A soft chuckle filled the cave, carrying with it so much weight that not a single echo chased after it. It was as if, instead of making a sound, her laugh transmitted directly into his head and filled his body.

“It is alright child,” She petted his head. “Unlike the immortals from the stories you may have heard, I do not care for customs and formalities such as these. Raise your head.”

The way that she spoke reminded Mareus of Elder Guo in the almost ancient way that he would form his sentences while speaking in commands. Though it didn’t feel as if she was being overbearing.

Mareus struggled to his knees while looking everywhere except for her face. His eyes darted around her outline, looking into the darkness behind her, at the way her hair moved in the still air. Doing everything they could to avoid recognizing the disdain present in her gaze. Instead, when he finally met her eyes, he only saw softness accompanied by lines only formed with a gentle smile. Similar to the face a mother would make when consoling a crying child.

“Tell me your name, child.”

“M-my name… my name is Maris. I-I don't have a family name, but I was raised by a grandmother with the name Hua.” Starting to feel more comfortable, he asked. “May I know the name of the person who saved me?”

“Hmm, Mare-us.” She mulled over his name for a moment, as if she were determining what characters it used and their meaning. “Yes, it's a good name. The person who picked it chose wisely.”

He wasn't quite sure what to say. He never actually asked where his name came from. So he wasn't sure if it was his parents who chose, or his grandmother. He did ask her what it meant when he was younger, she could never give him a full answer though. Instead, she told him how the first character meant ‘endless’. “Like the boundless and infinite sea,” she would explain.

Having never seen the sea Mareus wasn't sure exactly how true that was, but he did ask a villager who had traveled outside the valley once, and they compared it to the sky. Because of that, he would often stare at the blue sky during the day, tracing the heaven’s scar as it ran into the horizon.

The woman continued to run her fingers through his hair like she would with a beloved pet. “I do have no family name. As such, I have many names over my life. The one I am currently fond of is Fu Kong.”

As if she had gotten what she came for, she gracefully rose to her feet and retreated back to the edge of the darkness. The shadows that fled when she revealed herself now returning, bathing the cave in total darkness.

“Do make sure to eat your meals, I will return with a change clothes for you. Unless, that is, you prefer those rags clinging to your bandages?”

Mareus lowered him so back into kowtow. “Mistress Fu Kong, you bless me with your kindness.”

His words were met with silence, and after a few heartbeats he raised his head to find only darkness awaiting him.

After breaking free from the awe, he finally examined his body for the first time. He had become noticeably thinner from skipping so many meals while his body was healing. It wasn't quite at the level that could be considered unhealthy, but he was already smaller than most children his age, and now he even skinnier.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

His thick black hair was crusted and knotted, with some of it knitted into his robes. It's oil seeping into what was left of his clothes and his bandages. That wasn't the worst of it, though. The thing that shocked him the most was the stench.

While retching, he thought. How did I noticed this before?

Mareus reeked with the pungent odor of rot and filth. He was reminded of after the wedding and the parts of the Shou that were left in the field to decompose before being turned into fertilizer.

Breaking free from his regrettable fantasy, he felt a kind of enlightenment that was quickly replaced with embarrassment. I can't believe I was in front of someone like her while like this. He agonized and rolled in his makeshift bed while covering his face.

He frantically looked around for anything to help him hide the stench and, hopefully, his shame. When he noticed a few things that weren't there before. The darkness of the cave faded again, as if the shadows were imitating the clouds on an overcast day.

Without the distraction of a heavenly fairy or his eyes blurred from his tears, he could finally clearly make out his surroundings. And it was no wonder he could find the exit before, instead of a wide area, naturally carved out inside a cave. The room was more like a misshapen bowl with a high ledge that led to several more dark passages.

In the bowl, the closest wall had a small table and stool with a used candle and some parchment. The adjacent one revealed a pile of furs he couldn’t recognize. On the far end of the cave were some plants he'd never seen before. As Mareus got closer he noticed: a small bucket of water, a piece of pumice soap, and a cloth.

He absentmindedly spoke. “I guess she really thought of everything.”

Mareus realized that either the stool was far heavier than it looked, or he had gotten that much weaker as he struggled to drag it between two bigger plants. He tore off his tattered clothes and sat down before fighting with his bandages.

“I'm glad you're taking the initiative to explore on your own.”

He connected the sudden voice into a lot of his feet while trying to cover anything he could. Although the remains of his robe didn't cover much more than the wraps already were.

Unbothered, Fu Kong continued. “I worried that you'd fall back into your depression after I'd left. But seeing you up and about is a testament to the strength of your soul.”

He slowly climbed back onto his seat as the strange woman spoke. Making sure to have most of his body turned away from her. When she suddenly stopped speaking, he looked back to see if he had disappeared again. Instead, she was gracefully sitting on a inky black ledge he didn't notice before.

“Mistress, I don't want to seem disrespectful, but do you need something from me?”

Her face didn't change as she thought for a moment. “There's no rush, I can wait until you're ready.”

Accepting that she had no intention of giving him any privacy, he started scrubbing the areas that weren't covered by his bandages. He quickly noticed that when he accidentally scrubbed over the edges of the bandage, it drank the soapy water. What was even more surprising was that the characters wriggled like they were alive before the bandages secreted some sort of brown substance.

The stink was even more horrendous than before, he immediately slapped it away and watched as it splashed in the bucket. The gunk sizzled away in a matter of seconds until the water was clear again.

Experimentally, he cupped his hand and scooped some of the water onto his leg. Mareus immediately regretted that because the smell was so overwhelming he released what little there was left in his stomach into the bucket.

While covering his nose, he hurriedly cleaned up the remainder of the gunk and made sure to only wash small sections before scraping away what came out into the bucket.

Train to distract himself, he started up a conversation with the woman watching over him. “You said you'd wait until I was ready. What am I supposed to be ready for?”

“Before anything else, we'll have to get you something substantial in your stomach, or you'll waste away completely. You’ll also be needing new robes that are preferably more durable. Your old ones are beyond anything that could be called clothes now, and there's no point of getting you ones that will only fall apart right away.”

Mareus stared at the tattered cloth that was no different than the rag he was using to wash his own body. Wondering just what exactly she had in store for him.