Chapter 38 - The Emotions Hidden Within
XieRong had already begun to train when the seven siblings arrived, clean and dressed to learn in black overalls.
-I a.s.sume Li Jia has told you all everything?-
-Yes, young miss.- All of them replied together.
When Guo ZiHao arrived, he was surprised to see eight children waiting for him, than just one.
"Who are these children?"
"Uncle, these are the people I want you to train as my shadow guards. All of them have a blood bond with me. They haven"t had their spirit roots checked so I will ask the old general for permission to use the room tomorrow."
If her uncle was surprised by her choice of candidates for the positions of her future shadow guards, he did not show it. Neither did he question XieRong"s decision. Taking her uncle"s silence as approval of her choice, XieRong went over and stood in front of WeiSheng.
"This is the oldest of the siblings, WeiSheng, I would like him to lead my group of shadow guards once he has been trained. It"s best if he and the others learned how to spy and become informants as well. QiaoHui, GuoTin and GuoZhi will also learn strategising. I want for them to train with your soldiers if that"s okay."
"Why would you want them to learn with the soldiers when I can train them here?"
"I want them to work hard enough so that they can beat even the best of your soldiers. Besides, if my shadow guards start to become better than your soldiers, the compet.i.tion between them will rise and drive all of them to strive to perform better."
Her uncle rubbed his chin.
"Okay, I"ll take them to camp tomorrow after having their spirit roots tested."
XieRong turned to face the seven people who stood in a straight line.
"All of you have the choice to stay and train here, is there anyone who doesn"t want to join my uncle"s camp?"
No one came forward.
"How about you LiWei, don"t you want to stay?"
"No, young miss. I want to become strong."
XieRong rubbed his head, satisfied with his answer.
"I"m a.s.suming all of you have the same response?"
"Yes, young miss."
"Good, from tomorrow you will join my uncle"s camp and do as he instructs. All of you will have a routine that will be ten times harder than that of the other soldiers."
"Are you sure you want their routine to be that hard, XieRong? They won"t last."
"I am sure, uncle. I believe in them."
In the morning, after breakfast, XieRong was summoned to her brother"s courtyard.
"XieRong greets old general Guo, uncle, elder brother."
XieRong was still always curt and polite in front of her grandfather. She could see he was trying to make amends but every time she came near him she would remember the feeling of being forced to bow down, the feeling of being crushed as though she were an insignificant bug and inadvertently flinch away, expecting him to repeat what he had done to her.
"You all train, I"ll leave," The old general said, when he noticed how uncomfortable XieRong was around him.
"He"s trying to change, XieRong. Why not give him another chance?" her uncle asked, watching his father walk away with hunched shoulders.
"Why did you call me here uncle?"
Her uncle sighed.
"To see how much you have progressed in the past month, little sister."
XieRong tilted her head.
"Why don"t you have a spar with me? Father, I will take care of XieRong. There is something I want to talk to her about."
"I"ll take my leave then. Don"t injure XieRong too much."
XieRong looked at the servants around them.
"They are all blood bound to me, XieRong. No one will know how strong you have gotten. Now, let"s begin."
XieRong stayed still, waiting for her brother to attack.
He did.
He came at her with such speed that she was hardly able to dodge.
"Tell me, little sister, why don"t you go talk to grandfather?"
XieRong refused to answer.
She blocked her brother"s punch and tried to kick him on his abdomen which he dodged by jumping back.
He came at her faster than before.
"You hate him, don"t you? You hate grandfather to the point where you can"t bear to be around him!"
Guo Qiang"s punch hit XieRong straight in the shoulder. She knew he was trying to provoke her.
She felt pain flare up on her right shoulder, but managed to land a punch on her brother"s stomach.
"You hate all of us too. You pretend to love us, but deep inside, you hate everyone."
XieRong felt a fury ignite within her. She knew he was riling her up in purpose in order to get her to speak.
This time, it was she who came at her brother attacking ruthlessly. She wanted him to stop talking.
He dodged.
"You hate grandfather."
She punched.
He dodged.
"You hate father."
She stomped on his feet and punched aiming for his shoulder.
He dodged and kept going.
"You hate mother."
XieRong came at him faster, pushing her limits.
"You hate me," he said, dodging her over and over again, while landing swift jabs.
He finally pushed her to the ground.
"And you hate yourself."
XieRong felt defeated as her brother looked down at her.
Tears p.r.i.c.ked her eyes.
"What do you know?" She asked, getting up. Speaking for the first time during their spar.
"You weren"t there."
She went at her brother again.
"None of you were."
She kicked him, he dodged, but couldn"t evade her punch she threw right after, using her qinggong to its full capacity.
"Not you."
He dodged, and punched XieRong in the stomach.
She was pushed back and pain bloomed inside her stomach, but she went to strike him again.
"Not uncle and not aunt."
Her qinggong wasn"t as fast as her brother"s as he continued to land blow upon blow on her small body.
But she refused to give up.
It was her turn to speak.
"And definitely not grandfather."
She was kicked away, and skid to a stop at a distance.
"None of you were there when mother was killed! When she used and thrown into the barn like a dog!"
Although none of her moves landed, XieRong pushed her brother back, as she tried to kick and punch him faster and faster.
"None of you were there when my sister"s fingers were crushed and I couldn"t be there for them when I was right there! Stuck in the tree, watching everything!"
"But you"re wrong," she said getting up from where her brother had once again thrown her to the ground.
"I don"t hate any of you and neither do I hate myself. At first, I blamed everyone, including myself, for mother"s death, but I learned that nothing else except the Fa Family and mother"s own bad choices were to be blamed for her demise."
She barely dodged her brother"s attack.
She had grown tired and weak while he still remained as fresh and strong as when they had started.
She contemplated using the death strike but discarded the thought as it could potentially harm her brother. She little control over it and had yet to learn binding.
"I don"t hate grandfather, either. I-I am scared of him. Every time he is near me, I remember how it felt having my breath pushed away from my lungs, how much it hurt as I felt myself slowly get crushed under the force he exerted."
XieRong kept dodging and defending.
She didn"t have the strength to fight anymore.
"Every time grandfather comes anywhere near me, I consider him a threat and unknowingly flinch away. I always expect him to force me to submit and bow down like he did the first time, even though I know he won"t."
XieRong blocked her brother"s last punch and finally fell over.
"So, that"s how you felt," her brother said, placing XieRong over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.
"Hey! What do you think you"re doing?! Put me down!"
XieRong"s cheeks lit up with embarra.s.sment.
Her brother ignored her protests and only set her down when they were inside one of his guest rooms.
He sent for Li Jia and sat down next to her.
"XieRong, I want you tell grandfather what you have just told me."
XieRong stubbornly turned her head away.
"It"s embarra.s.sing."
"And the way you are acting isn"t?"
"But even if I do tell grandfather, what would be the point? I will still be scared and he will still get hurt."
"I agree. You will still be scared and he will still get hurt, but don"t you think if you forced yourself to face what you are scared of every single day, you will be less scared of it and eventually stop being scared of it altogether?"
"Maybe...or it could just make me even more scared."
"Let me tell you a little story, but before I do you must promise me you won"t laugh."
XieRong"s interest was piqued.
"I promise to try."
"Fair enough. You see, when I was little, I was afraid of frogs."
"Frogs?"
XieRong bit her lip to keep herself from laughing, but couldn"t control herself and eventually burst out laughing when she thought of her black bellied brother"s expression in the presence of a frog.
Guo Qiang sighed.
There went his reputation down the drain. But he continued with his story anyway, happy to have made his little cousin laugh, even if it was at his expense.
"I was disgusted by frogs to the point that if one of them were near, I"d probably be a yard away, always on the look out of where it went and what it was doing. It wasn"t long before the crown prince learned of this."
Guo Qiang shuddered remembering what the crown prince did to him.
"He tied me to a chair and put me in a pond with frogs everywhere; on the leaves, in the water and then they were on me, on my hair and even inside my clothes. He did it day after day. I cried the first four days then in the next three I just slowly got used to them."
"Do you like frogs now?"
"No, I still hate them, but I"m not scared of them. So will you go talk to grandfather after you clean up?"
"I will. Thank you big brother!"