Promise and Betrayal: A Mo Dao Zu Shi (the Untamed) Story

Chapter 21

**This is a long one, so buckle up! :D

I awake to swaying curtains and shimmering light. A layer of dreamy gleam veils my vision. I am in a richly decorated room, laying on a luxuriously soft bed. Sunlight filters through the bed's curtains that shift above me in a gentle breeze. If I close my eyes, I can almost believe I am back in a Xiao Clan tent, before I left to find my destiny, before I found my twin brother, before I became friends with his lover, before my brother went missing, before I made myself a killer. The sweet smell carried on the wind reminds me of the sweet flower fields of the east, the ones bathed in sunlight. We would frolic in those fields, the wind tugging at our hair and our clothes, our worries and cares chased away by the dazzling sunbeams. It was a life of innocence, of childish wonder. How I wish I could return, how I know it will never be possible.

Footsteps jolt me back to reality. I am in a room, a room in the eastern part of China, laying on a bed. I do not know where I am or how I came to be here. And if I am correct, whoever took me here now knows my secret. The same secret three servants at the Unclean Realm now hold close to their hearts. I pray my savior is of an understanding heart; I am not ready to die for my crimes yet.

I sit up, a cold sweat trickling down my back. Shadows move near the doorway, the footsteps growing louder. Someone enters the room.

It is Wei Ying.

I am struck speechless for a moment. We parted ways after Nightless City. He returned to the Jiang Clan with Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli. Why is he here? And where am I? How long have I been unconscious?

"You've been asleep for a week, Xiao Li," he says as if he could read my thoughts. "The Jin Clan's physicians were becoming worried."

"A week..." I shake my head to clear it, cursing the fuzziness of sleep. "Those physicians—did they report anything about me to anyone?"

Wei Ying gives me a confused look. "Yes. Your condition. You've been asleep for a week, Xiao Li. They said your spiritual power was completely drained when you fainted. I don't know what you did after we parted ways, but whatever it was depleted everything. It took your body a week of straight rest to recover it all. And they still won't let you do anything else for at least another week. They had half of Carp Tower worried about you."

I scoff, brushing at nonexistent dust on my underclothes. It seems I always end up in infirmaries after battles, and no one else does. "Did they say anything else?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Like what they thought you'd been doing? No. Even they had no idea how you could deplete all of your power."

I exhale heavily, glad to know that if the physicians know, they at least kept it a secret. I am not done fighting my battles yet. "How did I get to Carp Tower?" I ask after a short pause.

"Your little friend found a horse and led the horse here. By the time she'd arrived, it looked like she hadn't stopped to rest at all. She's in just as bad of shape as you are." At the mention of the girl, I look up.

"Is she alright? I...did not expect her to do that for me," I pause, lowering my voice to a murmur. "Not after what she witnessed me do."

"What did you do, Xiao Li?" Wei Ying asks, leaning on a bedpost. He crosses his arms.

I hesitate, reluctant to tell him what the Xiao Clan girl witnessed. "I..." I look up. Wei Ying is looking at me intently, like he knows what I did, yet fully understands why I did. I take a preparatory breath, then say, "I killed the Wen Clan cultivators that were burning my clan's bodies. They did not stand a chance. I had the element of surprise, I had my swordsmanship. They were like lambs to the slaughter. It had no honor. It could not even be called a battle." I examine my hands, the calluses that years of swordsmanship training built. They are a man's hands, a cultivator's hands. Hands that are now stained with the blood of the defenseless.