A long croak of the trees echoed through the forest, their branches like hands that reached down below two cradled teenagers in eager attempt to expose them to the sunlight above the canopy of leaves.
Zihun kept his face to the ground. The crunch of grass and grinding of sand under a heavy shoe, clanks of steel against steel-leather armor ever closer. He held his breath, and pulled in his legs and arms to his body. There really was no place to hide if he let himself be sprawled across the ground.
"Zihun! Little brat! Where have you gone off, huh?"
Oh, Banes above the grounds or heavens wherever you are, please protect me from this beast of a man! He whispered over and over in his mind, though he doubted his irreligious side would get him anywhere.
The footsteps came near the shrub, the rustles of the leaves against the leg of the tall man. Not just a meter ahead sprouted lush bushes, perfect place for prey to hide the thick blanket of tree branches, and the green shadowed over the area in a dark overcast. He grunted and turned on his heel. His footsteps became distant to become as quiet as the ripples of water.
Zihun squinted open his eyes, rocking back and forth. He squirmed out of a fetal position. Akin to an old snail, he peeks over the puffy bush, just barely. He thought, if he were to peek out too much, there was no guarantee that he would not be flayed for running off!
"One, two…three." He counted three seconds as cheeks stretched into a smile. Built yet juvenile in appearance, his tan face was as brilliant as a summer sun, brown hair and eyes a honeydew under the slits of sunlight through the thickets. He looked down near where his feet were, to see Mo Ge wrapped tightly to his knees. Zihun frowned and kicked his arm.
"Woah!" Mo Ge slammed into the grass and dirt, almost too…pathetically like some ragdoll.
Zihun grimaced at the sight. "Come on, stand up! What are you doing ground for, gege?"
"Don't kick me! My leg is probably thinner than your arm, and you still have the violent urge to use force against me? I could've waited till you finished practice and now we are being chased by your mentor because somehow I got dragged into escaping with you."
Mo Ge sat up straight, stroking his arm. His round eyes, soft like a girl, gave Zihun a stinky glare—but he looked so much like a maiden that Zihun felt a sudden guilt that he had kicked a girl. Mo Ge was a handsome lad, with a lovely pair of brown apricot eyes and dark brown hair, coupled by gentle features
Zihun swiped his head to the side and patted the dust from his clothes, his sharp eyes tempered by martial arts locked to the red face of his older friend. "What is gege yapping about? Come on! We gotta get out of here before daren—"
A crack broke the silence.
As alert as a hunt dog, Zihun propped to the sound of tumblings pebbles, the rustles of leaves, and the voices of the breeze—blood roiled in his body, pulsing into loud palpitations in his ear.
Streaks of ice ran through his spine where he had pierced his gaze—staring at the expense of the dark forest. His fingers twitched, heels off the ground like a deer rather than the hunt dog he was. He swallowed, turning his body to face the gloomy stretch of labyrinth of trees and thickets.
A deer? A rabbit? There was no way for there to be a tiger or leopard. He knew this forest like the back of his hand, the lines of his palm.
Another snap and rustle of leaves.
"Zihun." Mo Ge whispered from behind him, barely up on his knees, hands curled into blue robes. "What was…that?"
Zihun stretched my hand outward, and Mo Ge clamped his mouth shut with his hand. Stealthy steps forward where his heel guided his steps, he held his hands near his abdomen. His clothes stuck to his back in cold sweat, breath just shy of releasing.
He had no enemies, no person to beget a grudge towards him. He had no riches nor a notable title of envious covet. So, if it were for none of those, what was the purpose of this?
His heart stopped for a second, hands laxed to his side as the image of an older man flashed, his older brother.
Knots coiled in his throat, and he almost croaked. "Gege, are there any tigers or predators in this forest?"
Mo Ge, about to respond, fell short of his words. There was no one who knew this forest better than Zihun. There was no reason to ask him. The silence was all Zihun needed.
Zihun turned on his heel and kicked dust with his feet towards Mo Ge. Swift to grab ahold of his wrist and yank from the ground, he dashed forward and out the bushes and towards the dense thickets the opposite side.
Like a pair of swallow birds, they faltered and sprinted. As would a tempest that rumbled below their feet, they were light and frantic. Thin branches and thorny bushes ripped into their robes, cutting into their flesh, a trickle of red bleeding down Zihun's cheek.
"Zihun!" Mo Ge spouted in heavy breaths. "Stop running so fast with me! I can do it mys—"
"Shut up!" Zihun slapped a branch in the front, then ducked under the thick arms of the trees. "You can barely outrun a child!"
A whistle screeched through the forest like the sounds of a thousand rattling bones. A rush of cold flooded into his flesh, and he threw his legs forward.
"Gege, run, run! We have to go! We have to—ah!"
He tumbled to the ground, a coil of vines at the tip of his feet. Propped up his hands, his body weight against them, he pushed himself up, foot on the ground. A sudden pain ricocheted through his ankle, and he fell back to the soil.
"Zihun, no, no…" Mo Ge rushed forward to his knees, hands hovering over the ankle. Flushed in ghostly pale light, face drenched in cold sweat. Like he would burn the red skin of the ankle, his finger flinched back. A whimper like a puppy, a dog cornered, a streak scarred into his cheeks. He opened his mouth, hand cupped like a feather around Zihun's hand.
Zihun grinned, pulling himself up. "Run. Please, survive at least."
Mo Ge turned green then a rush of red pooled into his pale cheeks. "Have you lost your mind? How—how could…" the words squirmed and whimpered into silence.
The thuds of a stampede drew closer, and Zihun looked in his front at the boy. Without a second wasted, pulled him forward by the wrist, then threw him into a bush after a slam to the forehead.
"A boy?"
Zihun's throat crumpled into a chokehold, mind dazed. An adult's voice—his breath became labored. He looked up, face as solemn as a hawk, and his gaze as defiant as a prideful crane. He held his hand behind his hunched back which trembled.
Wrapped in a brown hood, thick shirt that crossed over in a knot to the front, and fitted trousers—there was a sword around the man's hand. With a watchful regard, he took into account Zihun's appearance. Two more men appeared right behind him, curious to see who was still alive. Their eyebrows tightened.
"Isn't this just a boy? Aren't we looking for that Yang Xirui?" the man to the right spat out in a high pitch.
I knew it. They’re looking for elder brother.
The man whose gaze fled not even for a second blurted, "Kill him."
Zihun swallowed down a thick ball of regret. If he were to die now, then so be it. He closed his eyes, and refused tears and fear to take control of his body, and he pushed his chest forward.
"Ahhhhhhhh!"
A splat of liquid sprayed across his face in red, warm and sticky to the touch, metallic to the nose. Zihun's eyes burst open, and it all happened before a second passed. Split in half, a fountain of blood poured and entrails dropped to the ground, bile and stomach acid, and halves fell apart from the middle to drop to the side.
Zihun felt his heart go cold, eyes drooping to the bloodied hand—as it twitched and moved like a bug. Caught in a rope, unable to breathe just for the stench of thick iron to course into his lungs, he sat as frozen as a deer.
In quick succession, the second man couldn't even reach for the blade in the scabbard, before a black blade pierced into his eye. The sound of breaking bones, squelching blood parroted over and over in Zihun's mind. Falling out of the socket in crimson puddles followed by a line string like a parasite to fall before the blade cut sideways where the skull split open and a splat of pink spilled out.
The third screamed and gargled the sword up his mouth and through his throat. Eyes gouged, he screamed, falling to the ground. Flailing and thrashing, he wriggled like a worm, until the black blade stabbed right into his heart, twisted then pulled out.
Zihun felt his body like a dead man, deaf to the noise and mind blind to the front, like he was no longer in his body but floated out to escape what he had seen. He lifted his shaky head, and felt a scream suppressed in his throat.
With a body built like a panther, face shadowed by a tattered hood, black martial arts clothes darkened in blood. Hair as black as night peeked from beneath the hood, and the powerful hands were as bright as the crimson sanguise that crawled in the grass.
Zihun felt a ragged breath past his lips.
The brutal figure turned his imposing body to face Zihun. Although masked under the hood, nothing made short of his intimidating predator presence. Zihun looked at the body and retracted his gaze in an instant.
"Stand up and leave, boy, and take your friend," a deep voice, like a growl, droned. Neither held in concern, compassion, nor kindness—the authority from his words were enough for Mo Ge to crawl out of the bush in a split second. Unyielding to ever gaze at the brutalized bodies, he dragged Zihun. His eyes were closed shut, a single tear to further stain his red-tinted corners.
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But Zihun never let his gaze off the man. Perhaps it was fear, but he felt that this day, this moment, would be etched into the crevice of his soul and mind as a parasite. That callous voice, the dead assassins, and thick stench of blood.
"Why did you save us?" Zihun blurted.
For a second, he thought he saw purple eyes beneath the hood, only for it to turn away.
"Live to grow up and become a good man. Both of you."
Zihun felt for a minute that he had heard the words of a god, self-assured and unfettered.
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"Ouch!"
Mo Ge frowned, slapping the washcloth to Zihun's face. "What were you thinking! Idiot, insufferable, you could've died because—" he bit on his lip, a well of tears at the corner of his eyes. "You could've died because of me."
Under a meager candlelight in a rotting bathtub in a dilapidated room, creaks echoed to howling winds. Zihun sat in water, shivering in the warm embrace of the heat. His face was glazed as if a yaoguai snuck into his body and took his soul. Mo Ge pursed his lips and sighed; as he tucked his sleeves in, he scrubbed the dirty body, stuck in blood, and the cheeks red.
"Gege."
Mo Ge continued to scrub his back. "What is it?"
"That man saved us, right?"
Mo Ge's hand stopped for a second. "...maybe."
He didn't see what Zihun had seen, and he could only be grateful that he hadn't. But when he looked at a faraway gaze that seemed to see into the void, a slight knife stuck to his heart. For a little bit, he wished he could have been the one to take Zihun's place.
With the slap and wring of the washcloth, Mo Ge stood up and walked away. "Make sure to sleep properly, Zihun."
"Mm."
Water dribbled from his long hair. He stared at the water where he sat and saw the swiveling blood in the tub. The image of the split body, skull and mouth came back like a tsunami. A stone nudged into his throat and he took a deep breath and sunk into the warm water—to forget the shrouded face and the thick curdle of blood.
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“The gray stone pathways winding through the Yang residence were plump…with scarlet blossoms of crabapple, and blushed by the petals like pink seashells by the beaches of Tianchao. I…”
His hand stopped; fingers gripped tightly to the wooden body of the brush, hovering over the rough paper on the darkwood desk. Brash and reckless—he was that. Meek and quiet in deposition—he was called that. Zihun's gaze drifted out the window in front, a single solace in the dark room. This window was his peephole during these hours.
Maids (tongfangs graced by the touch of the lord of the manor) passed by. Their hairs in updos, butterfly robes fluttering in the wind whilst they giggle along the way. The rustles of leaves scattering across the autumn season swirled upwards. White strings hovered outside the window, hanging on an old tree of hundred years, a symbol of the ancestral line of the venerated Yang household.
Wind chimes whistled as the breath of air passed, and the words on the paper stained in black spots the longer Zihun drifted from the confines of the room. He was already imagining what he would do once he was done with the lesson worth nothing, and a smile almost lifted his lips when he thought of a certain sensitive-souled old boy.
When he saw the carefree leaf flutter to the air, he felt like he had seen himself for a second: free.
“Yang Zihun, what are you doing? The ink is making a mess.”
He stiffened like a board, sheepishly looking to the side. With arms folded behind his back and a tight bun, a prestigious figure bloated his chest in pride. His eyes gazed down on him as would a human to a worm. His long beard spoke of his status, but Zihun couldn't help but look down on it. Who made a beard related to how amazing a man is?
Puffing his chest out, eyes strict, Zihun almost rolled his eyes. To him, an old feeble man who couldn't enter the government was nothing short of a failure in the eyes of a scholar. The tutor heralded himself to be. If he was, how come this pupil of his, Zihun, was not enough yet despite learning poetry for so long? Even his brown hair was turning white and beard was freckled in white strands. Zihun's face turned in slight disdain.
A glint in the tutor's gaze turned sharp, darkening almost too much.
Zihun shuddered.
“Have the manners to at least respond.”
He looked down at the paper. The splotches of ink were like a flower—erratic like a lily. Zihun shrugged his shoulders and looked back at him. “I don’t know what else to write.” He put the brush down with a snap. “It’s hard.”
“It never matters what you know, but what you must understand of poetry and eloquent speech.” He picked up his paper. Zihun, knowing what mess he had written, immediately looked away. “But this is unacceptable. It is not how you write, but how stiff you sound.”
A lump grows in his throat, rolling down in prickly spikes. He was like a dog, even when he stared at his tutor, but not longer than a second before a chill raced down my back. His blue lanshan wrapped proudly around him, befitting his status as a scholar and tutor, despite his prideful demeanor.
Zihun pulled in a shaky breath and closed his eyes, hands as taut as a claw to his ruqun.
The sound of a muffled sliding door echoes through the empty room.
It was like a fortress had been formed, and walls as high as the heavens. A sudden chill pulling into your soul. A series of thuds turn the atmosphere to stone, slowly creeping to Zihun's throat like a snake.
“How is this child doing in studies?”
A glance to the tutor revealed a glint of disappointment lucid on a wrinkled face. Sweat drenched Zihun's back as his hands grew cold. The freezing silence turns loud with each thud that drew closer, creeping behind like a monster in tales told by storytellers in Yinghua central district.
A rough hand slides down from my head to shoulder, and pathetic yelp barks from his lips like a helpless puppy; a touch without love, gentle in hate, strong in callous anger rubbed their fingers into the sockets of his shoulders.
Zihun dared not to look back, never. Never. He had to cause as little trouble as possible, to be able to make it out of this. He was not willing to rebel or utter a word.
"He barely improved from the last time I was here, Daren. Shallow learning of the arts,” the tutor stated with a flat tone. “I have no hopes for this child, in all honesty.”
The hand on his shoulder gripped tightly into his flesh. Zihun almost felt like vomiting and groaned, quick to bite down on his lip, the taste of metal seeping into the tongue. Don’t say anything, don’t show fear. Those were the things he told himself everyday. He lowered his head further down.
“Worthless,” a spit of whisper turns sharp like razors. Zihun grunted under his breath, bone and shoulder began to squeeze inwards like the bite of a tiger had grabbed ahold “Hey, $boy, look at me.”
No. He refused. Curled into his hands and palms, blood pulled into the skin, turning to rock under clawed fingers.
The man's hand pushes against his shoulder, the flesh crying under the lethal hold of the man. His ‘father,’
He silently lamented and begged to the heavens or hells below where he read was the afterlife. To be relieved of this treatment, he was determined. Zihun knew better than anyone else: once he looked back, then there would be no point to living. A drop of warm liquid leaks down to his hands, sliding down cheeks to mouth. The salty taste of tears coated him in a sense of safety, a safety that he acquired from his own company.
“Laoshi, you are dismissed for the day.”
Zihun swallowed down. It was happening. With a lowered gaze and a sealed tongue, he strayed from uttering what may make this worse. As the footsteps retreated and the sliding door clicks shut, Zihun closed his eyes, lifting his other arm to wipe the tears.
The boulder on his shoulder lifted and he pulled in a sharp breath.
Still, he remained in the chair.
“Stand up,” a frosty air held him captive.
He shook his head. Those tears he wiped away returned as streaks burned his cheeks, hair like poles of bamboo.
No… Zihun muffled to himself. The sound of the ruffles and shuffles of clothes envelop the room, and he pressed himself down onto the chair.
It'll be over anyway, he told himself.
“Stand up, or I’ll beat you harder.”
The whimpers sputter out. A deafening series of booms swells like thunderstorms, a mangled strain over his chest.
He refused.
He didn't want to stand.
He hissed when a dark puddle grew beneath his hand, raw throbs as fingers turned warm, slippery, and the stench of metal.
His fingers jerk open, and a deep red stain deep beneath fingernails and the lines of his palm.
“Worthless—” thud “—useless—” thud “bastard.”
As quick as he turned around, he looked back. His gaze retreated, but before he could run and take himself far away, he found himself walking backwards. A quick grab from the back of his collar, a short scream cut as gargles of his cries choke against the shirt slamming against his throat.
His head banged against the wooden floor, then a bolt of pain ran through his body. He kicked his legs around; his back scraped against the floor. The collar released him, and a raspy breath and cough blew out from his lungs.
He immediately turned stiff, the skin under his clothes dripping in sweat. Hair fell down to his face mingled with the tears.
He shuddered when he looked up. A straight retractable stick was gripped tightly around his roughened hands. His eyes shoot to the man's —brown eyes, black hair in a bun, and a short beard. When their eyes met, a jolt of fear, pure fear, forced the acid in his stomach to pool into his mouth. Zihun quickly swallowed, and a hoarse whimper followed
“All you are good for is nothing. What more can you do to make me furious? Just…” he let out a shaky breath, eyes turning a bright shade of red. “Is being a bastard child not enough? You are a failure! Nothing you ever do can ever change how worthless you are! Is being born of…filthy blood the cause of this sheer lack of capability? How—how is simply looking at you…”
His hand grips the rod, and Zihun immediately curled in a fetal position.
Please no. He gripped his hair, pulled himself closely into his body.
The sound of whipped air, then a burst of shock ran through his body; he sucked in a sharp breath.
“Please stop,” he whimpered.
It hurts. He cried over and over in his head.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Skin became rigid where it struck. One came down to his hands folded behind his head, and his nose slams into knees. Soon, trickles of warm blood dripped down the floor. When he open his eyes, a tear fell down his cheek, falling into the red pool beneath his nose.
He felt like his body began to float out of his consciousness, and the pain, the tears were all an illusion.
“You infuriate me so much!” He slammed his arms over and over again, switching from his legs to Zihun's back. “Useless, useless!” A scream, words of hate, ripped through the room, and all Zihun could do was to close his eyes.
No more of his words—He didn't want to listen to this anymore.
It hurt.
It came again.
And again.
Zihun sniffled, blood and snot traveling up his nose, and drifted away from the world and reality, and with it, it no longer felt like a long time had passed. His body had already gone rigid everywhere.
The man threw the rod to the floor and stomped away, cursing under his breath. “Just look at yourself in the mirror. You already know, you just know how much you are a burden, a blight to my name.”
"It’s not like you ever told people in this world about me. They don’t even know that I am from this family…not like I am at this point," Zihun whispered softly so that only he could hear these words.
The door to the room slammed shut. Alone again, his hands were against the floor, pushing me to sit up. He sometimes wondered if this 'father' did this intentionally, dragging him across to beat at this place.
He looked up and past his exposed shoulder. Long streaks leaked from his nose like a red string of fate. His fate in this household—this estate of the Yang. This 'father' always told him this, and maybe that was why he always brought Zihun here: to see just how he looked. Although long gone to leave him in the quiet cold room away from sunlight, he felt the warmth that crept through the window.
His brown eyes reflected back at him, from within the mirror and in them. A crack ran along the edge of the corner to the bottom left corner, fractures trickling from the line, almost like an unending river.
He looked at his hair, matted down by dried sweat, tears, and maybe blood. The long strands tickled his ears. And his brown wild hair was just like his father’s—real father. Certainly not from his beautiful mother.
His mother was someone whose hair shined in beautiful shadowy locks. Framed against her beige skin and lips always painted red, she was the symbol of beauty in the Yang household, the pride and trophy of General Yang. Aside from a few fragmented memories in childhood, Zihun only caught glimpses of his mother and spent only one teatime with her, but when he had seen her, he could understand why the people of Yinghua loved her so much and treasured her like a precious jewel.
Maybe that was why the man who married her could not stand that someone else begot Zihun—a bastard born out of wedlock and betrayal of marriage vows. No matter how Zihun looked, there was nothing to second-guess. Appearance mattered little when blood ran thin; he was a disgusting blight.
Zihun shifted around his knees, eyes twitching when he winced. He pulled his hand up and stared at a growing red line across his tan skin, the curved cuts across his palm trickled with red tears. He lifted his hands where his fingertips traced the strands matter down by bodily fluids.
A heavy sigh pushed past his pallid lips; he turned his head, but stopped for a second. His hair had seemed more of a mature bearing, long and slightly curled down to his back. Last he knew, it was to his shoulders, but it was not an irregular thing to be surprised by his physical changes—he never dared to look in a mirror unless he was brought here to his knees.
He grunted and bit down on his lip. With a shaky step forward, one leg casted in bandages, each thud sent jolts through his bones. His raw flesh scraped against the fabric, like needles sunken into lacerated skin. Each step was either too forward or too back.
"Gege…" he grunted. By the city center where the river flowed, he waited. Without knowing, a slight smile lifted his lips. He knew how the older boy disliked getting his hand dirty, so he promised to peel another mandarin.
"Ha…" he sighed and pushed away other unnecessary thoughts. It was important to rush to the place first. Other things could wait. To the thought, a faint smile and blossom grew in his heart.
Yet, this feeling of empty kinda was…a bit sad. Zihun knew he had to endure all that without reacting. If he had even retaliated with a stare, he would have been locked in here for a week, and he was already the previous week after escaping. But for him—if it was for Mo Ge, it was okay.
His feet took easier steps, it wasn't as obvious that he was limping. "Ha…" another breath trembled out his mouth. He took his hand and wiped his nose with the sleeve.
Just as he reached towards the door and his fingers through the hole to slide it open, his eyes widened and his hand flicked away. It slammed open and behind it, that 'father' and multiple men stood.
Zihun felt his eyebrow tighten, but he had a bizarre feeling. A swallow and a word, "What…?"
He didn't understand what the imperial guards had found to find themselves in this situation. His gaze swept through the crowd, and then a gasp caught in his chest. Black hair tied in an ornate hairstyle adorned by gold, her gaze is turned away from Zihun down to her feet.
Zihun stared at her—will she not look at me? He yearned in his heart. Lips always painted red, and a chrysanthemum embroidered onto her hanfu, he felt a string tying a noose around his heart at the one who refused to comply with his gaze.
“Take the boy.”
Zihun shuddered. He whipped head and stared at that man, whose gaze was void of anything. Not even anger. Before he could demand a thing, they grab his arms and begin to pull him away.
“Wait.” Zihun tried to yank free. His skin burned from the wounds, but more from the fear of what might happen. He frantically looked at all of them as they pulled me down the hallway. “Wait a minute!”
He turned around, and there, stared at her again. Why aren’t you stopping them? Why can’t you save me? Zihun screamed in his mind, until the words flew into rage, “Mother! Please, help me!”
The man, his ‘father’ looked at him: “You will become the vessel of war.”
That was the last time he ever saw her. He never even got to hear her voice again, nor did he see her eyes.