Under the cover of night, a small figure scurried through walls of dense foliage. A thin, worn cloak fluttered in the midnight wind. Thorns grabbed forth and snatched bits and pieces of the figure’s cloth, leaving behind his tracks. With every step, globs of mud flew up and weighed him down more and more.

Not far behind, a horde of footsteps sounded furiously. A single voice travelled through the forest, “He cannot escape! Whoever captures him will be generously rewarded and promoted to an elder of the Bai clan!”

Hearing this, the eyes of the pursuers glowed red, hastening their steps. With each passing second, the gap only shrank, slowly sealing the fate of the figure.

Before long, his breath turned heavy, white mist scattering on each exhale. The steady pace that he kept slowed and his heart pumped irregularly.

His eyes darkened as he felt himself passing out. His thoughts were in complete shambles, but he pushed on solely through the sheer force of his will. Glancing ahead, he could see some light! A clearing!

In a final burst of energy, he broke through the towering trees. However, the moment that he cleared the forest, his hope plummeted. It wasn’t a clearing that he reached, far from that. Before him was a chasm of intangible depth.

The figure halted his footsteps near the edge of the abyss. Looking down, the hairs on his arms perked up. Deep within, a radiance of certain death manifested. The light from the moon couldn’t reach even part of the depths.

Behind him, the people chasing also burst through the clearing one by one. The face of the man leading the charge lit up when he saw the figure facing the crevice. It was the same man who shouted earlier. He snickered and mocked the figure, “Weiyang, it seems like the fortune that damn woman gave you has run out. You can only blame your own luck for ever being born to this clan!”

He waved his arm and the people behind him formed a net around Bai Weiyang, leaving no gaps in between. Surrounded, he could only back up. The ledge of the abyss loomed like a towering mountain before him that he could not cross.

Forcing himself to calm down, he glanced around, looking for any path that he could use to flee, but there was no way out. In front, there were too many people. Behind, there was only the endless abyss.

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Seeing the bits of hope fleeting from Bai Weiyang, the man’s lips curved even more, “There’s no escape! You can only wait for your capture.”

Knowing that there was no way out, Bai Weiyang relaxed. He straightened his posture and stuck his chin out at the man, “Uncle, you may now control the clan, but you will never control my destiny.”

Closing his eyes, he leaned back into the abyss.

Seeing what he was doing, the man’s face twisted hideously, “Quick! Catch him! We cannot let him fall!”

Nonetheless, no matter how loud the man could shout, it was too late. By the time the first man peered over the ledge, Bai Weiyang was already engulfed in the dreadful darkness and fell from view. As he dropped, he cupped his hands and whispered towards the sky, “Mom… Dad… your son was unfilial.”

The man who forced Bai Weiyang to his death screamed, desperately reaching out trying to grab Bai Weiyang, but his hands only caught open air.

The abyss swallowed him whole, leaving him falling in complete and utter darkness. Bai Weiyang had already accepted death the moment he chose to lean back, waiting for it to arrive in peace.

Suddenly, the temperature around him plummeted. In a mere instant, his entire body was frozen solid. With this, his consciousness faded away, leaving behind only an empty shell.

Even the whistling sound of the air was suppressed. Total silence elapsed as his body fell. Below, the ground quickly approached.

“…”

Almost serenely, his body mutely struck into the floor of the abyss, shattering him to pieces. It was as if Bai Weiyang’s death meant nothing to this world.

The ground beneath his incomplete remains was unnatural. It carried a ghastly gray color that felt devoid of life.

The soil greedily consumed the bits of frozen blood that landed on the ground, turning from its original gray to a dim red.

The faint streaks of red wandered along the soil before reaching a faint silhouette. When the first bit of red touched the silhouette, it began glowing a subtle red hue, ever so slightly revealing itself.

Looking closely, it was a flower! How could there be any form of life that could survive in this cold, empty environment?

This flower was similar to a lotus, but it wasn’t like an ordinary lotus. As the glow spread, it revealed nine, pure-white pedals.

As if energized from the red soil, the lotus ravenously sucked in the blood, returning the soil to its original gray color. Its pedals now glowing a luminous vermillion in the process.

After all of the blood was absorbed by the lotus, an invisible force swayed the pedals of the lotus to face towards the last remains of Bai Weiyang.

After a moment, an exceedingly faint blue gas was drawn out of each shattered piece. Every piece released a small ball of this blue gas that drifted towards the lotus.

When the gas touched the pedals of the lotus, it dimmed the luminescence of the lotus and a bit of red color was lost. After every piece of the gas touched the lotus, it returned to being a dark silhouette, completely losing its glow, almost as if nothing had happened.

After the lotus had eaten its fill, a slow wind glazed across the bottom of the abyss. It softly picked up the white lotus and carried it along its way.