Chapter one
A few miles away from the heavenly way sect, the 'man' in the iron mask was on his hands and knees panting heavily and vomiting blood in a field of pansies.
The field of beautiful violet and yellow butterfly like flowers were famous in the area as a picnic spot and a place where lovers meet in secret but the 'man' in the iron mask had thoughtlessly trampled through them destroying most of the flowers. The only batch that remained intact were now marred by blood making them look strangely sinister.
As soon as the 'man' finished vomiting on the flowers, the mask fell off 'his' face to reveal the delicate features of a very pale young lady.
Her name was Kira, just Kira. She once had a family name but she had forsaken it along with her family when they had decided to sell her as a bride to a two hundred and fifty year old man in exchange for benefits. Now she is known as Kira and only Kira.
Kira picked herself up and slowly started to walk towards a nearby stream. Her legs were trembling and she looked like she could collapse at any moment but she kept herself upright out of sheer stubbornness. She struggled all the way to the small babbling brook that fed into a crystal clear pond and fell back onto her knees when she reached the bank of the pond, unable to proceed any further. She looked down at her own reflection to see perfectly symmetrical features, delicate cheekbones, lovely lilac eyes, thick eyelashes and small dainty lips that combined to make a face that could start wars and sink empires.
To say that Kira was beautiful was akin to saying that there are some stars in the sky or a little water in the oceans, an understatement so gross that it becomes untrue. Kira wasn't simply beautiful, her looks were divine. Even now with blood trickling out of her mouth and her complexion being as white as a sheet of paper, she still managed to have a face that could steal a person's soul.
Other women might have been happy to receive such a blessing but Kira thought that her face was more of a curse than a gift. It was the reason that the emperor of the vermilion bird continent wanted her as his concubine and her family had gladly agreed to give her up to him.
Kira shook away her troubling memories, reminding herself that it was all in the past and dived into the crystal clear pond. She slowly took off her rough baggy shirt and trousers revealing her tender and delicate skin. If you looked closely at her, you would notice that there were muscles beneath her tender skin, not the bulky ones that the other disciples were so proud of but almost inconspicuous ones that harmonized with her body making her look elegant.
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Her hands traveled to her chest and she slowly unravelled the bandages that were wrapped around her breasts, freeing her average sized breasts and only then was she able to breathe freely.
Once she was completely naked, Kira started to bathe and at the same time she circulated her qi in accordance with the first cultivation method she had ever learned and the only method that women were allowed to practice, the revolving snow lotus cultivation method. When girls reach the age of eight, almost all their meridians were crippled and only two would be left unharmed so that they could practice the snow lotus cultivation technique which was a useless technique which can only be used to increase longevity.
As Kira circulated her qi and transformed it into the calm white vital energy of the snow lotus, she didn't use it like instructed to vitalize her muscles and skin. Instead she combined it with the tiny amount of qi from the pond and ran it violently through her meridians like a rampaging beast.
Kira remembered the first time she had done this. It was after she found out that was going to the emperor's concubine. She was trying to commit suicide by using the qi to bombard herself but she had accidentally found a way to fix her meridians instead, something that was supposed to be impossible.
And now she had used a forbidden technique to escape from the heavenly way sect. It was a method that crippled meridians and so people were unwilling to use it unless their lives were in danger but Kira was different. Crippled meridians meant nothing to her and as she bathed her paleness vanished and a healthy pink flush spread through her body.
Kira slowly exited the pond and wore the baggy clothes and iron mask again. The woman who had been so weak that she collapsed and vomited blood left the small garden with steady steps, her face flushed with vitality under her mask.
She left behind a ruined garden. The pansies had been trampled and the crystal clear pond was tinged red with blood.
The once beautiful scene was forever ruined.