Once upon a
time in a big city, there lived a merchant named Wang Yao. He was an expert at
his profession and was extremely wealthy. However, his personality made him
unpopular with a lot of people. Wang Yao was sneaky, shrewd, and greedy too.
During the day, he spent most of his time selling fruits at a busy marketplace
in the city; however, as what could be called a side-job, he also frequently dabbled
in some of the city’s shadier (yet much more lucrative) businesses.
Wang Yao
only ever made one true friend during his whole life— that unlucky friend was a
man named Syamsul. Syamsul was, by all accounts, a rather ordinary person; in
fact, the only majorly unusual about him was his almost undying devotion to the
notoriously guileful Wang Yao. No one really knew how or when he started to
become close acquaintances with the merchant; some might say that there was no
beginning to their relationship— that Syamsul had always been standing beside
Wang Yao from the very beginning. Both Wang Yao and Syamsul were secretive
people; they were in no hurry to spill their life stories to other people.
Wang Yao and
his best friend frequently met up with each other on weekends. In Wang Yao’s
luxurious mansion they sat around and made idle talks over gourmet breakfast;
common subjects to discuss were the weather and politics. Occasionally,
however, they delved into the category of certain, more serious topics as well.
That category mainly included things relating to their respective occupations
and all the hazards associated with them— whenever they weren’t complaining
about how utterly horrible the conditions at their workplaces were, they were
talking about a certain business.
It was
always obvious to both of them exactly which business was being referred to
when one of them brought the two words up; it was the business, as they said, one which both Wang Yao and Syamsul
were deeply involved (one might say “entangled”) in. The business— because they never dared to call it by its actual
name— was permanently shrouded in dark enigmas, puzzling riddles and
poorly-conceived codenames, akin to the sudden and mysterious emergence of
flying pigs in the neighboring city; needless to say, they were not referring
to any particularly wholesome family-run affair.
Neither Wang
Yao nor Syamsul brought the topic up very often, and truth be told, neither of
them wanted to either. Talking about the business always ended with sour tastes
lingering in their mouths and uneasy predictions crawling underneath their
skins; it became unbearable sometimes, thought Syamsul, shouldering the burden
of being involved in the grand scheme that was the business. Syamsul was
relieved at the fact that he at least had a friend to help him haul the weight,
and though Wang Yao rarely revealed it, he felt the same way. Most people in
the business didn’t have the luxury of trusted associates, a disadvantage which
often led to their downfalls; Syamsul considered himself lucky for having Wang
Yao to hang onto, disregarding the fact that Wang Yao had been the person who
had dragged him into this mess of a business in the first place. Syamsul liked
to make up justifications for his friend’s actions; though not perfect, he was
a rather good liar.
Anyway— the
whole point of their weekend meetings was to get away from the tension and
anxiety they’d accumulated during the weekdays. Because of that, they rarely
breached sensitive subjects and instead focused on whatever simple joys they
could scrape from the bottom of the dingy metal barrels representing the
respective lives they led. This habit didn’t change even when the situation
they were in was extraordinarily dire; Syamsul told himself that this was the only
way they could accomplish a compromise with the reality they’d chosen for
themselves. Syamsul often told himself that with Wang Yao on his side, he was a
man with no regrets; most of the time, he was only half-right.
One Sunday
morning, Wang Yao opened the conversation with a disgruntled remark about the
dismal state of their branch of the
business. Syamsul looked up from his plate of breakfast, ears perking up as an
uncertain feeling began to rise steadily up his throat. They were breaching the
subject of the business up more and
more often, these days; Syamsul was already beginning to worry. This meant that
the situation they were in was becoming increasingly difficult.
Wang Yao
began talking about a certain man interfering with his recent activities.
Syamsul knew who that man was; he was Kasibun, a beggar stationed underneath
the shade of a tree near Wang Yao’s famous fruit stall. Wang Yao had been
keeping an eye on him since the very first day he came around from the not-too-distant
neighboring city— a horde of flying pigs
came around out of nowhere one day and took up all my usual spaces, Kasibun
would explain to anyone willing to listen— but it wasn’t until recently that
the merchant began harboring serious suspicion towards the beggar.
He was worried,
he told his friend, that Kasibun might just be catching up to his after-hours
activities. The only safe bet to take, he continued, was to get rid of Kasibun
in some way or another in order to continue maintaining his branch of the business. Then, Wang Yao suggested
that they work together to accuse Kasibun of a crime he didn’t commit— a crime
which would inevitably land him in jail long enough for them to cover up any
tracks they might’ve carelessly left visible for him to have seen.
Syamsul knew,
from the devious expression plainly written across Wang Yao’s face, what
exactly this meant: they were going to set Kasibun up as a mugger. Syamsul
knew, because he’d heard similar propositions coming from his friend’s mouth
lots of times before, in the same room, with the same look on his face and all.
Anyone daring to interfere with the
business was to be disposed of; that was the unwritten rule they abided to at
the workplace. Syamsul knew, because he’d done the same thing before, more
times than he could count. Syamsul knew perfectly— though he’d honestly rather
not— and he nodded silently, meekly, outstretching a stiff hand for Wang Yao to
shake.
It took
weeks for them to formulate a plan, and another one to prepare for it. Wang Yao
was the one who composed the songs and wrote the script; Syamsul’s job was to
play the right instruments and perform his roles to the best of his abilities.
The stage
was set on a Sunday. As Kasibun sat down underneath the shade of the tree, Syamsul
hid in his designated spot (a dingy public toilet) as he waited for an
opportunity to enter the set. Wang Yao, meanwhile, created a distraction for
the crowd of passing customers by (very deliberately) accidentally dropping a
whole cart of fruits onto the ground. While the crowd struggled to both avoid
the rolling melons and pick up complimentary products, Syamsul (dressed in an
outfit identical to the sleeping Kasibun) leapt from the unlocked toilet,
merged himself seamlessly with the mass of people, grabbed the purse of an
unsuspecting old woman, and was gone before anyone could notice. Of course, he
didn’t escape without slipping the old woman’s purse— chock-full of valuable
gold coins— inside Kasibun’s satchel.
After the
fog of chaos had been lifted, the old woman realized that her purse was gone.
The following events happened almost exactly according to the plan: the lost
purse was found in Kasibun’s possession, the poor beggar was caught by the
police, and a police investigation led by a man named Marwanshah followed
shortly after.
The law
enforcement didn’t need more than a tiny bit of bribing to ensure (in their own
words) that they would never be placed at a disadvantage. For a while, both
Syamsul and Wang Yao could allow themselves to breathe a sigh of relief.
The peace
and tranquility didn’t last long; a few weeks later, the police ordered the
residencies of both Syamsul and Wang Yao to be searched. Kasibun had done the
unthinkable: he’d wagered everything on spilling his findings about the business to the detectives. The law enforcements
had betrayed them; any information they could find about the business was, in the end, worth more to them than any amount of
money.
Wang Yao’s
nerves remained steely until the very end. The policemen turned their attention
to his closest associate— a particularly unlucky friend of his named Syamsul. Without
Wang Yao to support him, Syamsul visibly crumbled under the pressure, but still
he refused to say anything. His devotion to Wang Yao wouldn’t let him. After a
thorough search of his house, wooden cases full of various highly addictive
narcotics and drugs were found hidden in a secret underground cellar. Panicked
and backed into a corner, Syamsul concluded that the only thing he could do to
avoid being forced to betray Wang Yao was to end his own life.
Syamsul
flung himself out of the window of his two-story house before anyone could
catch him; he was subsequently ran over by a passing truck which failed to
brake in time. Later autopsy results show that though he (barely) survived the
initial fall and ended up in critical condition, the further injuries he
sustained after being crushed under the truck were too much for his body to
handle.
Only a mere
few hours later, as if he’d somehow sensed his friend’s death, Wang Yao attempted
to hang himself using his belt inside his prison cell. However, he was swiftly
stopped when the prison guards heard the ruckus he was making. Wang Yao was
then interrogated about the business
which he was part of; the disgraced merchant proceeded to cooperate fully,
disregarding the business’
unforgiving policy on betrayals. The sheer amount of information Wang Yao
provided to the authorities was more than enough for them to uncover the
secrets of the organization that had long since evaded them. It took a year for
the police to close down the business
once and for all, along with arresting nearly all of the involved men and
women.
After
further investigations on the matter, Kasibun’s innocence was ultimately
proven. With the help of a friendly judge named Mr. Hawking, he managed to
escape the whole event mostly unscathed, and ended up moving along to another
city. He was never told much about the details surrounding his false
accusations; truthfully, he preferred it to be that way, because he considered
himself a simple beggar who wished to lead a simple life. Until the day of his
death, he was never informed of his pivotal role in bringing down one of the
biggest drug organizations ever to exist in the country, just as Syamsul had
never been warned that his first encounter with the merchant calling himself
Wang Yao would end up being the beginning of his steady downward spiral and
eventual demise.
Kasibun died
a simple beggar, with no bigger aspirations than to earn enough to eat for
tomorrow, and Syamsul died an equally simple man, believing that his sacrifice
on the behalf of his close friend was ultimately just a matter of time anyway. Perhaps
a poetic comparison could have been made regarding the eventual fates of these
two unlucky men, despite the stark differences which set them apart from one
another.
the end
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