PROLOGUE
Blood. At the end of the day, it was always about blood.
Gao Xing collapsed into the mud. By now, dirtied clothes were the least of his problems - despite, perhaps, that he might be wearing his only set. All around him, he saw familiar faces. Faces of jest, confusion, shock, and delight. Oh, certainly delight - the intensity of schadenfreude some felt today was legendary.
But in truth… he laid alone. There was nothing to greet him but musk and grime. Even the sun shied away from him, buried beneath a stack of grey clouds. Were the world to properly reflect his being, it would only need to rain. Perhaps this cruddy weather was a good thing; if the sun was out, he wouldn’t have the ability to turn his head or the energy to shut his eyes.
“Aren’t you running?”
Gao Xing barely reacted. A short groan escaped through his lips. His eyes rolled down to his feet, where the silhouette of a young woman settled.
“Yan…”
“Gao Xing.”
Somehow, he mustered the energy to lock eyes with the fiery brunette. His, downcast and glowing with a myriad of perplexing emotions. Hers emanating a simple, smug glare. She was, of course, the one to benefit out of all of this.
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“Let me…”
“What is that, Gao Xing?”
“Let me leave. I won’t… I can’t come back.”
The girl rolled her eyes and chewed on her tongue. “I’m not going to hurt you, Gao Xing. My karma is worth ten of yours.”
Gao Xing growled and pulled himself back a step. Roughly, he climbed to his feet with all the energy he had left. Adrenaline was all that remained to power him.
Gao Yan didn’t move and merely watched with a silent smile. It set Gao Xing on edge, and his eyes darted to the distant town gates behind her. However, even the beginnings of the Elm Woods in his peripherals were silent and unmoving.
Crunch. Crunch.
The stomping of boots to dirt resounded through Gao Xing’s ears with the harshness of a thunderous drum.
“But his isn’t. Behind you, Gao Xing, not me.”
Before he could turn, a weight settled on his shoulder. A massive hand, larger than his head, gripped his shoulder and upper arm like an inescapable vice. The other, landed around his neck.
“From the Gao prince to the bastard of an outlander whore… quite the fall, isn’t it?”
Gao Xing knew that voice, but despite the rebuttal in his throat and the anger clouding his mind, he couldn’t speak a word. His hands reached for his throat, an effort to relieve the pressure.
His bones cracked. It was for naught when his vision shattered.
…
Gao Village, prosperous even amongst cities, naturally owed it all to its namesake, the Gao family. Thus, it was especially scandalous when news of the Gao heir’s coming-of-age ceremony spread to the masses.
The milkman heard it from his wife, who heard it from her knitting club, one of which heard it from her husband who worked a bar, who heard it from a gardener who tills the Gao’s estate, who heard it from the maid of a prominent Gao elder, who actually missed the event and heard it from his grandson.
Regardless of how it spread, within three days, even those laying in hospitals in a coma had likely had it whispered to them.
It went something like this.
“Did you hear about the young master of the Gao family?”
“Are you talking about Prince Gao?”
“Yeah, him. Have you heard it?”
“Heard what?”
The rumourmonger would lean in closely and whisper. “His blood is impure; the young prince wasn’t human. He couldn’t even summon a martial spirit! His coming-of-age ceremony turned into a hunting excursion!”
The listener would naturally be shocked, and within the hour, would emulate the rumourmonger to another.
Naturally, the story was embossed by some and minimized by others. However, no matter how one heard it, everyone knew that the Prince Gao of old couldn’t long to be amongst the living.