How To Polish A Pearl

Chapter 68 - Triggering

A/N: This chapter contains mild violence and being on the verge of death. Please don't continue reading if this is something that makes you uncomfortable.

Oh, and it also contains some adult explicit stuff. 

⊂ (▀▿▀) つ

He instantly regrets opening his eyes. It's not like he can see anything anyway. Everything is a blur with shooting stars and white flashes assaults his irises making him blink, his eyes more closed that open. His head is pounding so hard he thinks his skull might crack in the middle, like an egg.

Struggling to breathe, he coughs up more than a few mouths full of ice water, his eyes watering from the anxiety that is prickling his skin. Having cleared his airways, he takes a few deep breaths. Filling his lungs with the sub-zero air, the effect calms his twisting insides. Everything feels like it is on fire, though a freezing kind of fire. However, it's not the chill that's bothering him, it's the last bit of water in his system.

Closing his eyes, he tries to regain control by centering his chi, wanting to use his internal breath to heal himself. But it feels strange. His core feels strange. Why does it feel wrong? What is wrong with my meridians?

Slowing down his breathing and his heartrate, his mind focus on the crisp air that carries a scent of both earth and water. His whole body is aching on the inside and his muscles feel stiff, though not the kind you get from lying on a hard surface. Through the palms of his hands, resting on the ground, he can feel that the earth is frozen. It this ice? Am I lying on ice?

Opening his eyes for a second time, his peripheral vision still a bit blurred, he watches his white breath freeze to tiny water crystals as soon as they leave his lips. Looking up, he can see tall bare trees, the leaves having long left the branches not to return until spring. How is it winter all of a sudden? Where am I?

Rubbing his face to try and regain focus and control, his hands feels different. Holding them up his eyes widen in chock. Why are they so small?

A female voice breaks through his state of confusion. The voice is familiar, yet not really familiar, "Guzhu, we found him. We found the boy."

Two slender and warm hands move over his body, either searching for something or checking if he is injured. For some reason he feels that it is the former.

He can hear footsteps approaching and face comes into view, holding still, waiting for his eyes to focus. The face is deep red, oval, with a long overexaggerated V-shaped chin and two sharp black horns curling towards the sky. It is a mask. It is a mask that he is very familiar with. If he wasn't already frozen, his blood would have turned to ice staring at that mask. All his confusion, all of his feelings are instantly replaced by pure hatred. But it's a cold kind of hatred. The only kind of hatred he has ever known. Everything inside him stops moving. What are you doing here? I killed you! I watched you die!

The warm hands moves to his wrist, checking his pulse, and the female voice speaks again, "He might have sustained permanent damage and the potion might keep him in this state. We were lucky we could bring him back."

When that familiar voice speaks behind the mask, it would have sent chills down his spine if it wasn't for the fact that his entire body was now numb, "Ke Xing, you only made things worse by running away."

The words echoes throughout his mind. I ran away? Where did I run to? From what? Why? When?

A second voice emerge at the back of his head. Suddenly dizzy, everything blurry again, he blinks as he shakes his head. Every time he opens his eyes, it's like the picture in front of him with the mask in the middle has moved further away, as if fading into the background. At the same time, the voice inside his head grows stronger. That familiar voice. Ah-Xu...