The Story Of Dusk

As soon as he touched the ground, Gong Xu immediately stood up and grabbed Senja closed to him. He backed away, but this moved made himself and Senja cornered.

Now, they were standing on the edge of the cliff, one wrong moved both of them could fall to the stream river down there.

"You can swim?" Senja asked, she glanced at the edge of the cliff and grimaced.

Gong Xu also glanced at the direction where Senja was looking for. "I can." With that being said, he jumped off the cliff with Senja was still in his arms.

He thought, Senja was giving him an idea to escape from their predicament, which he welcomed, though the method was quite extreme, but at this time, it seemed this was the only way they could escape.

When Senja realized what Gong Xu was doing and she felt her body fell very face to the bottom of the cliff, she let out a shrill scream as she hugged Gong Xu"s neck tighter.

Thing that Gong Xu didn"t know was Senja merely asking, without intention to suggest that kind of idea, because she herself didn"t know how to swim.

It was hurt when her body collided with the surface of the river as the water splashed everywhere by the impact.

Immediately, Senja was lost of oxygen and felt her chest hurt and her nose burnt because the water sucked into her throat.

She struggled to get an air, her limbs flailed as she panic, but then someone grabbed her waist and pulled her up.

"I thought you know how to swim!?" Gong Xu"s familiar voice yelled from her back.

Senja wanted to retort, but she lost her voice and her strength to talk back at him. This time it wasn"t only her nose, but also her throat and her eyes felt like they were burnt.

She clutched on Gong Xu like an octopus, made things difficult for Gong Xu to drag both of them to the sh.o.r.e. His hand and the wound on his legs felt like split opened. He needed to exert more strength to survive.

After long time of struggling that felt like decade, finally Gong Xu managed to drag Senja to the edge of the river.

This place was quite strange, while the land was barren, but the stream of the river was really strong.

Senja was coughing hard and shivered because of the cold wind, while Gong Xu immediately stood up and offered his hand. "We need to go." He said in weak voice. "We are still not safe yet."

Senja stumbled as she followed Gong Xu"s steps to find a hiding place and think about what they should do next to get out from this place.

***  

BRAKK!!!

The sound of broken gla.s.s echoed through the wall as a very angry man smashed it and many other things inside the room.

"What do you mean she managed to escape!!?" w.a.n.g Yu roared, but then he closed his eyes to compose himself. The moment he opened them, he was a little bit calm down.

The news was surprised him. Who would have thought that his good- for- nothing daughter could have someone to save her? What a lucky girl she was!?

"Who was that man!?" w.a.n.g Yu had hired a group of bandit that he knew, they reputation wasn"t bad, though they were not the top of their circle, because he thought, he didn"t need someone expert to do this job.

However, this thing happened and the news that he just heard wasn"t the news that he was waiting for.

Such a useless people who couldn"t even manage to kill a little girl!?

"I want to talk to your leader! Where is him!?" He didn"t like the news and his mood became even worse when the person who relayed the news wasn"t the leader of the group.

"Our leader was killed." The messenger lowered his head, he felt ashamed to let other people knew that their leader, not even failed the mission, but also lost his life in the process.

"USELESS!!!" w.a.n.g Yu threw another box toward the messenger and stormed out of the room, leaving Carye and the messenger alone.

Carye stared at the messenger with eyes that devoid from any emotion and walked toward him slowly, every movement from her was really graceful and elegant, but there was something about her that exuded her viciousness, like a snake waiting for its prey.

"Did you there when someone saved her?" She asked in sweet voice.

"Yes, madam." The messenger nodded, staring only at Carye"s shoes.

"Did she say something when she knew it was her father who had sent someone to kill her?" Carye was curious to know her step daughter"s reaction upon hearing this revelation.

"She said if I release her, she will never go back to this mansion, that she will live far away from here." He was the man who had tricked Gong Xu and Senja by giving them false information about the village.

"She didn"t want to return?" Carye raised her brows, bemused. "What else?"

The messenger tried to recall his memory as he said firmly. "He said the man who was with him, will pay me double."

"Do you know who was that man?" Carye frowned, Senja not only managed to escape from the people who chased after her twice, but she also has someone who protected her now.

She was lucky indeed.

"We don"t know that man, but he definitely someone who couldn"t be trifled as he managed to kill our leader." That man gritted his teeth. He also didn"t know if that man was very skill in swordsmanship. He couldn"t give Carye his name also because he had faking his name.

Carye"s frown deepened, if Elder Dam knew about this, she would be death by now.

***  

Gong Xu was woken up with start, he immediately closed his eyes again when the bright light of the sun fell on his face, not only that, the wound and his aching body made this even worse.

He rolled back to another side to avoid the sun and b.u.mped into a tiny body that squealed in complain.

"Move away… your body is squashing my arm." Senja wailed as she tried to push Gong Xu"s heavy body away.

She had just woken up and startled because of this.

"I am sorry." Gong Xu immediately sat down, but his wounds prevent him to move his body as he wish. "Where are we?" He asked, a.s.sessing his surroundings.

"You are the one who had brought us here." Senja explained. "There was sand storm last night and you found this place, so we entered and spent the night here." She combed her hair to get rid the remaining of sand and dirt.

Gong Xu tried to recall the even last night, as the scene was blurry in his head, but he remembered the storm.

This place was like a cave that was created from the cracked at the side of a big rock.

"Do you feel better?" Senja approached him and put her small hand on his forehead. "You don"t have a fever… that is a good sign…" She mumbled.

Gong Xu put down her hand and leaned against the wall behind him.

It had been five days since they jumped off the cliff in order to escape those bandits, but until now they were still far to go out from this h.e.l.l.

When afternoon, the sun would be scorching hot, but when the night fell, the cold wind feel like it could skin them alive, not to mention with the sand storm like last night.

They couldn"t move fast because Gong Xu was badly injured, fortunately he was still alive, with the wound like what he was suffering, most people would be death by now.

"We will move again?" Senja asked, looking at Gong Xu worriedly, though he didn"t have fever, but the wound needed to be treated immediately.

"Hmm." Gong Xu mumbled and tried to stand up, but he was too weak to do that, his head was spinning and everything was blurry.

"Are you all right?" Senja hastily approached him and helped him to sit back down. "Drink this." She gave him some water and checked his pulse.

During their "leisure time" to find the way out from this dessert, Gong Xu would teach her about anything, medicine and poison, how to check pulse of sick people and many more.

He did that to keep his mind awake as sometime he felt his mind was going to shut down and his body became light.

However, there was one thing that Gong Xu didn"t want to tell Senja, it was about his life before this. About his sister, his father and why he had been running away. All the more, the topic about the death of Luna.

"How do you know about this?!" He asked in deep and dangerous tone.

"The leader of the bandit mentioned about this during your fight…" Senjas said timidly.

The moment Senja asked about this, which she felt she wasn"t being sensible to ask this kind of question, Gong Xu shot her a dagger look and threatened would leave her there alone if she asked about that for the second time, thus Senja was avoiding that topic and buried to the deep of her heart her curiosity.

She didn"t know how bad the Gong Xu"s past was, or whether the word of the leader of the bandit was true or not. But, seemingly Gong Xu didn"t have a simple background either.

Senja had ever read an old book about the mind controller and it wasn"t a pleasant history.

In exchanged, Senja would tell him a story about her that mostly filled with abuse and unpleasant treatment from her father, stepmother and her stepsisters.

They knew one another, but Gong Xu was still unwilling to take Senja in his journey.

"We are good with each other, why don"t you want to take me with you?" Senja wrote that words on the ground with a small rock. "You don"t have a little sister and I always wanted to have a big brother that could protect me."

"Don"t think of me as your big brother, that will be annoying to have a sister like you." Gong Xu closed his eyes as he felt his headache gradually disappeared.

"Why? I will be an obedient sister for you." Senja tugged Gong Xu"s hand, forcing him to open his eyes, so he could read her lips and acted sweetly that made Gong Xu has a gooseb.u.mps. "Brother Gong Xu."

"Don"t try to act spoiled, that style doesn"t suit you at all." He said that, but his lips curved into a small smile.

Senja pouted and leaned her back against the same rock behind her. She didn"t like this side of Gong Xu. He was too stubborn for his own good.

***  

"There are still no news about my granddaughter whereabouts!?" Elder Dam yelled in frustration toward the leader of the Shadow Guard who was given task to find Senja, but they were coming back with nothing.

"Master, we have been trying to look for the young miss Senja to the neighbor cities, but no one knows about her neither they have ever seen a girl like Young Miss Senja." The shadow guard lowered his head in ashamed. He felt had failed his mission this time.

"Go back and find more information about this! I don"t want to see you comeback and give me this gibberish report! Understood!?" Elder Dam roared.

The shadow guard left hastily.

Inside his study room, Elder Dam covered his face tiredly and sat back down on his chair, it has been weeks since Senja had disappeared and there was still no news about her.

"Bring Carye to the training ground." Elder Dam ordered his other shadow guard. "Don"t let anyone know about this."