The still weak Yinou continued to recuperate, wanting solace and to be unbothered she went out in the redwoods. Branches almost hugging, and leaves falling like stars, there she found a swing by a gushing lake. As she sat, the gentle rocking of the swing lulled Yinou into a comfortable daze. She watched the water rush by, a mesmerizing dance of ripples and reflections. The memory of that day, the day she almost drowned in a lake, flickered through her mind.
"I can't believe you sometimes! Is it too much to ask for my help? " Lin Jian's voice, sharp with frustration, echoed in her ears.
"Pfft! I'd die first before I am asking for your help," she'd retorted, her pride stubbornly refusing to bend.
"That's the dumbest excuse I've heard," he'd countered, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
They'd stared at each other for a moment, the tension thick and heavy. Then, she'd coughed, a sputter of water and snot escaping her nose. They'd both burst out laughing, the tension dissolving into lightheartedness.
"Okay, normally I'd continue laughing, but this is just getting ridiculous. Sit down before you pass out." the young Lin Jian said.
The memory ended with Lin Jian's laughter, the sound still echoing in her mind. Yinou chuckled, a soft sound that escaped her lips without her even realizing it. She had been so stubborn, so proud...and yet, in the end, she had finally asked for his help that day in the forest. She smiled, closing her eyes to savor the feeling of warmth and peace that washed over her.
Five hours had passed since she'd settled on the swing to recuperate. The sun, now high in the sky, cast warm rays onto her face. In the corner she can feel someone's eyes, she knew it was Su Ning. He was watching her, his gaze steady and unblinking.
In another corner, Susu and Li Yang were whispering, their voices hushed but not completely silent.
"Wake up, dumbass, he's looking at you!" Susu urged, her voice barely a whisper.
"Quiet," Li Yang hissed, her cheeks flushing a delicate shade of pink.
"No, you quiet!" Susu retorted, turning to face Li Yang. Their foreheads bumped together, a soft, accidental collision. Li Yang blushed even deeper, while Susu covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.
Su Ning, with a flick of a finger let out a swarm of blue butterflies towards Yinou. They fluttered and danced, a graceful spectacle that caught everyone's attention. The butterflies hugged Yinou, and let out a mesmerising blue glow.
"What's this?" The deep, resonant voice of Bai Lin echoed through the air, cutting through the fluttering of the butterflies.
Everyone turned their heads, their gaze drawn upwards to the towering red tree where Bai Lin perched. Su Ning, his brow furrowed with a slight annoyance, raised his eyebrows. As he looked around he saw them all, their faces turned towards him, and with a subtle gesture, he ushered them away.
Now, Yinou and Su Ning were alone. The gentle rocking of the swing continued, a rhythmic sound that seemed to blend with the soft murmur of the lake.
A rustle in the leaves drew her attention. Su Ning stood at the corner of the tree in front of her, his arms crossed, watching her with a curious expression.:
"You're still here?" he asked, his voice a low rumble.
"Is there a rule against it?" Yinou countered, her voice raspy from disuse.
"No, but it's getting late," he said, his gaze unwavering. "You should get back to the camp."
Yinou shifted on the swing, the creaking of the rope a sync to the rustling of leaves. The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows across the red forest. She knew he was right. She should go back, but the lake, the peace of the setting sun, held her captive.
"I'll be fine," Yinou insisted, her gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the training grounds. It was a lie, brittle as the leaves underfoot, and they both knew it.
Su Ning sighed, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. It was a smile born of weariness and a deep, aching affection. "Alright, I'll wait for you." He had always waited for her. Patiently, through storms of temper and silences that stretched for days.
He turned, the rustle of his dark robes the only sound besides the whisper of the wind. He took two steps, three, away from her, and then her voice cracked like thunder, halting him mid-stride.
"Don't you dare just walk away right now!"
He turned back to find her standing, rigid as a drawn bowstring. Her fists were clenched, the knuckles white, and her chest rose and fell with rapid, shallow breaths. He could see the storm brewing in her eyes, a tempest of fear and fury threatening to break. But before she could unleash the torrent, before a single word of her carefully constructed anger could escape her lips, he spoke, his voice low and steady.
"I need to tell you something very important."
The storm in her eyes flickered, momentarily confused. The air crackled with unspoken tension, heavy and suffocating. He didn't need to elaborate. She knew.
Yinou's breath hitched. "You… you're going back to that dungeon," she stated, the words flat, devoid of inflection. It wasn't a question, but a confirmation of the dread that had been gnawing at her since she fled her brother's clutches. Zhang Li. The name tasted like ash in her mouth. He wouldn't let her escape. He'd use her darkness, her cursed power, to bleed Dongying dry.
Su Ning approached slowly, his movements deliberate, like he was treading on fragile ground. He stopped a few feet away, close enough to see the tremor in her hands, but far enough to give her space. "Hear me, Yinou. I know you're afraid," he said, his voice softer than the rustling fall of the red leaves. It was a voice that knew her, that had witnessed the shadows that danced at the edges of her soul. "I predicted Zhang Li would use you against us. Especially now that he knows you're one of us. And I've seen the dark power within you… it's a terrible thing."
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. "You can't control it," he finished, his gaze unwavering.
A hollow sound escaped Yinou's throat, a sound that was meant to be laughter, but came out as something broken, brittle, and unbearably sad. She tilted her head back, as if appealing to the indifferent sky, and the forced amusement finally solidified into a jagged, painful laugh. "Fret not, it's going to be okay," she echoed his words back at him, each syllable laced with irony and despair. "Right. Sure. It's going to be okay." The laugh died in her throat, leaving behind a raw, exposed wound.
She wrapped her arms around herself, a desperate, futile attempt to contain the shattering within. "You know… you know why I'm so obsessed with the color white?" Her voice was barely above a whisper now, the bravado completely gone, replaced by a chilling vulnerability. "I… I always felt dirty, impure… corrupted. And so, white… white was supposed to be… the opposite. Cleansing. But it never worked."
She lifted her gaze to him, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears, pools reflecting the dying light of the afternoon. "Will I ever be clean, Su Ning?" The question was sharp, laced with bitterness that twisted in his gut. "They say rotten children don't deserve heaven."
He flinched, the words hitting him like physical blows. He crushed his fingertips beneath the wide sleeves of his robe, a desperate attempt to ground himself, to not reach out and pull her into his arms, to not crumble at the sight of her raw pain. "Yinou…" he choked out, his voice thick with emotion. He had no answers for her questions, no soothing lies. Just the raw, agonizing truth of their shared predicament.... And then, he said it. The words that ripped through the despair and hung heavy in the air. "Don't worry. I'll be with you in hell."
A flicker of something – surprise, disbelief, perhaps even a faint, fragile hope – crossed her face. Then, the brittle laughter returned, a desperate attempt to deflect the raw emotion. "Aren't I in one already here?" she quipped, forcing the words out.
Silence descended, thick and heavy, punctuated only by the rustling leaves. The joke, born of desperation, hung in the air, unanswered.
"That was a bad joke," Su Ning tried, a weak smile playing on his lips. But the smile faltered, lost in the depth of her pain.
Yinou's shoulders slumped slightly. "But won't you hear what I want to say?" she pressed, her voice suddenly hardening, the vulnerability momentarily masked by a renewed intensity. It was a different kind of demand now, less angry, more… pleading.
He looked at her then, truly looked at her, and saw not just the warrior, not just the girl haunted by darkness, but the raw, exposed soul beneath. His own pain mirrored in her eyes, a shared understanding that transcended words. "I'm listening," he said, his voice strained, barely a whisper.
"Beat me first," she said, her hand moving with a swift, practiced motion to draw her sword. The steel sang as it left its scabbard, the sharp, cold sound cutting through the already tense air. Red leaves swirled around their feet as she shifted into a ready stance, the polished steel glinting in the fading light. This was no playful spar. This was a desperate dance, a violent language of unspoken emotions.
Their swords clashed, the metallic clang echoing through the courtyard. Fury and heartbreak intertwined in the dance of their blades. She attacked with a ferocity born of pain, a whirlwind of motion and frustrated energy. He parried, his movements precise and controlled, meeting her fury with a steadfast resistance.
During a close exchange, her blade grazed his arm, but in the chaotic swirl of movement, she stumbled slightly. He reacted instantly, his hand shooting out to steady her, catching her by the arm. His fingers brushed against…something unexpected. Higher than her arm, yet still on her person. Her…
"...You touched my…" he stammered, his face flushing crimson, all pretense of composure shattering.
A smirk, genuine and fleeting, touched Yinou's lips. For a moment, the darkness receded, replaced by a spark of her old self, mischievous and teasing. She enjoyed his discomfort, the way his stoicism crumbled when faced with something so…unpredictable.
But the reprieve was short-lived. He retaliated, his next blow landing with controlled force, sending her reeling backward. She stumbled, losing her footing. Instinctively, he reached out again, his hands wrapping around her forearms, stopping her fall. For a fleeting, breathless moment, he held her suspended, her feet dangling just above the leaf-strewn ground. Their eyes locked. In the close proximity, something shifted. A flicker of something forbidden, something dangerous and undeniable, passed between them, hot and sharp like a struck flint.
Then, he let her go. He released her arms as if burned, stepping back, his face still flushed, leaving her to land with a soft thud on the leaves. The tension, for a heartbeat, had been something else entirely. And now, it was just…gone.
He laughed, a genuine laugh this time, relief flooding his features, washing away the awkwardness. "You're incorrigible," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Alright. Alright, I've been properly… distracted. You can tell me now."
Yinou pushed herself up, the smirk fading, replaced by the return of seriousness. The fight, the awkward moment, the forced levity – it was all a distraction, a desperate attempt to avoid the inevitable. Her voice, once sharp with anger, now softened, laced with a vulnerability that was almost unbearable to witness. Her eyes, fixed on his, pleaded for understanding, for acceptance, for something she wasn't even sure existed.
"Su Ning," she whispered, "It's funny isn't it? We used to hate each other, playing charades. But I know that we had started to peel off the layers, revealing a foundation of something unexpected… a friendship, a connection. This friendship… it gave me hope..and something more than hope, too."... Tears finally welled in her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. "I thought… I started to believe… maybe… maybe there was something else for me. Besides this." She gestured vaguely to herself, to the encroaching shadows, to the darkness within. "And now… now I know… I know why you were always there. Why you were… why you were so patient." Her voice trembled, but she pushed on. "You were destined for me. Perhaps… perhaps as a punishment."
He stood there, his expression a mask of indifference, as she poured out her raw confession. His eyes, a piercing brown, seemed to bore into her very soul, yet revealed nothing of his own emotions. But as he gazed at her, he couldn't help but notice the faint tremble of her lips, the desperation in her eyes. It was a vulnerability he had witnessed before, one that stirred something within him, something he refused to acknowledge. He saw the darkness that shrouded her, the turmoil that churned beneath her surface, and yet...he couldn't look away. His voice, when he finally spoke, was low and detached, a deliberate attempt to conceal the spark of concern that had flickered to life within him.
He didn't argue with her words directly. He didn't tell her she was wrong, that she deserved happiness, that destiny was a fickle thing. Instead, he took a step closer, his movements slow and gentle. He reached out, his hand hovering for a moment before softly, tentatively, cupping her cheek. His thumb brushed away a stray tear that finally escaped and traced the delicate line of her jaw.
Then, he pulled her into a soft, enveloping hug. It wasn't a passionate embrace, not in the way the flicker between them had hinted at. It was a hug of comfort, of shared understanding, of quiet solace in the face of overwhelming despair. He held her close, letting her lean on him, feeling the tremor that still ran through her body.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low, a murmur against her hair. "You know," he said, his tone gentle, almost whimsical, "you had this expression on your face, just now, when you were talking…" He paused, drawing back slightly to look into her confused, tear-filled eyes. "It was like… like you weren't sure you were supposed to be on Earth."
She stands rigidly, her gaze fixed on something unseen, her voice low and tightly controlled "Dumbass... There's only one truth, isn't there? I shouldn't exist." She swallows hard, a flicker of pain crossing her face, a single tear escaping, which she ignores, her voice dropping "I wish I didn't. God, I wish I didn't cause all this..." She wraps her arms around herself, as if trying to contain the stain, her voice cracking, barely audible "I want to be free of it. This sin... this weight... but it's in me now. It's part of me. I am stained." More tears flow silently, her body trembling almost imperceptibly, her voice breaking completely "So the only answer... the only way... is to stop existing. I cannot... I cannot be free otherwise."
"Yinou... enough. You don't have to carry this alone. Not anymore. I'm here, and I choose to be. Whatever you face, we'll face it together. You can tell me no. You can push me away. But know this: my place is here, beside you... for as long as you'll let me stay."
He didn't offer false promises of escape, didn't deny the bleakness of their situation. But in his words, in his gentle touch, in his unwavering gaze, he offered something far more profound. He offered her a glimpse of her own worth, a whisper of hope that resonated deeper than any logic, a fragile possibility that even in the heart of darkness, a spark of light could still exist. And maybe, just maybe, that was enough to keep her going, even as she walked back into hell.