Chapter 2 No. 1063 at Tinselow Street

It wasn't long before Tolly walked out of the campus alone. Outside the campus was a wide road, lined with huge sycamore trees, like loyal warriors, tirelessly guarding everything before them.

It was a cool autumn day when the leaves of the sycamore trees were falling in the wind. Tolly enjoyed the beautiful landscape around him and some part of a famous poem flashed into his mind:

Is the departure of the leaves the wind's pursuit or the tree’s refusal to ask them to stay?

When walking quietly along the road for about a few hundred meters, he arrived at the busiest street behind the school--Tinselow Street. This was the first time he had been here on the street since he, as a poor boy, usually ate and drank at school and seldom hung out for fun outside the school.

The street was familiar yet foreign to him. It felt familiar because he found many of his classmates walking along. They seemed to be regular visitors to the street. However, Tolly was not in the mood to talk to them.

At the same time, it felt foreign because the hustle and bustle of the street made him nervous, with people coming and going in all sorts of fashionable clothes.

Tolly kept looking forward, but somehow, his eyes always ended up falling on the snow-white legs of the beautiful girls walking around.

To get himself out of this strange gaze, he began to try to count the passers-by, like counting sheep before going to bed. He knew it would help to distract himself at least for an instant. Yet, by only doing this for just a few seconds did he realize that it was of no avail.

How could he be able to count them all? 

Actually, he thought that he had already had the answer in his mind and that there was no need to count at all. If he was not wrong, there were only two people on this street--one called fame and the other wealth. Those who passed him by were either for fame or for wealth.

He then thought about himself, and perhaps there should be three people on the street. The third person was himself because he was neither for fame nor for wealth. He was for help - he wanted to be helped.

‘Where on earth is No. 1063?  What kind of the place could it be?’ Tolly thought, ‘Could it be a martial arts school? Jenny said the place could help me, so I guess she probably referred me to a martial arts school. If it is, what should I learn? And what will it teach me? Should I learn Japanese judo, Chinese martial arts, or free sparring?’

‘Purportedly, Chinese martial arts are profound and vast and can be divided into the Southern and Northern schools, so should I learn from the Southern or Northern school? Should I learn the invincible kicks, or the powerful punches?’

His mind was a mass of tangles with all sorts of these questions. Tolly had long developed the habit of thinking of everything beforehand so as to deal with whatever might happen next. It was the training his father had offered him as a child—get ready for a rainy day.

The words of his loving father echoed in his mind:

‘You need to know that a life without a plan is not worth living, Tolly. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. ‘

However, all these questions seemed all difficult to answer at the moment. He would have to play it by ear when they came to him. It seemed that his father lacked and forgot to teach him another important piece of wisdom: Don’t trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.

A new string of questions popped up in Tolly’s mind again.

‘What if it isn’t a martial arts school? After all, Jenny didn’t say it was. She only told me that it would help me get more aura around my head and boost its energy to make it brighter.’

‘So what if she’s just asking me to take on an intellectual challenge or learn some kind of magic?’

Deep down, Tolly hoped that No. 1063 at Tinselow Street was a magic school. If it was so, the spell he wanted to learn most would be the one Harry Potter used to disarm weapons, which was so cool, just like the special stunt called Moving Heaven and Earth he had read about in Chinese martial arts novels.

Before knowing it, he had already walked several hundred meters down the bustling street, but he hadn’t found No. 1063 yet.

‘What the hell is going on?’ Tolly exclaimed.

Luckily, two or three meters away from him stood a big, burly man with a pylon-like build, towering motionlessly like a thug guarding a clip joint.

Tolly walked over to him and said with a big smile,

“Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where No. 1063 is?”

“Well, I’m sure you can’t find it if I don’t tell you!”

“Why? Has it been taken away by aliens to the parallel world?” Tolly asked teasingly.

“Well, you’ve got better imagination than Creators with more mechanical aptitude.” The bulky man laughed.

 “Please tell me why I can’t find No. 1063, thank you!” Tolly asked again.

However, the bulky man didn’t reply this time. Instead, he lowered his head a little bit and crouched downwards, like a tower suddenly sinking deeper into the ground.

“Look above my head!” he uttered suddenly.

Tolly quickly caught a glimpse of a few big golden words dazzling on the wall behind him—No. 1063.

‘No wonder I couldn’t find it. The guy was keeping it from me!” Tolly thought to himself.

The bulky man suddenly showed off a nice tattoo featuring a gentle sleeping tabby on his arm. Obviously, it was quite odd and funny to see a cute tabby tattoo on such a huge arm.

Seemingly so proud of his tattoo, he said with a mysterious smile,

“Welcome to our shop! Please go inside！“

A sense of horror crept over Tolly. He felt the place was so strange that he was stunned and thus not willing to go inside. Was it a special way of welcoming customers to stimulate a sense of awe before getting into the shop?

‘Is it a mental asylum?’ Tolly thought again. ‘It can’t be. Jenny will never bully me. I’m so sure about it, but the place really looks like a nasty clip joint.’

Finally, Tolly mustered up all his courage and walked in.

The shop was not very big, but the corridor leading to it was long and well-decorated with all kinds of pictures on both sides, in which Tolly could see some beautiful flowers.

However, he didn’t know much about these flowers except for the zinnias. Of course, there were also some pictures of animals. Among these animals, he knew none of them except the notoriously cute pandas.

Looking at these pictures, Tolly came to realize that it should be a tattoo parlor. How could Jenny think that getting a tattoo would help him?

Although getting a tattoo would be cool, he had to keep it from his parents, or they would think he was crazy. After all, only gangsters liked to get tattoos in their eyes. Besides, he had no intention of breaking out of prison like Michael Scofield in the TV series.

Wandering down the corridor for a few minutes, Tolly decided to take his leave. Apparently, Jenny came up with a bad idea. Getting a tattoo was not something he would like.

However, a woman in a black halter top stopped him. She was blonde, slender, and hot, with an egg-shaped face on which there were two big round blue eyes and a nice nose.

“Jenny told you to come, didn’t she? What’s your name?”   The corners of her vermilion lips curved into a light smile.

"Tolly Harmsworth. Just call me Tolly!" he replied politely.

" Oh yeah, it rings a bell. Jelly mentioned your name to me, but I forgot it. She said you wanted to look powerful and gain more confidence. Well, having a tattoo is surely a good choice. I’m Luna Lincoln, a tattoo artist. Nice to meet you!”

Luna held out her white jade-like hand. Tolly hurriedly wiped away the sweat in his right palm on his T-shirt before having a handshake with Luna. The warmth from her hand came to him, he felt stirred, his heart beating faster.

“You, too!” Tolly replied. It was the first time he had ever had a handshake with such a beautiful girl. He had never thought that her hand was so warm and velvety. He felt on cloud nine.

“Are you all right now?” Luna asked with an awkward smile.

“W-w-What?” Tolly stuttered.

“Excuse me, I mean, can you let go of my hand now?” Luna smiled again.

Tolly quickly let go of it. Hardly had he come to his senses when he explained with an embarrassed smile,

“Surely you have a hand of a great artist. I can feel through your fingertips your creativity that will never drain.”

“Can you? How honey-lipped you are!” Luna stared straight into his eyes and continued, “but how can you feel it?”

 “It’s as easy as pie, let me show you!”

Tolly held Luna's warm, jade-like hand again, saying,

 "Come on! Can you feel the throbbing of your fingertips?"

“No!” Luna said with a confused look.

“Close your eyes and concentrate, can you feel it now?”

Luna did close her eyes. And soon she felt the pulsing of her fingertips.

“Oh, unbelievable! I feel it now. How can my fingertips have their own pulses?  It’s amazing!” Luna said excitedly.

“See! The stronger the throbbing is, the more creative you are!” Tolly held Luna’s hand more tightly.

“Oh, I’ve got it! Thank you for your explanation!” Luna grinned and got her hand back at once， “I’ve also heard from Jenny that someone always picks on you at school. Well, a nice tattoo will definitely help you!”

The glow in Luna’s eyes added more credibility to her words. Looking into her two beautiful eyes, Tolly quickly dismissed his earlier thought of quitting.

“I believe you, Luna. Tattoos can give me more confidence and strength, but what should I get tattooed on my arm?” Tolly asked.

“It’s up to you. what do you like, animals or plants? If you want to connect to some sort of mysterious magical power, like that of a wizard, maybe a black cat tattoo will be a good choice. If you just want to get more strength or power, a tiger or a lion tattoo will do you good. “

Luna invited him to go inside further and Tolly followed. They came to a burlywood desk with various pictures on it. Luna picked up a few from the desk and handed them to Tolly, asking him to take his time to choose his favorite one.

Tolly finished scanning all of them in just a few seconds before shaking his head. Apparently, he was not pleased with any of these.

‘Well, it seems that you don’t like any of these!” Luna said with a big surprise.

“I want a special one. It should be a combination of strength and courage. If possible, it should also stand for invincible power.”

“Oh, I see!” Luna got another bunch of pictures from one of the drawers of the burlywood desk, “Check these, please!”

Tolly found to his amazement that the pictures were all about dragons. In the pictures, some of these dragons were lying on their backs, some unsheathing their thorn-sharp claws, some standing poised like strong warriors ready to fight at any time.

Tolly was soon obsessed with all these dragons. A hint of excitement welled up in his eyes when he saw a green dragon with a dazzling night-luminescent pearl in its mouth. With nine strange circular patterns on its huge body, the dragon looked a little bit peculiar but indeed imposing.

“That’s it！”Tolly showed it to Luna, his finger tapping at the dragon in the picture unceasingly.

“You really have a good eye for it, Tolly. It’s called Hidden Dragon.” Luna winked at Tolly, her lips curving up to a gentle smile, “but it’s complicated to get it done. I guess it’ll take me a lot of effort, so you’ll have to pay me more!”

“No problem. As long as it can help me with my trouble at school, it’ll be worth it even if it’ll cost me an arm and a leg.”

“Not that much.” Luna giggled, “so let’s get started NOW!”

With that, she quickly took out several long, tiny needles and a bottle of ink from the bottom drawer of the burlywood desk and began her work.

“D-d-does it hurt?” Tolly asked timidly, swallowing a small mouthful of saliva.

“It hurts, but not much. You know, no pain, no gain. It’s worthwhile if you want to gain the wisdom, courage, and strength of Hidden Dragon.” Luna said encouragingly.

“Okay! I’m a man. I’m not afraid of it!”

However, Tolly still had to force himself to sit down in the leather chair beside Luna. Luna picked up one of the thin needles and jabbed it into Tolly’s arm a few times. A sharp pain came to Tolly in a flash.

As he looked at his arm instinctively, a few drops of blood seeped from his skin. Tolly got such a fright, yelling,

“Blood…Blood…”

With only two cries, Tolly passed out.