LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN TIGRESS

Shengli looked at her explaining everything as if she was talking about someone else and not herself. He felt weirded out seeing her like that as if she was not the Xing he knows but someone else. She was even different from the her moments ago like she had lost all her emotions..? How could she change this fast?

"It"s better if you don"t contact me at all, like when you disappeared the past two months", she added making Shengli"s heart skip a beat.

Does she understand what she is saying? She doesn"t even know how long it will take or how dangerous it is going to get, yet she is talking like it"s going to be just days and she had already figured everything out.

" That G.o.d with s.h.i.+hong is really smart and he is still powerful enough to find out about your thoughts. But s.h.i.+hong wants to be in control over that G.o.d and that would be his weakness and that"s what you"ll use against him. You are the one s.h.i.+hong likes the most and he"ll definitely oppose the G.o.d if he plans something against you", she wrapped herself by the blanket and looked at him with her deep eyes,

"After all, that G.o.d is trapped in a weapon and he cannot do anything by himself. Your only way to survive there would be by cajoling s.h.i.+hong and stay by his side without acting against him. I personally don"t care if you stand against me or the kingdom as long as you make s.h.i.+hong believe you are by his side. And you don"t have to go out of your way to send me clues or whatever because I can figure out everything myself. So don"t put yourself in danger. Only when you have digged a hole deep enough for s.h.i.+hong that would make his escape impossible, you should contact me. I will be the one killing s.h.i.+hong and that G.o.d,even though I still don"t know how to kill a G.o.d who is trapped in a weapon. But I can figure that out too"

Xing was speaking radiating confidence as if she was a general commanding her troops. Although Shengli always admired this side of her and what she said was all agreeable and something he had decided himself, he felt something odd, somehow she felt distant from him. He had never had this feeling from her before. True, she is inches away from him but why does it feel like she is somewhere far far away?

Is there something wrong with her?

*Hmpf *

Shengli snorted, how could she be fine? She lost her mother and became the Prime Minister"s daughter. Then her father opposed her choice of groom and just when he approved the G.o.ds told her that they had plans for her. She had to enter the inner palace and now has to live as the Empress. Not to mention the loss she suffered... And the fact that there is no cure for it. And she getting lost in the Netherworld... No human can understand being stranded in a place for years and returning back just hours later... Then there are these love trials..? They are hard enough that no one had pa.s.sed it till now. All these happened to her in six months and if that does not screw her mind, she won"t be human right? And not to mention the G.o.ds talking to her like she is the last hope of all the realms...

Her arrogance saying she"ll figure everything out didn"t surprise him as he knew she was never modest and she has every reason to be prideful. Even the G.o.ds are saying so...

Xing drank the warm milk by the bedside which Bai Li left for her, and as she was leaning on the headboard, she didn"t feel anything different except feeling extremely tired and she was shaking her leg stretching it on the bed as it hurt a bit standing for too long that day, tightly snuggling the blanket.

Xing who had cried for a lifetime in the past few days felt like her eyes had lost all the tears and she knew no matter how much tantrums she threw at the G.o.ds they won"t change her fate and so she must do what she must do if she could have hopes of living her life with Shengli.

She didn"t know how long this "Trial of Separation" would last except that the G.o.ds love the number three and it could be three days, three weeks, three months, three years or it might even be thirty years... Or an entirely different number But every day they are wasting now would be one day they would lose being together in the future. So it is better to start doing what they should do now so they won"t lose their future together.

"Once I finish what I have to do, I"ll be together with Shengli forever", was her only thought. Once she had arrived to that conclusion, everything else seemed of less importance and her mind is only occupied of thoughts of what to do next. She had bottled up her emotions for saying this goodbye to Shengli as it is mandatory. In fact she had bottled up all her emotions along with her name "Xing". Once Shengli leaves, there won"t be anyone who"d call her by that name. She"ll be Huang Mingxia... The Empress of the Wind Kingdom.

She knew once she kills that old Rong, the G.o.ds will ask her for something as a gift and she could ask to be forgiven from the Trials of Love and get together with Shengli with no one bothering ever again.

As Xing was too engrossed thinking about the future, she forgot about the present and what the man she was planning to share her future with was feeling at the present.

"Aren"t you leaving yet?", she asked casually to Shengli who was gently kneading her leg pursing his lips as if he was deeply contemplating something not knowing that guy"s heart literally skipped a beat with her nonchalant question and his entire body is now frozen and he was feeling much more pain than when she stabbed him previously.

Didn"t Lin Mubai say it would be hard for him to get to s.h.i.+hong if he didn"t leave now? She was thinking.

Shengli took a deep breath to control his emotions. Her question didn"t hurt him... it was the way she asked it that hurt him. Shouldn"t she at least feel a bit sad asking him that? True, both of them decided on it but still...

Shengli placed his freezingly cold hands over the blanket where she had carefully buried her hands inside and looked at her dark obsidian eyes that always had that bewitching allure that would suck him in. But now...

It looked empty... The same way she looked at him when her mother died...the same way she stares aimlessly sometimes, placing her hand in her belly these days...

"Why?" Shengli felt his throat close. "Why does it have to be something I cannot solve everytime?"

"Xing", he rubbed her forehead with his thumb, "Sleep a bit... I still have time". He wanted to hug her close, Bury his face in her neck and cry for her forgiveness.

I"m sorry! I"m sorry!

Xing looked at Shengli whose eyes were glistening in the lantern light and somehow she felt like he is different. Is it because if his dark hair? It does not suit him at all.

"s.h.i.+hong is...", "a woman", she wanted to tell him but found it hard to say for some reason. Funny because till now, she could tell him anything. So why now?

Then there was a voice inside her answering her, "Oh, Xing! He is going to stay with s.h.i.+hong from now on. And you know s.h.i.+hong has to have gone through a lot to be screwed up enough to treat women badly even though he"s once a woman and to use medicines to stop himself from being a woman. Do you really want to tell Shengli the truth? Especially when you are no different from s.h.i.+hong now? Both of you are women and cannot bear children. What if Shengli finds s.h.i.+hong more pitiful than you and stays with him and abandons you? You are a shameless woman who became the Empress to his brother too, right? Won"t he abandon you with pleasure? "

" Also, Shengli"s going to tell s.h.i.+hong that he was abandoned by everyone and only you know that s.h.i.+hong is a woman. If you tell Shengli now, he"s definitely going to behave differently around s.h.i.+hong and he"ll get suspicious of Shengli that he had talked with you and wonder whether he tells the truth or not. That won"t go well for Shengli, So don"t tell him"

Xing didn"t know whose voice was that inside her head but she knew Shengli won"t abandon her but the second reasoning seemed... Reasonable. So she decided to not tell him.

"What about s.h.i.+hong?", Shengli asked sensing her s.p.a.cing out for a while.

"Ah,that.. ",she gave a confusing smile that hurt Shengli some more, "He had a bright aura like your brother. I"ve never seen such bright aura with anyone else. Maybe s.h.i.+hong is not a bad person", she scratched the back of her head.

Trying to lie to me, Xing? What are you hiding from me?

Shengli sighed by her acting this way. But he wanted to probe her more to bury deep inside her mind to find out every reason she might act this way.

" My brother is the complete opposite to him. s.h.i.+hong is an evil person who doesn"t feel remorse for what he does and justifies everything as if it was the right thing to do. Maybe that"s what you see, my brother who is bright because his conscience is clear and s.h.i.+hong who is bright because he doesn"t have a conscience", he answered her. Why would she bring up s.h.i.+hong suddenly?

"Oh!", Xing nodded. That must be the case. So Shengli feels remorse for what he had done? Is that why he looks dark?

"Xing, do you want to tell me something?"