Chapter 102: Don't Need You [Interlude]

“Sorry… I should have let you win, huh?”

Lianshi glared at the boy — Feng — who came to sit beside her. She was outside the meeting hall, sitting upon the snowy steps with a handful of ice pressed against her bruised right eye and swelling jaw. 

The other Elders and Sect Leaders were still inside. After losing the spar, the Matriarch had coldly asked her to exit the hall and cool off her tantrum. Lianshi supposed she should be happy she got to leave with her life after her pathetic display — for the foreign Patriarch’s words soothe a great deal of Chen Zijing's repressed rage after he perplexingly praised the Young Miss’s miserable showing rather than mock it.

Lianshi could not find it in herself to be glad — not with her face swollen with pain and her ribs hurting. The boy’s pitying look — combined with his pristine, untouched appearance — made her even angrier.

She had not managed to so much as touch him during the battle. 

Lianshi spat a bloody tooth in his direction. Feng flinched. “Go away,” she sourly said. “If you come to gloat about your victory, do it and be gone.”

“I don’t want to gloat. I want to apologise,” Feng mumbled, looking down. “I shouldn't have hit you so hard. But you look so scary, glaring at me like that! I… panicked.”

“You hit hard when you panic,” Lianshi grumbled. She sighed. “It was my fault anyway. I was the idiot who challenged you.”

“... Are you going to get punished?” he asked hesitantly. “She looked really angry just now. Your mother, I mean.”

Lianshi stiffened. “Do not call her my mother.”

“Oh! Er, I mean Matriarch Chen, of course. I didn’t mean to disrespect your mom.”

“That’s not… never mind.” He wouldn’t understand. Why was she getting all worked up on this?

“Erm, hey, where’s your dad, by the way?” the boy asked. “ He’s not in the meeting at all…”

For the love of the Emperor, she wanted to punch him — even if she was more likely to break her fist in the attempt.

Feng noticed her darkening glare, and he flinched. “I’ll just… shut up now.”

“I would much rather you leave me be,” Lianshi shot back. “Go away.”

He didn’t. The boy just quietly sat there with her, looking out into the snow.

Somehow, it made the pain more bearable.

~~~

“Um… So to make it to you because of hurting you in the duel… Here.”

“Hm? What are you— Gah?! Did you just pull out your eye?!”

“Owie… Here. Pretty Lady says you should eat this…”

“Why did you— I don’t want your eye! Put it back!”

“But if you eat this, it will heal you faster… Also, I can’t really put it back…”

“You…Grrr, you are an idiot! Your father will kill me if he sees this!”

“Father won’t care. Don’t worry. I heal fast.”

“I don’t care if you heal fast! We just met! Why would you pluck out your eye to feed me?!”

“... You were sad. I wanted to cheer you up.”

“... I can’t believe I have to marry an idiot like you when I grow up.”

“So, um, the eye… Do you want it or should I throw it away?”

“Just give me the damn eye, fool… I bet you taste awful anyway, but… thank you. S-stop smiling!”

~~~

Their subsequent meetings went better.

Feng still visited the Split-Headed Carnivore Sect with his Father in tow for the most part. The details of their alliance were an important affair that necessitated the discussions of both Sect Leaders. The presence of the Patriarch was also a major occasion, with each visit prompting a feast that saw the exotic meats of the Fang Mountain presented.

Lianshi would have seethed at this waste of flesh — especially when so many of the Sect’s female disciples were still starving and eating each other — were it not for the absurdly generous donations of Yang sustenance the Sect Leader brought as gifts.

It more than made up for the feast preparation, especially since the man and his delegation usually ate so little, meaning the leftovers could go into feeding the Sect instead.

If Matriarch Chen was insulted by the display, she did not show it.

Regardless, Lianshi met Feng a few more times, under supervision by at least one Core Disciple from their respective Sect.

Sometimes, however, the Core Disciples would disappear off on their own, leaving the two alone.

“I think they knew each other,” Feng said as he blocked a kick from Lianshi, correcting her stance. “Big Brother Dai once slipped that he knew a girl from the Split-Headed Carnivores before he became engaged to my big sis.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Even if your ‘Big Brother’ was daft enough to become involved with a Sister from my man-eating Sect, I doubt he would have chosen Core Disciple Shao. That woman is widely feared by all males, and for good reason. Besides, did you see the way they look at each other? Nothing but hate there.”

“I don’t know… I’m pretty good at sensing emotions. Even if they look angry, I think I still felt longing between them…”

“You are ten years old. You can hardly know these things.”

“Wha— You are ten too!”

The two bickered as they sparred, Feng slowly correcting her stances and qi bursts. In time, Lingyu joined them, prompted when Feng spotted her one day while the girl observed them from behind a tree. His gentle coaxing eventually got the shy, near-mute child to come out.

The three would then play all sorts of stupid games Feng devised. Begrudging acceptance eventually turned into reluctant anticipation at his visits, as he always brought all manner of interesting things and ideas that were so different to the stagnant cold and joyless ice of the Split-Headed Carnivore’s prison-like monastery. 

His energy was infectious as well, prompting even Lingyu to smile and laugh occasionally. Lianshi wasn’t sure why he bothered, but he always made sure to make them happy in his visits.

Slowly, bit by bit, Lianshi began looking forward to his visits.

~~~

One day, perhaps a year after she first met Feng, she had a dream.

It was strange. Lianshi remembered a woman. It was not her mother. Sometimes, when she missed her badly enough, the girl would recall the singing lullabies lovingly given to her by Chen Ziyu, only to wake with tears when the memory faded.

This was no memory. Someone was standing before her, their figure blurred. Their shape was feminine, however, and one feature stood out above all.

A sea of blood-red hair.

“You will do,” the woman had said. Her hand reached out and wrapped something around Lianshi’s wrist. “Seek out the other six. You will know where to find them; they were not well hidden. Save your mother’s for last. Your new Matriarch followed her orders to the letter — an admirable trait, given what it cost her. The least we can do is to respect her designs for your growth.”

“I… I don’t understand,” Lianshi whispered numbly.

“That matters little,” the woman shrugged. “The Daughter of a Foreign Heaven will guide your Path, as I do for my Dragon. As you are to wed him as his First Wife, the conceptual feedback should suffice for that Demoness to reach your dreams.”

The woman looked down. Lianshi thought she saw the Jade Green of the skies in her left eye. “Remember that you are yourself. Do not let the dead seize your mind, be they of Gods or Demons, lest you lose even that of your unborn thoughts.”

“My Dragon will love you for who you are, rather than what you could become.”

The dream faded to black. Lianshi woke with a heavy weight on her wrist.

Blood still stained within its band of woven hair, the Frostblood Bracelet glinted under the morning sun.

Murmuring to her of secrets she should not know.

~~~
“My Father… He had a special heirloom. A gift from my mother.”

Feng looked up at Lianshi. The two of them were sitting atop a snowy pagoda rooftop, overlooking the ivory view over the Fang Mountain valley.

Two years had passed since they first met. They were still children, and the relationship they shared was one more of blooming friendship than romance, but it was undeniable that they had grown close from their frequent interactions over the years.

“What kind of heirloom?” he asked curiously.

“He called it a Frostblood Bracelet. Some kind of artefact made by the old Matriarch — my grandmother,” Lianshi dourly said. “My mother — my real mother — gave it to Father before she… died.”

“And where is your father now?” Feng quietly asked.

“Dead as well. However, his body is not buried with my mother. He’s up there.”

Lianshi pointed to a glacial peak some distance away, its summit surrounded by whirling mists and rolling blizzards.

“He’s buried under that?” Feng’s eyes boggled.

“Inside that giant glacier somewhere. He dug a hole and hid Mother and me back then during the Succession crisis with his Divine Art… Though the entrance is probably sealed with ice and snow by now. He died there, protecting me. His body should still be there.”

Feng nodded uneasily. “Meaning the bracelet is probably still there as well?”

“Yes,” Lianshi nodded. “I need your help to get it.”

The young boy shuffled uneasily. “I’m… twelve. Maybe you could get a Senior disciple to help? I don’t see how I can do that. I will probably die.”

Lianshi rolled her eyes. “If you are going to be my future husband, you need to be ready to die helping me, your wife!”

“We still don’t know if the engagement is set yet. Father jokes about it all the time, but I don’t think he’s ready to commit me to the arrangement,” Feng pointed out.

The girl sighed. “Look, if it helps, I made it all the way there and back once before, no problem.”

“Well, why didn’t you just grab the bracelet then?!”

“I just told you, it’s stuck behind a wall of ice!” Lianshi hissed. “I need someone with Yang qi to burn down the entrance so that I can get to my father! And… maybe help me properly bury him as well.”

Feng’s expression turned sombre. He looked at the blizzards and grimaced. “You are telling me you made it through that?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she reassured him. “You will be here for a few days, right? We will go together. We wait for a morning when the blizzards die down a little, and then we go. An hour to reach there, an hour to burn the ice, and an hour to return. Fast and easy.”

“I don’t know about this, Lianshi…”

“We will be fine.” She brushed off his concern. 

~~~
“I told you this was a bad idea!” Feng screamed into the blizzard as his hands shook with fire. He flinched when the howling of bestial canines joined the screaming winds.

“Just shut up and burn us an opening into the cave before we are both dead!” Lianshi screamed back as she punched a Glacial Hound in the nose, shattering it into frost. Dozens more surrounded them, each in the lower Steps of the Foundation Realm. 

Lianshi was strong enough to hold them off. The trials of the Split-Headed Carnivores often expected their disciples to forage in the Fang Mountains for meat, forcing them to face the many native threats of the winter peaks. Lianshi was no exception, despite being a Young Miss.

She knew how to fight those creatures, but not in such numbers, and not forever. To make matters worse, the wind was thick with sleet, rendering visibility past a few metres non-existent. The pair of them were beginning to freeze up from their damp clothes and plummeting temperatures.

For the sudden combination of rain and blizzard to hit simultaneously as they ascended the glacier… Just what were the odds? One would have been bad enough, but both?

“Are you sure this is the right place?!” The boy yelled back. “I’m not seeing an opening!”

Feng desperately poured more qi into his fire technique, desperately hoping to see an entrance open up before him as his hands spewed flames. The fires ate away at the giant hide of the glacial mountain, slowly but steadily carving a tunnel into the ice. 

“This has to be the place… It has to be! I remember it!” Lianshi’s desperate cries were drowned out by a roar. A Winterfeast Bear approached — giant and imposing, like a rolling avalanche. It bodily slammed aside the larger Glacial Hounds and crushed the smaller ones beneath its paws as it advanced towards Lianshi.

“Lianshi! We need to run!” Feng yelled. He had already burned a sizeable chunk of the ice wall away, and still, there was no opening. “It’s not here!”

“It has to be here!” The bear smashed down upon her guard. The black plates upon her tiny form shattered. Lianshi spat blood, hissing madly as she charged forth, razor claws slashing at the bear’s throat and eyes. “IT HAS TO BE HERE!”

“This is stupid!” Feng pleaded. “Let’s just run! We can come back another day to try again!”

Lianshi wasn’t listening. She roared as twin appendages burst from her back — bleeding limbs of sharpened bones connected to her spine — stabbing and cutting against the thick hide of the bear. Eventually, one of them punctured itself through its jaw and up into its brain, silencing it for good.

It did them little good. Two more were on the way, along with packs of Glacial Hounds flanking the hulking pair of frost-powered ursine.

Lianshi screamed. She cried. “Run yourself, you coward! Leave me here to die, then! I don’t need you!”

She would never get another chance. Somehow, some way, she knew the Matriarch was behind this. There was no other explanation. Perhaps the woman planned it years ago when she left Lianshi’s father buried beneath all those tons of ice. Perhaps she wanted a way to discreetly rid herself of both a rebellious Young Miss and a rival Young Master.

Once Lianshi and Feng were dead, the Matriarch could seek an alliance with the other Sects — maybe even the Decaying Greyroots itself, the cause which prompted the start of this whole partnership. The woman would still have Lingyu as an Heiress, and without Feng or Lianshi to keep her spirits up, the girl would grow more despondent and broken.

A perfect puppet for Chen Zijing.

They could retreat. It was probably the rational thing to do. But then, Lianshi might never get a chance to bury her father’s remains ever again. Perhaps, even more importantly…

She needed that heirloom. Because Lianshi finally knew what it truly contained, and it held the key to securing her fate.