Yearning Of The Jade

Chapter 2: New World, Old Time

Am I dead? I must be dead.

But I cannot die. I have so much to do before my time: I need to graduate, get a job, have a family, and take care of my mother. I can't die yet.

Ugh, it hurts so much.

Tan Ling, get up. You can't die like this. You can't die. You can't die! Open your eyes!

It was blurry as I struggled to lift my eyelids. I pushed every ounce of energy and forced my body to lift itself up, but my spine crackled with intense pain. If that wasn't enough, there was a pounding headache at the back of my head.

"Where am I?"

I searched the surroundings around me. It was the same cave as I last remember before I lost consciousness. However, it strangely remained intact. As if the falling of cracked rocks never occurred.

I started to wonder whether if it was all a dream. Maybe I was tired and fell asleep without even knowing it. Maybe the earthquake was just a dream.

But how does that explain the intense headache at the back of my head? I needed to do something about this pain so I proceeded to search for painkillers in my bag, only to find my bag nonexistent. "No. Where is it?"

I searched like a maniac for my bag that had all the necessities and research for the trip. After five minutes of pacing around the cave with no such luck, I came to the conclusion that I was robbed while I was passed out.

"Great. Just my day. Can it get any worse?" I reached for my neck to check if I'm still at least wearing the necklace. Another wave of panic rushed through my checks and I started to pant. The necklace was nowhere to be found near my body. I scattered around the cave once again searching the walls and ground with no results.

"This is bad. What am I going to do? Mr. Chang is going to sue me," I cried. "I can lose anything else, but I can't lose that necklace! How am I supposed to explain it to Mr. Chang?"

It has dawned to me that I might spend the rest of my life in jail or have a debt that I can never repay. It has officially become the worst day of my life. I sunked back onto the ground, feeling hopeless and drained of energy. Tears soon started to form and escape my tear ducts like a flow of river. I was devastated not at the fact that I was lost and stranded, but I was devastated that I would be spending the rest of my life living with a huge debt behind me.

"No. I can't be spending all day crying like this. I gotta get out of here." I gazed out into the wilderness to see that it was a bright and sunny day. The rain must have stopped a while ago. I wasn't worried about being lost in the woods since I memorized the path we came in. Once I escape the woods, I will just have to use the emergency telephone by the roads.

I got up on my feet and walked out of the cave. I retraced my steps and walked back to the way we came in. It wasn't until ten minutes in of walking that I started to notice something different and strange about the woods. There was no trail, pathway, or signs that named the mountain and directions. The woods was the same as before, but there was no sign of any humans walking or hiking. As if I was the only person in existence.

I scanned around the woods to see if anyone was nearby. To my luck, a figure of a man dressed in black clothing stood in the distance across from me. Something about him gave me a cautious feeling to hide myself from sight, so I ducked behind a nearby tree. I looked down at his hands; it was carrying a large sword.

A fake? I thought to myself. A closer inspection revealed that he was not just wearing dark clothing, his clothes were perfectly tightly wrapped around his body. His clothes were the exact kind of clothing in historical Chinese dramas that Aunt Mei watches.