A LOTUS BORN OF MUD

CHAPTER 21- TOUGHER THAN A BULL

  A month had passed.

  If XiuYin were not a cultivator he'd be dead now.

  Indeed his spiritual powers were cut off, but that didn't stop the self-preservation abilities within his body.

  However, it only keeps him alive. Any passerby would see a haggard, weather-worn man kneeling there. Lips chapped, cheeks sunken and dull eyes. Though no matter the weather, XiuYin sat with a straight back, ensuring that all his weight went to his knees so it caused him pain as it should, as he deserved. Sympathisers tried to offer him food and water but he rejects them all, eventually, people stopped trying.

  After XiuYin had knelt there past a week, BiMing avoided going down the mountain. Whatever feeling that was plaguing him, guilt, anger, sadness... he didn't want to deal with it...not whilst he could still stall it for a while. Soon later, some sect masters came to him and asked him to take back his disciple out of pity but also the fact that XiuYin was becoming a bit of an attraction known as the kneeling statue.

  BiMing sat in his garden, massaging his temple and bouncing his leg, the whisk swaying in his lap. He had troubles sleeping the past few nights, too many thoughts and memories in his head, some disturbing, others disturbing because he hadn't found them to be disturbing. And the quiet was the worst of it.

  He missed talking, joking, laughing and teasing.....

  And those weren't his only problems either. The letter he received from the asshole indicated that he'll be making a move on the night of a full moon. That should be in three days.

  BiMing sighed as the headache grew.

  He stood and walked back into the house. Another storm has come and it began raining again. BiMing glanced at the empty room across the hall, which used to be XiuYin's bedroom. BiMing strolled in and scanned the simple room. Plain walls, plain sheets... only his desk had a collection of things that otherwise stood out in this bleak room. BiMing walked over and looked at several of the little boxes and small notepads. With his previous experience with boxes, BiMing lifted the lid of one and peered inside. A complicated emotion took over as he found a carefully pressed flower inside. Specifically one of those that he had been bombarded with a while back. BiMing set the lid down and lifted another lid up, there he found a ribbon that he gifted XiuYin on his sixteenth birthday, carefully folded. Hands trembling, he picked up one of the notebooks and flipped to a random page. 

Favourite foods:

Dumplings

Bao

Stir Fry veg

...

 The list went one, written in a neat, masculine scrawl.

Hates:

Snake 

Kidneys

Insects... hope ShiZun never finds out I mixed some in with stir fry for medicinal purposes...

  BiMing's eyes widened at the last line... He gagged in his mind imagining what kind of insect XiuYin had put in.

  BiMing set the book back down and sighed. He felt confused. He still hated XiuYin for what happened, but at the same time, he found himself reluctant to hate him. Not only was his mind in turmoil but his heart to, they were at constant war these past few days, his mind reasoned with him that the last time a man had touched him it ended horribly on his account. But his heart... felt tickled and constricted when he thought of XiuYin's initial kiss...