Blind and Bereft

Chapter 3 | Ashes of Death

Live well and peacefully, Jingrui, for your sister.

Jingrui stood up and wiped her face with the long sleeves of her hanfu. Her master wanted her to live well and peacefully. She swayed as she placed her hand over her face. A chuckle croaked out of her lips. How could she live well and peacefully for her sister was no longer there? Within this vast world, there was nothing left for her to fight for.

The snow storm had ceased into silence. All that was left were the biting cold and the lifeless white that had frosted over the field of peach blossoms.

She stood amidst the silence, too shocked to move and too emptied to cry. She had always known that if people met, there would be a day that they would part; it was an inevitable course of nature. But her master and sister were the only light she had left to hold her world from collapsing into a void.

And now, they had parted.

If she had known the glory of meeting would lead to such a painful parting, then she would rather they never meet from the beginning.

The silence broke when she heard footsteps running her way. "I told you to find our master, didn't I? Why are you screaming? I had to rush to find you because I thought you were in danger. Don't scare me like that—"

"Senior," Jingrui cut Xiao short, her words were filled with pain, and her face was imbued with bitterness. Tears trickled down her chin, washing away her dry tear stains. "I've found our master, but I've found him too late. Sister Jingyi had returned to Red Valley, but we've come to greet her too late."

Xiao, at first, was confused by her words, but then, his eyes trailed over to Jingyi's disfigured body. "Jingyi!" he cried as he pushed past Jingrui and plopped down beside Jingyi's corpse. "What in the world happened here, Jingrui?"

Jingrui sniffled as she tilted her head back. "We should have found them sooner. If we had, then we could, perhaps, save them. If we had found them sooner, then perhaps, we would know who did this to them."

Xiao's eyes had gone red, and he swallowed down his tears. "Jingrui, what happened?"

"I saw a blood trail, and I met a stranger. I don't think he was the one who did this. He told me to follow the blood trail. I got here, Master's immortal body dissipated, and my sister is dead. She is dead. . ." Her words scraped against her throat, and she gulped. "My sister had promised me that she would accompany me forever. Yet, she went back on her promise. My master had promised me that he would never leave me like all the others had before. Yet, he never kept his promise."

Tears welled up in Xiao's dark eyes as he ran his thumb across Jingyi's scarred face. He shook his head, winding his arms tightly around her lifeless body. "Jingyi had also promised me," he muttered. "We bowed to heaven and earth and wed each other. We made an oath that no matter where she would go, I, too, would go."

Jingrui plopped down beside Xiao, feeling too weak to hold herself up. "I don't understand any of this. Our Red Valley had never mingled in with the outside world. It makes no sense that anyone would wish to murder Master and Sister Jingyi."

Xiao looked up, fire filling his eyes. "But Jingrui have you forgotten? Fifty years ago, Master sent Jingyi to the outside world, to the revered Heavenly Palace. When she returned to the Red Valley again, she—she is like this. . ." his voice cracked, and he took a deep breath. "Someone in the palace hurt them. It must be someone in the palace."

Jingrui clenched her fists tightly onto the tail of her hanfu. "The Heavenly Palace. . ." At the name, her body trembled as pain and anger smoldered inside her. Hot tears swam in her eyes as she stared ahead at the endless sea of white. "I had thought I had nothing left to fight for, but now. . ."

Xiao blinked the layers of tears in his eyes and laid Jingyi's body down onto the snow. He glanced at her pale complexion one last time, and with everything in him, he stood up. "Master is a Heavenly Immortal, so his body dissipated; but Jingyi, she is an Earthly Immortal, so her body can't return to nature. Let's give her a proper burial." He offered Jingrui a hand, and she looked at it for a length of time before taking it.

Her eyes stung with tears as she stared at the red sludge below her feet. "Sister Jingyi had always told me to forgive but never forget, but senior, since she is no more, it wouldn't hurt to let these words die with her, right?"

Master had told Jingrui to live for her sister, but her sister was dead. If vengeance were the only thing she could live for, then she would devote her whole life to it. And no matter what survival field awaited her, it didn't matter.

Not anymore.

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