螳螂捕蝉黄雀在后 (Tánglángbǔ chán, huángquè zài hòu) - The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind; one may think themselves the predator, only to realise they have been another's prey all along.
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108 years ago. Chūn Kingdom.
Zéyì stood on the steps of the palace, looking at the ravaged but defiant woman before her. "You seek to take my life, good auntie?"
The woman gave a horrible sobbing laugh. The watching crowd recoiled, frightened by her madness. "As your kin took that of mine? Yes, yes, a thousand times over!"
The crowd muttered among themselves. Who was this madwoman, claiming that the Royal Family of Chūn had murdered her family? The mother of some criminal? The wife of some enemy soldier? Although she might be crazy, her power could not be ignored.
"Will you speak with me?" Zéyì asked, spreading her hands wide in a gesture of peace. The Queen plucked anxiously at her gown, but she ignored her. "If my death is truly what is needed to break this curse, I will give it willingly, but if there is some other way, let us seek it together."
The woman whined and gnawed her fingers desperately. Zéyì could not help feeling passionately sorry for her, this apparently once fine woman reduced to a distraught wreck. What had happened to her?
"A Lián..."
"If there is another way, I will find it, Regal Mother." Zéyì slowly moved towards the woman, but the latter bared her teeth with suspicion. There was a strange sharpness to those teeth.
"Come into the palace and allow me to remove this heavy attire. I will speak with you there."
"Ha! Not there, not in there!" the woman snarled.
"There is a pagoda over there." Zéyì gestured to the building nearby. "It is not in the palace. Will you wait for me there?"
The woman glanced at the location suspiciously.
"Who could possibly harm you here? You are clearly more powerful than any of us."
The woman sighed, and some of the madness seemed to fade from her face. Decisively, she turned and flew to the pagoda without touching the ground once, before settling herself to sit. Seeing this, Zéyì immediately turned and re-entered the palace, ignoring servants, courtiers and family alike. She strode into the place that was once her room.
"So you're going back on your promise?"
Zéyì, partway through removing her heavy bridal wear, looked over her shoulder at the woman standing behind her. Queen Mǎn Jīang's face wore some complicated expression that she couldn't understand.
"I promised to devote myself to the people, Regal Mother. This demon woman who claims to have cursed us all – she's strong. It could be true, but we won't know unless we talk to her. I am willing to speak with her - "
"Chūn Zéyì. Listen to me, your mother. Put your headdress back on, and go to the bridal sedan."
The sharpness in her voice made the back of Zéyì's neck prickle. Her hands felt suddenly weak and bloodless. "Do you not want me to talk to her, Regal Mother?"
"It's dangerous, A Lián." The Queen's tone had become wheedling. She crossed the room and gently replaced the headdress. The weight of the object could not be denied. Zéyì felt as though she were being crushed.
Mother?
"There are dangers all around us, Regal Mother. If there-"
SLAP!
Zéyì recoiled in shock. She was still reeling when a second slap met her other cheek.
SLAP!
"SECOND PRINCESS! GET. IN. THE. SEDAN."
Zéyì was on her knees, her mind barely able to catch up with what was happening.
Mother? Mother? Her own sweet mother had slapped her?
"Possession?" Zéyì whispered, scrambling upright and readying herself to exorcise demonic power. But before she could even blink, her lungs seemed to fill with water, yet her mouth felt dry. It seemed as though her very skin were shrivelling.
"I'VE HAD ENOUGH!" screeched the woman standing over her, her face twisted with malicious intent. "So pure, so holy, my daughter. How did you become this way? I'll never bow down to them again! And you, you want to talk to them?"
Who is she talking about? Zéyì thought desperately, falling to the ground, struggling to breathe. She tried to break whatever spell was holding her, but there was no demonic energy there that she could feel. What is this? Mother! Mother, stop! Please stop!
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The pain only increased as the Queen drove her hand into Zéyì's elaborate bridal hairstyle and wrenched upwards, pulling Zéyì from all fours to her knees. "You'll ruin everything I've fought for!" she was hissing furiously. "I don't care if you're my blood, I can't let that happen! Close your eyes now, child, I'll tell them what that monster did to you."
Zéyì's vision was blurring in and out. She alternately clutched at her chest and her mother's hand, ripping at both indiscriminately as panic began to rise. She couldn't focus her mind to use her cultivation, her fear exploding off her in waves that were only driving her mother further over the edge. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't. All the water in her body was being funnelled into her lungs to drown her.
And then -
A flash of light -
She could barely see now. Something glowing bronze in the dark room, between her and her mother. Her mother screaming something, the glowing thing roaring back. Blessed air, pouring into her lungs for a brief moment, the bronze glow surrounding her, lifting her for a moment.
Then it was gone.
She lay utterly exhausted on the ground, unable to see anything, consciousness fading. She heard her mother beside her, her panting breaths.
"Is that so...?" she heard the Queen say, distantly. "So be it..."
In the pagoda outside, without a single sound, the waiting woman slid sideways from the bench she sat on, and fell out of view.
And then, Zéyì woke.
And all around her were the silent waters of an unknown lake.
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Zéyì closed and opened her eyes once more to find herself back in the cave. She couldn't feel anything, not her body, not the temperature of her surroundings, not a single emotion. She would not have been surprised if her heart had stopped beating there and then.
Oh, Regal Mother.
And she felt that. She closed her eyes again.
"That looked painful," Prince Fàn Bì'ān remarked. He was sat on a tree branch well above Zéyì's guarding lotus, which had grown ten times in size and was now gleaming threatening at him.
"What does?" Zéyì asked wearily as she emerged from her hiding spot, recalling the lotus. The demon prince hopped lightly down beside her.
"Whatever you were doing in there. Your demonic and divine energies were clashing impressively."
"Ugh, I'd better leave then. Everyone in the neighbourhood would have felt that."
"They did. Your terrifying lotus has been scaring things away for the past two days."
"Is that how long... Why are you here, Your Highness? What happened to Zhū Yī Shēng?"
The prince's pretty face collapsed immediately. "She won't talk to meeeee!"
Zéyì glanced anxiously around. "Let's go somewhere else. I'm sure someone will arrive and bother us any moment."
"I'd be happy if she just looked at me," the prince whined, apparently not hearing her. "What do she like? What can I do to make her like me?"
"I honestly have no idea. She doesn't seem to like me very much."
"So why does she keep helping you?"
"Probably because... of Miss Fén."
The prince shot upright in excitement. "Then maybe Fén dàjiě knows what she likes! I'm going to go ask her." He immediately summoned his black cloud and hopped aboard.
"Wait! You know where Miss Fén is?"
"Sure. All you have to do is follow the Water energy."
"Water energy?"
Prince Fàn Bì'ān looked a little perturbed, as if he had given too much away. "Ugh, maybe I should just tell you after all..."
"I'm coming with you." Zéyì summoned her lotus... which failed to materialise. She realised she was shaking, exhausted.
"I guess you aren't," the prince said cheerfully, examining her closely.
Zéyì shut her eyes. "Miss Fén is a demon hunter."
"I know."
"She might not want to help you. Zhū Yī Shēng seems to be someone important to her."
The prince's face fell again.
"Would you like me to talk to her?"
"Hop on board, dajie!"
Gathering her remaining energy, Zéyì leapt up onto the cloud and sank down gratefully. The cloud was cool to touch, but soft as expected, and as she settled down, Fàn Bì'ān sent it soaring southwards.
South?
"Your Highness, are you sure it's this way?"
"Sure am."
Zéyì shut her mouth, pulled her robes tighter around herself, and squinted ahead against the flow of air. Trees and fields rushed away below them, and every breath she took brought them closer and closer to the edge of the Zhū Kingdom.
A place that had once shimmered like a pearl, a place of abundance and beauty, a place of peace and legend, rotted away from the core by the greed of its rulers. The palace had once stood by the mouth of the great Zhū River that the Country and Royal Family took its name from, at the side of the great ocean. A kingdom of rivers and streams that people once whispered were brimming with nature spirits, but when the kingdom fell and the land turned barren, were cursed as nothing more than demons.
Zéyì glanced at the prince beside her, who looked supremely at ease as he flew them towards what remained of Zhū. It seemed that perhaps the rumours were true, then. Zhū had fallen to demons.
So what was Miss Fén doing there? Zéyì had never felt any demonic energy from her, but neither had she been able to determine the demon hunter's true nature, at least, according to Prince Fàn Bì'ān. And somehow Zéyì didn't think he was lying to her. He seemed to genuinely think the truth could be as morally perplexing to her as a lie.
She could see the border approaching on the horizon. It wasn't difficult, the land below them was green and growing; as soon as one crossed into Zhū, not a single thing grew. All was crumbled and wasted away, green become brown.
They flew across the border and Zéyì felt the air palpably change, as if the moisture in her body were being sucked away. Even the demon prince looked uncomfortable. He pushed the cloud to go even faster.
And then...
Water?
In all this dryness, Zéyì could smell it, the scent of fresh water, elusive at first, but growing in strength as they hurried on. She wanted to lick her lips, but she was worried she would lose more moisture that way, so she controlled herself.
They met the dried riverbed of the once mighty Zhū River, now a winding path of rocks and boulders. The smell of water grew stronger and stronger.
And then, a second river, joining the Zhū River. Here, at last, a small trickle of water flowed, vanishing into some unknown cavern below the Zhū River's bed. A few struggling plants clung to life around the edges of the water.
There was someone seated in the largest pool of water, soaked to the skin. Her long wavy hair was the same colour as the river, and it fell loose over her shoulders, as if her hair and the water were one. She sat with her back to them, and as they drew near, Zéyì could see that she was contemplating a single, tiny white lotus that had fought to bloom in the little remaining water.
She must have felt them approach. A pair of grey-brown eyes, like rich river rocks, turned to meet them. Zéyì tumbled from the rapidly disintegrating cloud, and too tired to stand, she gazed at the woman before her in awe and incomprehension.
Miss Fén glared.
"What are you doing here?"