Wei Zhiruo had spent most of her life like a rootless duckweed – afloat a seamless dream. Seldom stopping to refrain her heart and listen to its quiet voices or to its urgent protests. As a result, when silence did dawn upon her, by chance and by good fortune, she was left overcome with resounding discomfort, fixed stiff in speechlessness.

As the only child of her father, with a crown to claim – more than that, a dream to fulfill; a dream that had been dreamt by so many souls, and by so many minds that its brevity was only more obvious, its enamor all the more grievous - a life with only her own wants and needs was completely foreign to her. Her birth was a callous cause; she was told that she was to be nothing but hope from day one.

“As our future queen, no...rather as the last seed of our bloodline - you cannot be selfish and only think of yourself. No! You must dedicate your life to regain us some hope. Child, I ask a lot of you - but you should know that since your Awakening, you ceased to be just a mere crown princess of our kingdom. Now, your duties lie elsewhere...in revitalizing our dying world-” A soft, apologetic voice reverberated.  

“Why me?”

Because an oracle had sentenced her to that fate, someone had answered. Right on the day she was born, she was declared the ‘key’ to revitalize her dying world. How would she do that? No one knew. But she must be able to do something and that was the most common belief of everyone.

Growing up, she had heard of this grandeur of her fate. Of its wonder and how much luck she had because she was the last and the only one who could hold such a key to this glamorous fate-the last of her bloodline! She was to be the enigma, the only hope – a hope for her clan, as well as all the people inside her kingdom alike. A hope that could bring them out of their senseless mortality and make them all Immortals again- place them at a pedestal from where the horizon would never shrink, and where the day would in its glory and glamor encapsulate power and eternal life for all and that, for eternity.

Everyone had a share in that enigmatic dream. Maybe, in the beginning she might have held a place in it too-! Now, no more of that.

For a while Wei Zhiruo couldn’t help but refrain from remembering those things from her past life. She tried to stop thinking altogether – a desperate move to shirk thoughts that never left her, but unfortunately she didn’t succeed for long. There was an urgent need to sort out every possible mystery of her past life that was eating her up from inside.

Alas! Finally defeated by all her own efforts that seemed to be going nowhere, she let herself fall back, wordless, over the canoe – now, floating amidst huge blooms of violet water lilies . All while still refraining to accept that faint loss of connection her death had brought to her. That would definitely take some time, she thought.

The flowers, though, were blooming spectacularly. Splattered amongst lotuses of warmer hues – blossoming so sagaciously in their unaltered grace and purity, so brightly and breathtakingly in their bewitching potency, that it seemed for a moment at least, as if they were ready to transcend their mortal ties. Everything was just short of achieving a miraculous beginning - like her own life had this sweet morning.

Wei Zhiruo straightened her neck, cradling them in between her folded arms. She was lying down with her back against a seldom used canoe. Probably abandoned by the shore. 

In fact, it was all chance encounter that she could have even found such a spot, so well-hidden and quietly tucked between abandoned courtyards, and ghostly looking chambers and corridors. Such was the state of abandon in here that she had even spotted a pillar almost leaning down, just awaiting a simple push to come toppling down with all its roof and walls! She had never seen such a state of ruin before. Not inside an inhabited place at least.

While she observed her surroundings, Wei Zhiruo continued to struggle to control her thoughts. In a while, her body seemed petrified almost, not due to the cold of the night but her mind being forced to enter a state of deep meditation.

If there was a person standing by the shore at this moment, he would in all faith - after ignoring those random flickers of agony, or twinges of great forbearance that emerged on her features – take that child as the most fairylike observer of that beautiful nightscape and its various pleasures: the moon, and enchanting breezes swimming over senses...everything.

Or maybe even a reluctant part of it. From afar this glimpse of her reverie filled desolation looked something of a lore. If one followed her tiny shadow flickering on silvery moonlit water, they might even hastily declare her a phantom or a nymph. Although neither of these descriptions would have suited her most in her detachedness or done justice to the workings of her consciousness embroiled in a storm. But it would suffice to capture that wandering imagery of which she became a reluctant part of.

In that state of half abandon, enhanced by deep meditation, Wei Zhiruo was immersed in investigating every part of her own body; from her physical body to the state of her own soul. But while she was busy doing that, a range of ‘thoughts’ floating around herself kept filling up inside her. She felt herself becoming too stifled in them. To such an extent that she could hardly breath! She huffed, and broke out of her meditative state. 

The girl sat up and took in deep breaths to calm her mind.

‘Now, there is no way but to let them go,’ Wei Zhiruo thought.  

Although the risk of letting her thoughts loose were great and with tasteless aftereffects, she couldn’t help but let them loose. Deciding that, she didn’t wait for long.  A floodgate opened up and crushed through her pores. It was sudden. Several shock waves raged through her body and Wei Zhiruo hit the bottom boards with a thwack, falling right on the back of her head. She stifled a cry -

She really had not anticipated this overcharged, zealous sort of thrumming anxiousness!

She thought, and kept thinking of all kinds of things. And all she could do for some while was think…and think some more! Thoughts filled the crevices of her unaligned soul, some echoing with harsher intensity than others. If she were to escape from their clutches at this moment, she might as well have a better chance to just abandon her bodily cage! Thoughts fed her, clothed her and watered her self – drowning her in themselves. What it exacted, it echoed and with unwavering force in belief. The cacophony of its rage dawned over a worn-out Wei Zhiruo. As she tried to balance her aching feverish body against the swaying boat, a torn and crushed soul thrummed and throbbed. Shivers never ceased wreaking havoc inside her body, she was shaking quite badly by the moment her thoughts properly found their usual pace.

But before that it was painful, all white for some while. The implications weren’t good – a strong ache thundered through her body, almost dislocating her from her languid repose. If she hadn’t been on the look-out for it, the silent night might have echoed with her resentful cry like a vengeful ghost!

Fortunately, she had suffered worse - this little bit of discomfort could still be suffered through without crying. She clutched the boats side-boards and didn’t let the raging waves of pain shaking her body affect the boats outside equilibrium. 

Wei Zhiruo opened her red eyes, filled with traces of water and flooded in pain. She had a hard time concentrating, but finally settled on one stream of thought rather than letting her mind do its thing and jumble up all sorts of information. She filtered images from her past life, shrugging away memories attached to them or the thoughts that floated on the surface. 

All those secret liaisons, holed up meetings with her loyal friends, or some moments spent under the warm light of her father’s magnificent library - a piece of her heaven…

Or a much warmer image of herself, sitting on a terrace basking in the sunlight of a clear Autumn day, brushing her fingers in white fur…a leaf fell, and she looked up and someone close to her said- “And what about tea? Won’t you have some of that?”

She couldn’t recall if she had agreed or not, or just sat there lingering in the soft sunlight, and let that peace fill her up to her brims. But this sudden image stuck in her mind. She forgot to breathe. When she took in a gulp of air to assuage her aching lungs, her eyes were too red to hold down tears trickling down. She forced herself to turn away and think of some other thing. The stream of thought lost its track, and she redirected them elsewhere.

She ended up thinking about some of the past betrayals; some of them imprinted on her mind. Eyes still flushed with stale disbelief, and a mind winding through events of the past, Wei Zhiruo was painting each scene, each conversation, each insult she had heard. 

She tried to understand what had happened just a day ago, but which now was a matter of a previous lifetime. Hilarious.

Wei Zhiruo knew for a fact that all those who had driven her past madness were somewhere else, not even here. And god forbid-! If ever there was a time which brought them in front of her again…but, it would never be the same. It will be long past her current suffering. It was worthless to chase a fate so clearly set in stone, right? She couldn't just go back in time and make them suffer a fate worse than death?! Could she? What she had left for them as a part of her revenge should suffice - right, right?!

Before waking up, she recalled, she was under the cursed altar of that pond in her own world. Chains abound, clutching her feet and hands dragging her down to drown in that sacrificial water. Not only pain, the shame of inevitability of all that had happened – purging of the Sangtchi clan, the mutiny after her father’s death, the enthronement of her step-brother instead of herself, or the council’s decision to make her a sacrifice to seek Immortality – all while no voice appeared to oppose them, no hand rose with arms to symbolize even a semblance of a protest...nothing.

These wounds won't heal on their own, would they? No. But the thoughts must settle down to a silent whisper. Time will heal, like time does. Something magical had happened in between all those betrayals by the way. She was awake again, in this mortal shell. But how and why – magical indeed, were the chains of fate which had dragged her to this bizarre place. Would she ever know its cause?

A strange song seemed to have raptured amongst the night wind, amongst the grasses by the shore, and by the leaning willow’s tresses; as if resounding with her wandering thoughts it rippled seamlessly and fed to her soul, easing some of its burden. The breeze felt sweeter with the gentle voice of rippling water, the moonlight – like a heady mead. Wei Zhiruo glanced at the shore, her eyes a little less colder, while her thoughts settled down from their furious rampage. She remained silent like that, enjoying the medley of nature playing its perfect tunes. 

Wei Zhiruo lay back comfortably, cradling her head between her folded hands.  

'Jinghai was it?', she wondered. The people called it that. A small settlement of some thirty thousand people. She had counted the heads and was almost sure of that. She didn’t know much about other things – but the rain filled much of her first impressions. The continuous rain from morning to dusk had been a nuisance, as well as a strange phenomenon inside her mind. In the past, those familiar cold winds, the frequent snowfalls and untimely springs of her own Capital city was all she knew of. The humidity, the mourning in the air – a strange melancholy that comes accompanied by a shower, rooted in no time, slipping down to her bones. Everyone of these sensations was new. Whether she liked it or not, she couldn't form an opinion but it was a change she could deal with.

Tonight, the rain had finally stopped. The night sky was uncharacteristically clear. The several weeks of downpour had grumbled down. From rolling mists and tumbling gray clouds, its majestic rage had softened to an amiable shower at noon and then, like a bad-tempered friend on his grumpy day off, it had swiftly flown off to distant lands, carried along by distant winds, in some delirium of an adventure, perhaps.

On his leave, though, the weak sun had certainly dried off some of the earth’s surface back to its original appearance. Yet some bespattered weeds and swamps of wetland, wet corners remained here and there. Some carriages carried by grumpy horses could still, by ill-fortune of their master or by their own good-humor, find several pits of their choices to overturn into. Though such a situation was tasteless for most who met them, accidents of this kind were far from being settled down, as soon as the rain stopped.

Wei Zhiruo alone had seen two carriage accidents since opening her eyes this morning. These carriages were particularly headed towards this manor, rushing along with other such five and six specially crafted and suited carriages with elaborate emblems of clan holdings. One had overturned around the peripheries of Jinghai, while the other one had successfully driven off somewhat nearer to the town gate, but collapsed horrifically with an oncoming carriage just a little away from the manor.

There was a great fuss at first. The mansion and its vicinity, buzzing with onlookers of every kind and nature had caught her attention for some time, especially the hullabaloo and festive shock that the accident caused in its surroundings. That was something new. She had observed them, the crowd, as some servants had waited and welcomed guests inside the manor, while some others had run around to arrange for a rescue and look after the terror-struck occupants who had escaped, fortunately, unscathed.

“Strange day,” Wei Zhiruo surmised, a little light heartedly, recalling the faces of some peculiarly dressed men in humble clothes and their guffawing faces as they pointed straight at noble men in clearly superior fabrics, laying smattered in mud, with noisy chatters of crowd and neighing of an angry horse in the background.

Shaking off those amusing scenes from noon, she started looking around wherever her consciousness could reach at present.

In her past life, her Spiritual consciousness had once covered even her whole nation. But since there were wounds visible and clear on her soul…she didn’t think it could cover that much right now. Maybe after she picked up her previous cultivating techniques, it would heal on its own. But that would take very, very long mortal years...