A Maiden's Strange Voyage

"What just happened?" Linglong asked. She tried to make sense of what was happening here, unable to really guess or even piece this together. This was something that she had thought or even knew from the start.

"I"m not sure." Dianyu got up, she had some sense of what was going on but any explanation that she could come up with at this point was likely to be not comprehensible. And there were gaps in her knowledge as well, but she did know what was going on enough that the best thing for them was to stay here. And only tread outside when it was impossible for them to avoid.

"I need to search for my mistress." Intending to go out, opening the door.

In front of it, was the one woman she did not think she will see. The owner, she should have been incapacitated by this point. And with her standing it was clear that it wasn"t.

"So, she did teach you something? Then again, you"re too smart for your own good most of the time."

"Well, I"m smart enough to know when someone may be a murderer." She didn"t think that this jab could have had much effect at this point either. It was mostly to keep her preoccupied and hope that Linglong to go. "Linglong, hold her down."

Linglong did not, she was frozen when confronted with such a choice. Clear that she had no idea what she was going to choose. As much as she was mostly confused by what was happening here in the first place, unsure of what was even happening here. She was not even sure what she should be doing.

And even Dianyu was not certain on just what was happening either. Feiyu explained, but as she knew it was mostly the basics as it was. Nothing certain, nothing really definitive. And nothing that will explain just what was happening here. This was completely out of anything Feiyu told her about.

She mostly took a step back, they were hidden in a room behind a platform. One used where the performers could change and dress if they had to do so in the middle of a performance. And this was a place which was hidden from plain sight, hence no one will be bothered to look for it. In a way, they had trapped themselves as much as this allowed them to be free from the influence of her song.

All she could do was trust the charm Feiyu gave her. Which she threw, and Dianyu closed her eyes. The owner stood there unaffected and she knew that this was worth nothing. It had not even worked in the least for lack of better word. It had not even manage to buy her time.

Which meant that she was trapped here as it is.

"Do you want to know why?" She knew that it was her only chance. As much as she made some guesses as to what had happened that allowed this to become reality.

"Why?" Linglong asked, not certain as to what was happening here. Linglong was now standing before her, while Dianyu still remained at the back. This was safe for her to remain at the side, nor was she really curious as to why this occurred. The woman struck her as strange during their second conversation, and made it rather clear that she was far more than a simple owner.

"I"ll explain to you later." Before she patted her head and knocked her out. Her eyes turned to Dianyu, clear that she had no need to spare her in the least.

Dianyu remained at the side, having no idea just how this could be resolved. She was going to die, she just knew it. She had to do something, the room was lit with a candle, and she took them taking the chance to throw them at her. It was a gamble, one that could backfire against her or work to a splendid degree. Either way, she knew that something must be done regardless of what it was.

It worked, she managed to get Linglong out of the place as soon as possible. The candles ended up on the floor, but her clothes had caught fire. She needed to ensure that it will not spread, which will give her some time before she decided to leave the place. Allowing her to think of a possible way out or get herself to Feiyu.

She wasn"t even certain how anything worked, which made this incredibly difficult for her to know what it meant. Other than just having to get out of her with Linglong on her shoulders. Which was weighing her down, but it was a short distance she could manage something like this with very little issue. Dianyu came out to the stage a moment later, with Feiyu having dealt with the outside. Most of them were still collapsed onto the table and likely unaware what was going around them, as Feiyu looked to the woman who had been her mentor.

"I see." She didn"t need to say anything else. Given how Linglong was slung over her shoulder, with Dianyu"s panting breaths.

"I knew from the beginning and if you haven"t been so quick in leaving the town I will have missed you." While Feiyu still held the strings, the woman didn"t need to know more. "You"re one of them the strayers, those who broke fate and can break it once more."

"Why yes, the moment you stray from your a.s.signed path, fate will be playing against us."

"A fortune teller once told me that it was my fate to become a wife, and I had ripped from me. Later on the very same man told me that it was the strays who changed my fate." She accepted this truth. "Then I asked how do I change it back. I offered her up and had to leave my town in fear of being found out."

And that she ended up here because there were few avenues of honest work. And this was one where they accepted women of any background, changing their names when it suited them. A courtesan"s pasts was never needed, even as most of their future has been a.s.sured. Some of them will end up as concubines, some will end up on the streets and the rest often went to nunneries.

When beauty faded, they lost their only source of income as well. Hence, they were turned away or sold before their time was up.

"Then haven"t you choose to do the same thing?" Feiyu said it without an ounce of emotion. Knowing that it was something inexcusable no matter how she suffered at the hands, and to murder was to commit the biggest sin of them all.

"I offered them to him, and he absolved me of them."

Dianyu knew deep within herself just how wrong was all of this. This was not the work of a devout; just someone who used deities to justify their decisions.

Feiyu didn"t try to ask for more, merely choosing to start playing. The song here was different, unlike the one before which reminded her of a lullaby. This was something much more intense. Feiyu did not hint to her, and this did not lull her to sleep. Neither did it seem to have almost any effects on her. None whatsoever in the first place.

She merely remained an onlooker to this, as Feiyu merely continued. Whatever it was, it had a profound effect on the woman. She couldn"t comprehend what it was, but soon she was on her knees clapping her ears shut. Nothing went right, nothing did as well. Dianyu only remembered the incidents when she had sought out to mess with her. Once when she had intentionally let something go missing before it was even out of the kitchen, and another where she had the cook buy the ingredients despite it being her job at the time.

She knew those were wrong; she just wanted to let her know that she wasn"t an a.s.sistant who she could bully. Dianyu wasn"t her last victim, merely the one who was treated the worst. She thought that it had to do with the fact that she could not leave, hence the cook will not have to think whether she will run out. Then again, it was the fact that she couldn"t leave which made her bold enough to try.

She ran to the second floor where most of the private rooms of courtesans were, where Feiyu followed her. Her apprentice did so as well, as it wasn"t an escape. She felt that it was something far far more.

"I only wanted to show you what you have done." So, that song could show sins that people committed. Things that should have never been done. And because she had never truly done anything that made her regret later on, or even then it was nothing very very abhorring. Nothing that was so wrong that it could invoke a powerful reaction.

"Are you sure?" The woman snapped at her.

"Dianyu, you certainly saw something."

"Nothing much." It will eat at her for a while, but nothing that will haunt her for the rest of her life. She shook it off, those were times where she should have known better but there was no lasting harm. And she had sought to tarnish her reputation either, opting to make her life a little more difficult than usual.

But without anything that got her into deep trouble, or even killed her. Just a couple of things she thought the cook really needed to know at the end of the day. And she had toned down significantly after that so she doubted that it was forgotten.

Even as the woman widened her own eyes, wondering just how was it that she was still standing. And it was a subtle realization that she has went too far, if this was the result. There was nothing else that told her of it. Feiyu did not speak, she did not see the need to preach in such a situation. Even as she wondered, just why had she came on here.

She couldn"t tell to say the least, because this was her third visit here. She couldn"t tell, apart from being certain that she will have stayed far far away from the woman in the first place. "I don"t believe it."

Feiyu kept her silence, knowing that she didn"t need another sentence to give her a good hint as to what was happening. The woman was about to throw herself off the gallery, seeing that this was an easy end. Linglong had woke up, and came up the stairs already there to see what was happening. She ran up to her, kneeling down before her. If there was one thing that she did right, she had protected a girl from being bullied in this cruel vicious place. As they merely took a chance to watch.

Linglong had managed to go down to her, before she gave them a grateful look. They were not keen to pursue this in the first place; so they merely looked onto this.

"Our job is not to kill, just cleanse the vengeful souls." And murder was not something they wanted to do, hence she stopped her. She got it, since Feiyu did nothing more than show her what was wrong. "But for you, I don"t know what you might end up choosing."

"As in an object?" Like her pipa. Even if she wasn"t sure how it worked in the first place.

"It can be anything. Even if I"m wondering just how some of them could function."

She raised her eyebrow. "You"ll know when they appear."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Come on, we should leave." Feiyu went ahead first before letting her follow. Well, she managed to understand what she was going to be in from now on. And she doubted she will be able to survive given that she had turned herself into a target. Then again, she wanted her life to be more than anything exciting. Back home, she knew that she didn"t want a normal life.

And this was something quite like it; it was bizarre, strange but most importantly it was something that could not bore her.