Book 1: Winds Begin to Blow in Tai Yuan
Chapter 11 - Storm"s Fury
It was raining.
The downpour in the middle of the night suddenly camefuriously, like a tear in the heavens poured down an ocean. With a "hua lala" sound it pounded down, and in a short while thousands and thousands ofthin streams began to flow on the ground.
Pei Yuan came out from the front hall holding a oil-paperumbrella, and under the waiting of a maidservant she tread on water puddles toreturn to her "Orchid Pavilion". Another maidservant was carrying a paperlantern to light the way. The wind and rain was fierce and the lantern swayedside to side, and despite the maid using her own rain cloak to protect the lightthe whole way, the lantern was still quickly extinguished by a surging gust oftempestuous wind and rain.
Before the maidservant had time to apologize, Pei Yuan hadalready backhandedly slapped her. Sharp fingernails sliced a couple bright redstreaks on the maid"s face and fresh blood began to drip down. The child didn"tdare to cry, only hugging the extinguished lantern and shrinking back a littlein the rain.
"Useless idiot! Can"t even take care of onelantern!" Pei Yuan raised her eyes to glance at the turbulent currents ofwind and rain in the deep night sky, and a feeling of irritation washed overher without reason. She furrowed her brows and covered herself better with therain cloak, speeding up her steps to enter her secluded courtyard.
"You are not allowed to enter the courtyard, don"tdirty my grounds." Pei Yuan hated people intruding and was obsessed withcleanliness - even her chosen residence was the most spotless and elegant"Orchid Pavilion". These habits everyone in the sect knew, and so themaidservants lowly concurred and retreated far from the entrance.
Outside the doors was the furious storm that hit the groundlike a deity"s whip, inside the doors was a deep, silent darkness without anymovement.
Pei Yuan went to push the doors.
With a creaking sound, the doors slowly opened, and PeiYuan"s eyes casually lowered. In that moment, she spotted on the woodenfloorboards some light wet stains.
Her heart shook, and Pei Yuan"s reactions were extremelyquick, immediately shooting backwards in retreat.
However it was already late.
"Cha!"
In the inky dimness a white glow flashed, and faintly a darkshadow materialized with a sharp blade piercing forwards. The attack was silentand traceless, fast like flowing light or flying lightning - in only a splitsecond, it had already reached in front of Pei Yuan"s face!
"Chi."
The thin, vague sound of skin and flesh being sliced openshockingly sounded in Pei Yuan"s ear, and she only felt on her left temple a coldnessthen a pain. Following her left eye became an expanse of blood red.
Scarlet red covered her left vision, causing Pei Yuan to be unableto discern clearly the person who used the cover of darkness to sneak attackher. The only thing she knew was that at this moment, only she could saveherself. Biting her teeth and bearing the pain, Pei Yuan drew her sword with aringing noise. The sword tip vibrated with the light of the heaven"s stars, theresplendent radiance drawing one"s eyes. In this emergency situation, she evenused the clan inheritance her master had secretly pa.s.sed down to her, thetreasured sword technique "Vast Sky Sword".
The opponent seemed to realize the power of the sword art, anddidn"t confront it head-on but twisted their body, already flitting over to theside of her body like a swimming fish. In the instant the figure pa.s.sed by herside, it flipped its hand and fiercely sliced upwards. Pei Yuan"s rightforehead felt another pain, and more fresh blood splashed down like a redspring. A waterfall of blood appeared across the horizon, completely obscuringher last bit of clear vision.
The powerful strike of the blade, was swift like sprintingthunder; the barely contained fury in the attack, was sharp like shockinglightning.
In that moment, the opposing side had already ruthlesslydrawn an "X" on Pei Yuan"s face.
With her two eyes soaked in red blood and unable to see anything,Pei Yuan no longer used any special techniques in her sword attacks - thesplitting pain on her face had already caused her to be deeply panic-strickenand apoplectic. She didn"t know how serious the wounds on her face were, butfrom the amount of flowing blood it could be inferred that her face had alreadybeen ruined. The opponent"s actions were malicious and ruthlessly planned-out,as if they had some deep-rooted vengeance with her.
Beautiful woman have always valued their appearance overtheir lives; right now, Pei Yuan was in so much excruciating pain that shedidn"t want to live, with her only thought being to not stop until she killedthe other person. Ignoring her two cut wounds, she swiped her hand horizontallyover her sword and smeared the fresh blood on her palm onto the sword body. Thesword instantly flashed scarlet - in the darkness the b.l.o.o.d.y glow began towriggle and flow, and inside the flowing blood gradually arose bubbles as bigas crab eyes. They were vividly multicolored like countless poisonous spiders,and started crawling erratically on the sword body causing one to feel nauseatedjust looking at the scene.
If there were any descendents of the Tai Yuan royal familypresent, they surely would yell in shock at the use of "Blood SacrificeMagic", the royal family"s secret magic skill. Now that Pei Yuan had displayedit, it signified that she felt it was a life or death struggle.
However, even if her intention was to fight to the death, theopposite side was not willing to. Once the intruder saw the mysterious redlight shine, they immediately and silently leapt away with large steps. Theirfoot tip kicked on the doorframe, and with a roll they had already escaped thered light"s area of encirclement. Amidst the howling downpour the black shadowwas like a large bird of prey, in an instant flying out three zhang and vanishing within the almostsolid sheets of rain.
Pei Yuan brought her sword and chased after, her magic skillready. As fast as lightning, she raised her foot in the initial position of theskill, while in her palm the long sword"s glow brightened. It seemed like sheonly needed a lift of her hand to immediately reach the shadow"s back with herweapon.
However, before she could slice upwards, she suddenly feltsomething slippery shoot past her side with a small whistle of air, thenfollowing that a pain in her finger, causing the long sword in her hand toclatter to the ground.
In astonishment, Pei Yuan thought there was still anotherenemy inside the pavilion and desperately opened her eyes wide. Within herblood red vision she could only make out a round shadowy ball, disappearing inan instant.
Then she felt something soft underneath her foot, as if shehad been tripped by something, and Pei Yuan stumbled forward.
The two slice wounds started to numbly itch at this time,feeling like there were an innumerable number of small insects crawling insidethe cuts. In shock, Pei Yuan couldn"t focus on fighting to the death anymore, andhurriedly went to scratch her injuries. However, the more she touched the strongerthe itching, and in that expanse of red she couldn"t see anything at all. Panicked,she started to loudly scream. "SOMEONE COME! Come! Get water for me! Callthe doctor, call the doctor!!!"
There was nothing but stillness.
Those maidservants who she had just exiled to the outsiderain in fear of dirtying her floor, were still hugging the extinguishedlantern, stiffly and indifferently staring at her.
They stood like wooden statues in the rain, looking at theusually n.o.ble and overbearing woman whose long hair was scattered in the pouringrainstorm, and her whole face full of fresh blood. The woman who stretched hertwo arms out in the middle of the luxurious wooden courtyard while mournfullycrying, with two streaks of slice wounds intersecting in the middle of her facein a hideous "X". The woman whose fresh blood dripped from thosebrushstrokes, dripping onto the courtyard she never allowed anyone to enter,staining the shining clean floor surface with a region of turbid red color.
"Someone come ... ah ... someone come ..."
No one moved, and no one spoke. Those low-status maidservantswho had personally witnessed the previous brutal mutilation, stood callouslynearby in the storm.
The howling rains were gusted by the wind into layers andlayers of crystalline walls, curtaining their eyes that, because of longperiods of abuse, held hatred inside them.
"Some ... one ... ah ..."
Pei Yuan"s miserable cries were drowned by the ferociousstorm, gradually fading into nothingness. She madly scrambled around thecourtyard, yet because she kept colliding with the columns and worsening herwounds, the itching on her face became even more severe, and her strengthfinally depleted.
Rain fell into the courtyard from the deep red over-hangingsabove, staining the cloth into a b.l.o.o.d.y color. Inside the rain the red-clothedand blood-stained Pei Yuan fumbled around, sorrowfully moaning, and sank down tothe ground slowly in despair.
Her body landed on the stairs, and her black hair spreadacross the wet ground underneath, meandering across the puddles on the floorlike snakes. Her hand desperately reached forwards, as if she wanted to grab ahold of a hope to escape from this nightmare.
Unfortunately, she never was able to grasp anything.
The night had not yet reached its end, with the stormcontinuing to rage.
A low mumble, full of hurt resulting from incomprehension, wasbarely audible in between the rumbles of thunder.
"You ... why ... won"t you help me ..."