After holding the Suea Khao Yang stance all day, Mali felt like every muscle in her body was on fire.
Dragging her sore legs home, she saw her father Boon hunched over the old gas stove, cooking dinner. She mumbled a quick greeting and collapsed onto the bamboo mat in the corner.
It was the first time she had ever felt this drained. Just standing there—knees slightly bent, shoulders relaxed, hands guarding had been worse than running ten laps around the rice mill. Her calves burned, her back ached and her arms felt like stone.
But no matter how exhausted she was, sleep wouldn’t come. She closed her eyes for a moment, emptied her mind and then got up again.
“Dad, I’m going to stay over at Uncle Somchai’s tonight to help him keep watch,” she said as they sat down for dinner.
Boon slid the only fried egg from his plate into hers without a word, nodding slowly.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtAxGjMKKFd
“Alright. Uncle Somchai told me earlier. Just remember: lock the doors, and if any stranger comes knocking, don’t open up. No matter what. Understand?”
“I understand!” Mali said.
She split the egg in half with her spoon and nudged one half into her father’s plate.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfE2RanC6b4
“Half for you. Half for me.”
Boon chuckled and shook his head.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0nO3Hxun29
“It’s okay. You eat it all.”
He’d noticed changes in his daughter lately—small ones, but good ones. Since she’d been spending more time with Uncle Somchai, she was more talkative, her mood lighter and even her grades had started creeping upward. She didn’t hand in blank assignments anymore or stare out the classroom window like before.
Boon quietly credited Uncle Somchai for the change.
Mali didn’t argue. She was always hungry and even though their old hen laid eggs regularly, Boon usually sold them for extra cash. Fried egg was a rare luxury.
After a few minutes of silence, she set down her spoon and spoke carefully:61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlGyOYoKw3X
“Dad… I asked Uncle Prasert from the next village to take me as his student today.”
Boon froze, the plate in his hand halfway to the sink.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCyZi8OvUwu
“Took you… as a student?”
In their rural district, it was still common to “take a master”—for carpentry, weaving, music, or fighting arts. It was more than just lessons; once you entered that relationship, the master decided what you learned and even parents stepped back.
“Which Uncle Prasert are you talking about?”
“The one who used to be in the army,” Mali said.
Boon blinked. That man. Everyone for miles knew his name, Uncle Prasert, the war veteran who’d come back home without a single scar despite fighting in more battles than anyone could count. People whispered about his past, some claimed he’d guarded generals, others said he’d been forced out after crossing the wrong person. The boldest rumors called him a bandit who’d reformed.
Whatever the truth, no one in their right mind picked a fight with him.
And now, he had taken Mali as a student?
Boon asked how it happened, and Mali explained with a small shrug:61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRpdPW5iMvK
“I was at Uncle Somchai’s place. He wasn’t home and Uncle Prasert came over to play makruk with him. He made me sit down to play instead. I told him I didn’t know how but he said if I beat him, he’d teach me Muay Boran. We played three games. I won them all. So… here we are.”
Boon could only stare. The whole thing sounded like a joke, his daughter stumbling into an apprenticeship over a board game?
He considered visiting Uncle Prasert with a gift, but… what if it was just a joke? Better to wait and see.
When Mali arrived at the recycling station later, the sun hadn’t even set. It was barely a kilometer from home.
“No one’s going to bother me here,” she whispered to herself with a grin.
She locked the gate and hurried to Uncle Somchai’s back room. Her pulse quickened as she sat in front of the old radio transmitter.
Click.
Static hissed instantly from the speaker—shhhhhh.
She knew some of the buttons now. AM, FM. She turned the dials slowly, picking up a few local stations but kept going. She wasn’t here for music or news. She was searching for something else.
Hours passed with nothing but static. She pressed the mic button anyway:61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYJDLTnG1A5
“Hello? Can anyone hear me?”
No answer.
Panic prickled at the back of her neck. She twisted the dials faster, chasing a memory, the moment she’d first spoken with that mysterious voice from Bangkok. If she could just do exactly what she’d done before…
And then she remembered—the little LCD screen had shown a number: 7.0 MHz. The last digit was fuzzy in her mind, but at least she knew where to start.
She’d been searching in the wrong place all along.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgEVPx2UvNU
and then Add to home screen.