conversation, Heng appeared to be asleep, but the ladies hadn’t checked.
“Do you think he’s suffering, Aunty Da?”
“He seems peaceful enough, doesn’t he? He’s talking again now and hasn’t mentioned any discomfort, so I wouldn’t worry too much about his physical condition, if I were you, but you know him better than anyone else, so it’s down to you to look out for any signs of mental change and report them to me so that we can discuss them.”
“Al right, Aunty Da, I’ll do that. Look, if you have other things to do, don’t let us hold you up. The kids are being marvellous – they’ve taken over al our chores, so that I can sit with Heng, but if you want a lift home, I can organise that for you. We are al so grateful for your help, Heng would have died without you and we are al well aware of it. If ever there is anything that we can do for you, al you have to do is say.”
“Yes, thank you, Wan, perhaps I wil go home for a few hours, but I would like to see Heng eat his kid meal, so if I could dine with you on pork this evening, that would be perfect.
“As for payment, don’t worry about that for now. Heng is my favourite nephew and I wouldn’t like to see anything happen to any of them, if it was within my power to prevent it.
