How To Polish A Pearl

Chapter 80 - Telling (2)

Author's Notes:

For my sensitive readers: This chapter will anxiety in it. There will also be references to abuse, sexual abuse and self-destructive behavior.

⊂ (▀▿▀) つ

Opening the first bottle of wine, he gazes out the open windows. The river outside is the color of duck-eggs and flowing like the subtle sweep of a painter's brush at the edge of the forest behind the brothel. Though Wen Ke Xing did prefer a roaring surface to one that is glistening or murmuring, this was a pleasant surprise. Just like flowing water never gets dirty (3), watching the river helps him cleanse last night from his system. Good girl. Maybe I should keep her with me a bit longer before I send her off. Though, it might be safer for her not to stay with me.

The few times that Wen Ke Xing had brought up sending her away or perhaps finding her a place out in the man's world, away from Ghost Valley, she had been furious and not talked to him for days. The first time it even took a week to coax her back on speaking terms. He had hoped that bringing her along on these excursions would peak her interest of this world, even allowing himself to hope that perhaps she would find someone she liked, someone that could care for her.

They had been doing this for a month now. Under the disguise of finding a bride for the new Guigu Guzhu, he had sent his guards out into the man's world. He hadn't returned to check the prison back home, to see how many men they had brought back for him to choose from. It didn't matter−he would just pick one.

The bride wasn't important. The reason for being out in the man's world was. He and Ah-Xiang was searching for any and all information they could find about the Water of Lethe. Now that he had clawed his way up to the top, he could finally do whatever he wanted, and what he wanted was to have his memory back−all of it.

The explanation he had gotten from the few ghosts he had asked, was that the Water of Lethe would completely erase your biggest regret, the most horrid of all your memories, the very thing that pained you the most. However, it would leave everything else just the way it was, allowing you to live a life without that one regret holding you back.

Most of the people who drank the potion and became Ghosts would forget their loved ones, whom they had disappointed or betrayed with whatever vile thing they had done or become. After all, the road to Ghost Valley was littered with blood and death. The Water of Lethe would leave the Ghosts void of any regret or love, destined to continue their 'lives' unhinged.

Wen Ke Xing, however, remembered his parents. He had been just a child when they had been killed and the memories around their death could be described as lacking, at best. More accurately, he remembered running and finding their dead bodies, but nothing leading up to it or after it. His memory starts back up again when he is already in Ghost Valley.

Since he had soon become the Guzhu's favorite, it hadn't taken him long to realize that that he had access to the Water of Lethe. In his late teens, he had, on several occasions, stolen some. Under the pretense of going out to hunt or train, he had in fact ventured out to a desolate place and drunk the potion.

He had done it in secret when he had felt like he had no other choice. He had felt like he could not go on with some of these memories still inside him. The thoughts and emotions refused to leave him alone, constantly eating away at his soul−if he even had one as a Ghost. His mind was filled with vile thoughts and needs that he wanted to eradicate. He needed to forget. Wasn't this the whole purpose of the Water of Lethe anyway? His body felt numb. His heart felt dead. Forcing him to become like the very thing he hated. Like the very thing he wanted to kill. Like the Ghost I killed in the end.