The Endless Promise

28. The Mission

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"In all my time here, one particular incident has always weighed heavy on my mind..." Immortal Pei sighed and waved a hand.

A vision appeared before Weiyan.

"This was from eighteen years ago."

Weiyan's eyes widened at the sight, and stumbled back in horror...

It was a night scene, showing an older and more beautiful Red Grove City, but the people were screaming and running for their lives as a massive black dragon darted through the city, destroying everything in its path. Houses were burning, and children were wailing.

Weiyan's back hit the room wall, and she slid down to the wooden floors. It was so bloody and awful that she tore her eyes away, but,

"Pay attention!" Immortal Pei instructed, and Weiyan's eyes snapped back to the vision, somehow centering on a group of individuals.

It was a family of five, with a father, mother, and three children. The youngest was a newborn baby, cradled in the mother's arms, and they all ran for their lives.

But with one swish of the dragon's tail, a large three-tiered building toppled and fell atop them, and in the last instant, the father shoved his wife and baby away from the destruction.

The mother was flung backwards, and she used her own body to shield the baby, but though she was bloodied and bruised, she ran back to the collapsed ruin at once, wailing over her dead husband and children...

The vision changed to a daylight scene.

The mother and child were in a place Weiyan recognized. It was a cliff on Yueyan mountain.

The mother grew sickly, and it was clear she didn't have long, and Weiyan watched as she wrapped the baby in a warm blanket, and placed her on a bamboo raft on the Yan river. "Live." She said, caressing the child's cheek.

"Live on and be successful! May fate lead you to better parents, my child!" She said and then pushed the raft away, crying as the current carried it out of her sight.

Back at the inn, Weiyan had tears running down her face, and the vision faded.

"That was the most painful loss in my memory... Your family was originally a large family. Warm and caring, with more than forty people who shared *weal and woe. They loved the people, and were quite popular here in Red Grove City.

(*good and bad times)

"But in one single night, the entire clan was wiped out!" Immortal Pei said. "Your mother was gone by the time I arrived, and was dead by the time I found her on that mountain.

"And it wasn't a good death! After she sent you off, she was attacked by a vengeful eye-eating ghost which followed her from Red Grove City!"

He came and crouched before Weiyan. "Child. I rarely do this, but I can help you, if you want to kill the Black Dragon..."

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..
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At present, Weiyan stared into the darkness.

'That couldn't have been Immortal Pei's aura, right?' She asked herself.

Back then, she had been so filled with hate and anger that she had questioned nothing, and she accepted Immortal Pei's necklace.

"This will keep you safe." He had told her. "Never take it off!"

But that necklace had led to everything. That necklace had fed her hatred and led her to challenge the lava serpent without thinking...

She sighed.