Jiang Sect's Silver Bell

Chapter 2

Twelve years before the wedding ceremony of YunMengJiang Sect Leader

Lan XiChen had never seen Jiang Cheng lost his mind like this. He was like a hungry demon that no matter how much blood, it wasn't able to quench his thirst for revenge. Blood dyed his feet, stained his clothes and blood flooded his entire mind. Hot dark blood burned his vision like a swarm of miasma that poisoned and corroded him inside out.

And for the first time, Lan XiChen learned just how despair sounded like.

It was a mixture of long and continuous ring of metal that melted down by fire, pouring down hot and crushed its victim with burning smell of fleshes where skin got tore apart and bones got melted with the scars that would never heal. Each ring of the silver bell brought forth a mixture of chaos and a storm of destruction. The sound was like a deep and painful cut that tore through a person's skin with lashes after lashes, one after the other, leaving them no time to gather their strength. It was like a puddle of mud that the more one struggled the faster one sunk. The sound of despair was close to home, was familiar, was heart-wrenching and was full of untold agony.

The bell, it was screaming and crying for the dark and painful feelings that its master couldn't show on his frozen and horrid face.

His ears went numb, the sounds of fighting and noises of screaming went deaf to him. Lan XiChen felt pain emerged from inside his brain. His ears were bleeding. He didn't even realize until one of his trusted voiced their concern.

Wiping away the blood that flowed out from his ear, staining the white color of his sleeves, he told himself this was nothing. If he could bleed and take all the pain away from Sect Leader Jiang, from WanYin, he would gladly bleed more. He would gladly bare all the agony, suffer through all the wounds and cuts, just so that silver bell wouldn't ever have to ring like that again.

And for that first time, he realized, he had fallen in love.

Five years before the wedding ceremony of Jiang WanYin

The next time they met again, it was at YunMeng.

It was a beautiful day in summer. The weather was surprisingly chilly, but may be it was due to the continuous rain storms that they had been experienced. But regardless, it was a beautiful day for a trip outside of Cloud Recesses.

Lan XiChen left Gusu at early dawn and arrived at LanLingJin Koi Tower before noon. Next month, another Discussion Conference would be held at Koi Tower so he had been spending time at LanLingJin, helping his sworn brother to prepare for it. By the time that everything was done, the sky changed color from blue to deep orange. The sun was already setting.

"Er Ge, the sun is setting. Would you like to stay over at Koi Tower today? I can always arrange a guest room for you."

"Thank you A-Yao, but it's alright. I should start going." Lan XiChen nicely refused. He still had some business that he needed to do first thing in the morning.

"Then please be careful on your way back. Allow me see you off." Jin GuangYao bowed his hands.

Taking off on his sword, the orange gold color stretched far and wide towards the endless horizon. With the setting sun came a sky of fire, it was like a beautiful song that greeted the night and welcomed the silver moon. The red palette came together and reflected on the pure white fabric of his outfit like a blank canvas that was painted by the hand of nature.

To a normal person, it made a divine painting, but to those that knew him, it was a picture of loneliness.

Looking at the orange sky slowly turned to dark, Lan XiChen couldn't help but got reminded of someone.