She could not believe her eyes as she saw her brother grabbing at his side, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. The blood oozed through his fingers and ran down his hands. He tried to grab the man by his collar, but his strength seemed to be running down and he collapsed onto the floor, lifeless.

Tears once again welled up in her eyes as another one of her important people died in front of her. At that precise moment, she still could not trust her eyes and she still held a thin thread and believed that it was not YongSan who killed her brother. She was still making excuses for him, “It is another person. I have taken him for someone else.”

However, shortly after a small group of soldiers arrived, one of them saluted to YongSan and reported to him, “Commander Yong, this place had been secured. General Sun had been killed.”

“Proceed with the other plans,” commanded YongSan coldly to the other soldiers.

“Yes, Commander Yong.”

When she heard the news, she desperately tried to stop herself from even crying as the slightest sound would alert them. “Everyone had died,” she thought to herself. “The killer is YongSan,” her heart was torn to pieces and the love she felt for him turned into a hatred deeper than the sadness she felt. She was overwhelmed with vengeance.

The other soldiers left the room and marched to other parts of the house. YongSan took out a piece of cloth and began wiping his sword clean and went away soon after.

Seeing her enemy leave, she shot out of the drawer and rushed in the direction of the small daggers on the right side of the room. Her father was a collector of daggers and there was a good collection of them suspended on the wall. She was not thinking soundly anymore, and all her mother and brother’s advice was lost against the emotions that are swirling inside her.

Like a mad woman, she unsheathed each of them and the ones that were unsuitable, she threw them onto the floor until she finally found one that was light and which she could hold and grip tightly. With the dagger in her hands, she went out like lightning and ran chasing after YongSan.

The girl was enraged, but tears kept falling down her cheeks as she remembered everything that had happened over the day. It was supposed to be one of the happiest days of her life as family, relatives and friends gathered around to celebrate this auspicious event. She had never done anything to him so why did he treat her like this. What did she do to deserve this?

Following behind, at last she was able to catch up upon him. Before she struck out at him, she waited for a chance until he stopped moving. Opportunity came, when he was talking to another soldier at the stairs just outside the inner hall where their wedding ceremony was held during the day.

Taking her chance, when the soldier left, she rushed out closing in on him. A few more steps and she could thrust the dagger into his heart. “He would not even notice what had hit him,” thought YuQiao.

However, it was not him, but her that was struck. There was another attacker that came from behind YuQiao, and he had attacked her first. She gasped; a small little moan barely even heard.

Suddenly, the pain was all over her, cruising like a snake through her back and started spreading all over her body like poison into her body and before she knew it, she was sagging forward and collapsed on the cold hard floor like a fallen tree onto the ground with a loud thud. The pain was so immense that it drained all the power from her body. She doesn’t even have the power to lift herself up or the strength to even turn her head around to see the face of her attacker.

Rain was beginning to pour outside; she could feel it, how they move in slow motion and she sees it as the droplets of water began descending down from heaven and the loud booming sound as they shatter when they touched the hot floor and seeped onto the dry ground. “At least the fire will die down. At least my beloved home will not disappear completely,” thought YuQiao.

Although, her senses were sharpened, but her body on the other hand was becoming dull, the blood in her veins was moving slower, her heart was beating sluggishly; two seconds a beat, three seconds a beat, and then four seconds a beat, it was lagging behind in its beat. “Beat faster,” scolded YuQiao to her heart. “I do not want to die. I haven’t had my revenge yet.” But her body ignores her words and continues gradual heading towards death.

Suddenly, a pain that resembles a flash of lightning struck her, she bit her lower lip and releasing it when it passes, leaving a subtle white mark on her rosy lips. Someone was lifting her up; it was YongSan, even though right now, at this moment she could no longer see. The sensation of his hand as he picked her up from the floor, she could feel it.

YuQiao felt the howling wind outside and the rain splashing into the house, as some of it touched the skin on her hand. And then she felt a drop of water falling onto her face.

She would be lying if she said that she doesn’t know whether the droplet was from the heavens or from him as she felt the bead trickled down from above her.

There is no use to ask any more questions and to demand any more answers.

She managed to speak, “I hate you,” she told him, directing all her hate with it and as if decided by fate, she could no longer hear at that point, her hearing was muffled. The words spoken in reply to her remark could no longer be heard even if YongSan was screaming the words to her.

And then the ability to speak was also robbed from her and she descends into a long sleep in his warm and repulsive, blood-stained arms.