The sounds of the angry mob as they chased me down the dark, empty streets of Cassanova traveled for miles. The ground shook beneath the soles of my shoes as I ran, quaking from the hoard of people following my footsteps.

Regardless of my attempts to evade them, I’m eventually caught. Two men dragged me back to the main square, placing my hands into a pillory used for public shame, followed by my head.

I held my breath as the top half swung shut over my neck and wrists, locking me into place. I’m forced to kneel on the ground, losing my freedom to move. Some of them, who had left a moment ago, returned with what appeared to be baskets of rotten vegetables and raw eggs.

They passed them around to others, not wasting time to throw a raw egg in my direction that burst into piles of yoke. The sound of the shell cracking made me wince more than the impact. The oozing taste of raw egg was bitter, but I barely had time to recover from this experience before more items came hurling in my direction.

The two men who dragged me to the central square stripped my outer clothing. The material pulled at my neck tightly as the fabric ripped from my body. A wave of gratitude washed over me when they refrained from touching my inner layer of clothing, yet it failed to quell the shiver that ran down my spine in the face of countless malicious stares.

Unexplainable dread filled my stomach, watching one man’s attention move to my left hand, where a small silver band curled around my index finger. My heart seized in my throat, knowing what he was about to do. I begged him to leave it alone, how the ring would be meaningless, but my words seemed to fall on deaf ears, enticing him further.

He reached to yank the ring from my finger and then tossed it on the ground with my discarded clothes. Just to raise a reaction from me, he went over to stomp on the items a few times to prove he couldn’t care less about what I wanted.

The burning candle from within me flickered out. All that time I hoped for better days when ultimately my good intentions would amount to this predicament where I’m painted as the villain. Even the people I’ve lost… Why? Why was my effort never good enough to reach even one person?

“My darling,” Li Wei’s strained voice seemed to wrap me in an embrace. Standing before me, his long, delicate clothes whooshed by from having moved at alarming speed. “You’re always so damn hard on yourself.”

The crowd fell silent, horrified at Li Wei’s sudden arrival.

With a deadly calm tone unlike any I’ve heard him use before, Li Wei whirled around and addressed them with a glare, making them shrink where they stood. “Gods have mercy if another one of you throws a single damn thing at him again.”

“Wait, is that…?” a voice said. “Why is he here??”

Xu Yang appeared out of nowhere, swinging the blunt end of his sword at Li Wei’s head. The impact sent Li Wei stumbling into the ground.

The sharp edge of his sword swung towards my neck, coming to a pause underneath my chin. I exhaled sharply, having not expected his sudden movement. The cold metal brushed against my skin, making my body involuntarily shiver. With the blade, he lifted my chin, forcing me to look upward into his emotionless gaze.

The crowd stirred, picking up whatever items they could find lying around. Some items they found were even chairs or sharp objects. They gathered around Xu Yang, menacingly pointing their chosen weapons.

In response, Xu Yang laughed and looked at Li Wei’s attempt to fight him with external means. His gaze shifted to mine, sensing my growing panic. “Zhen Xue, from birth I trained to kill you. Sometimes when we were merely five, and you were asleep, mother had wanted me to kill you then.” He paused, smile vanishing. “I remember hovering over your sleeping body like a corpse with a knife in my hand, but every time I refused.”

Xu Yang inched the blade closer against my skin as though doing so reflexly, unable to control his restraint.

“I tried to get you to fight back,” he explained, as if reaching his point. “All the sword practice and times I distanced myself to protect you, but that was never enough to change your mind. You never once fought back seriously, and that pained me because I could never be as good as you.”

I released a ragged breath at being reminded this was the same person I grew up beside.

He looked at me with eyes that carried an invisible weight. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the insane one, Zhen Xue,” he said with unearthly calm. “The urge to kill is so strong that my mind almost doesn’t feel like my own anymore.”

My head pounded loudly in my ears as I recalled a shared memory, during a time not long after I came into this world.

In my bedroom, my step-mother was towering over me, glaring at my attempt to look at her properly. I could hardly believe she was so elaborately dressed for such a horrible personality. The way I stared probably struck her as though I was judging.

She wouldn’t be wrong. We only spent a couple months together, and I already hated her thoroughly.

“Where are you staring so intensely?” she demanded. “Did you finally lose your mind?!”

I swallowed hard, attempting to not shit myself senseless. Her domineering presence made me feel even smaller than I already was in this child form. It was hard not to watch her suspiciously when she could simply stomp me out of existence.

However, as that thought crossed my mind, my step-brother Xu Yang rushed to my aid, standing between me and his mother. He stretched his arms outward to block me from her view. “Mother,” he said, like uttering a foreign syllable. “Please give him a break this once. I beg you.”

Her eyes widened in surprise that he had defied her. “Oh?” she asked sweetly, her voice laced with venom. “You want to take his place?”

The memory was blurry after this point, but I remember crying.

Why? Why was I crying?

The tears kept coming in waves of grief, despite how I tried to wipe them away. My small hands clutched at my sides, trembling with helplessness. “Xu Yang…” I called out, trying to reach for him, but he pulled away.

“It’s okay. Don’t be afraid,” he offered me one last smile.

A bone-chilling realization jolted me awake, forcing me to refocus on the present. “What did she do to you?” I asked. “Your mother…” My heart seized tightly, watching his expression twist into a broken smile. “This goes beyond hating me. It’s like she rewrote the structure of your mind.”

His hand jerked the blade in his hand, nicking my skin enough to create a scratch. Upon contact with the blade, I watched the crowd flinch, threatening to take that last step forward with their weapons still raised at Xu Yang, but never crossing that line.

Xu Yang sighed, seeming somewhat satisfied and frustrated. “What does any of that matter now? You’re the failure… Allowing Shu Lian, Shu Wang, and Hua Lei to die. I’ll never forget the look on their faces as they called out for you to help them in their last moments.” His face broke down into desperation. “I needed you to help them. Why did you fail them?”

A dam burst inside my chest, unable to stop the tears flooding my vision. “I tried… I really tried!” I shouted, my voice cracking with despair. My mind grew hazy, not recognizing where I was anymore.

“No, no, no… Zhen Xue…” Li Wei said within my shattering mind.

I felt like I was sinking into oblivion.

“Don’t listen to him,” Li Wei’s voice grew more distant. “Ah Xue.”

Every breath I took sent a sharp pang into my chest like a blade, my stomach churning horribly. Each death, my lack of self worth, carved into the core of the very being, molding and shifting my insides into a puddle of nothing. I choked back another sob, tears falling from my face to the ground below. My mind was empty, my chest burning with an invisible fire that slowly consumed everything that I am or have ever been.

I heard the sickening sound of metal sinking into flesh again. There was an onset of murmured gasps, making my eyes burst open.

The crowd regained control of themselves, watching wide-eyed as Kazuo stepped away from Xu Yang with blood leaking down the Celestial Dragon Jade Saber.

Xu Yang stumbled backward after having his right arm almost taken off. He glared at Kazuo in such a vicious way, like he was ready to fight him tooth and nail, but held back. “Do you have any idea what he’s done?! How much I’ve suffered because of him?”

Kazuo ignored him. He lowered his sword, taking a step in my direction. Without a word, he broke the pillory, shattering the wood under his boot. He reached for the scruff of my neck, holding me upright before I could fall with the remains.

The scene shifted to a city that appeared to be in the sky. We were standing on what looked like clouds forged into white pavements. The exterior of buildings shone from crystal glass materials. Everything sparkled, glistening rainbow hue colors from the way the sun reflected on the different angles of the buildings.

Kazuo dragged me around for some time until we stood in front of an inn. There were a few people gathered inside, quietly enjoying their evening with their friends. “Zhen Xue,” Kazuo finally whispered.

A shaky breath escaped my lips. I looked away, feeling the stabbing pain continue in my heart. “No, don’t say it,” I sputtered out. The wind gently blew through his hair and caressed my face. He wants to say goodbye again, right? He decided I’m not worth sticking around anymore after my outburst. Even though I waited for the hammer to fall, he remained silent and never uttered those words. To my surprise, he said absolutely nothing.

Li Wei stood nearby with a weak attempt of amusement glistening in his sapphire gaze. “You picked up another brutish male, huh? This is becoming a bad habit for you.”

Hurriedly, I went to Li Wei’s side, looking him over for injuries. I reached up to touch his neck where Xu Yang had stepped on him, but sensing Hades’ stare, I pulled away.

I found a coin pouch in my pocket that wasn’t there before. Using the money without concern, I rented a room. We didn’t waste time going upstairs, the four of us utterly exhausted.

Kazuo went to the balcony without a word.

Li Wei sat down at the table. Hades joined him, looking uncomfortable.

Unbothered by any of them, I poured them some wine and then took the bottle for myself. Taking a long sip, I inhaled deeply to calm my nerves, then grabbed some cleaning supplies from the cabinet nearby.

When I sat down at the table with them, Hades looked horrified as I revealed the wound on my arm and mopped up the blood with a cloth I grabbed. “Did I do that?”

My breath was uneven by the time I discarded the ruined cloth, ignoring him. I grabbed the wine bottle again, about to pour the contents over the torn flesh.

Li Wei snapped into action, suspending my hand in the air. “Wait, my dear,” he said cautiously. “Let me do that for you.”

When I didn’t push him away, he tore some fabric from his clothes, soaking the cloth with the wine. Strangely, I barely felt him working when he addressed the wound. He applied medicine soon after and then wrapped the area in soft cotton gauze from the medical kit.

“Who could have predicted that you would embark on an adventure in the wilderness?” Hades looked away stubbornly, unable to watch me further. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re okay.”

My hand suddenly grew weak, forcing me to drop the medicine I was holding. Li Wei’s eyes widened. He caught my shoulder before I could collapse onto the floor, letting the medicine fall instead with a faint thud. Dizzily, I stared at ahead at nothing, trying to remain conscious. “I’m not so sure about that,” I replied breathlessly. “I feel sick.”

“Are you sure it’s not from the wine you were drinking?” Hades tried with a halfhearted smile.

Li Wei took my hand to check my pulse and then placed a hand on my forehead. I felt a wave of coolness wash over me as his touch soothed my boiling skin. Perhaps for a moment longer than necessary, Li Wei stayed like that, holding my stare, and then he sighed. “You’re injected with poison.”

He helped me roll to the side so he could pour energy into my back. This was a technique known for prolonging someone’s life force, so I figured the situation must look bad.

When I could breathe easier, Li Wei carefully picked me up from under my legs. “You,” he demanded at Hades, who shrank from where he sat. “Come with me,” Li Wei continued. “I need you to get whatever thing that bit him from within your realm.”

Hades swallowed, giving an urgent nod, and was gone in a flash.

“I’m taking you to my home, Zhen Xue,” Li Wei whispered, attention returning to mine. He cradled my head against his shoulder. “Get some rest.”