Ji Youyou woke choking water filling her nose and throat. She gasped for air but only felt the cold liquid seizing her windpipe. “Cough… cough…” She retched and coughed her eyes fluttering open.
“Wretch.” Xie Lin’s voice was like mold after rain sour and damp. Before she could react he grabbed her hair and pressed her face back into the pool.
The suffocation returned. Her hands thrashed wildly in the water. “Mmph… help…”
“Get away.” He threw her off. She lost her balance and tumbled several meters across the ground.
“Why are you doing this to me? I am innocent!” She cried out through the pain.
“You deserve it!” Rage and bitterness poured from him. He stood with fists clenched looking like a scorned woman. He could not kill her yet—he had to endure. A flicker of sorrow mixed with his anger. He had never shared Yu Xuanhe’s bed and now he never would. This woman had stolen that from him and the thought of it was a thorn in his heart.
The more he thought the angrier he grew. He looked at her and imagined her in Yu Xuanhe’s arms and hatred consumed him. “I’ll kill you!” He drew a dagger from his sleeve and charged.
Ji Youyou scrambled back in terror. “No! Please!”
He caught her easily his fingers wrapping around her throat. His touch was as cold as a rotting corpse the chill seeping into her bones. “Cold… it hurts…” The pressure increased nails digging into her skin. Blood rushed to her head her vision blurring. The words forced their way through her teeth.
Their faces were inches apart an intimate pose but danger crackled between them. Poison filled Xie Lin’s eyes. He wanted to grind her to dust and his grip tightened. He could not control himself. He had to end her.
“Help… me…” She clawed at his hands the will to live making her whimper.
For a moment he froze. Her pained eyes reminded him of his childhood—when he had been tortured and hurt nearly killed. It was Yu Xuanhe who had saved him.
He remembered being seven years old a spoiled young master targeted by evil cultivators for his looks. Rough greasy hands had choked him beaten him slapped him. It had been a constant nightmare. When he was near death they had only laughed louder.
In his second month of captivity he had thought he would die. He had angered them again his face covered in blood and blisters too sore to speak. Bound and numb he had stared at the ceiling then crawled to the floor where his food lay in a dog bowl to lick at the sour leftovers—their way of breaking him.
As he licked the bowl a pair of shoes embroidered with golden cranes stopped before him. A voice like fresh wind said: “Get up.”
He looked up like a loyal dog seeing its master. A boy three years older stood there as pure as jade in white robes a red mark between his brows. It was his first sight of Yu Xuanhe.
Yu Xuanhe had killed all the cultivators and saved him and the other boys in the cells. “Can you walk?” he had asked when Xie Lin did not move.
Xie Lin’s legs were unhurt—he was just stunned after so long in darkness too sore to speak. He shook his head.
Yu Xuanhe had knelt gently. “Come I’ll carry you.”
The memory faded as Ji Youyou’s whimpers pulled him back. He saw her eyes growing unfocused and threw her to the ground. He still could not kill her. And she had made him think of those terrible days.
“Cough…” Ji Youyou lay on the cold damp stone gasping. Her throat was raw and she could not speak.
Xie Lin stood over her then turned to leave. “Stay quiet. If you say one word to Xuanhe I’ll make you suffer.” He cast a spell and vanished.
Darkness engulfed her. She felt her way along the floor knowing there was a pool nearby afraid to fall in again. She was already miserable she did not want to catch cold with no one to care for her. She was like fish on a chopping block with no way out. No one would believe she was not an evil cultivator.
She walked for a quarter of an hour moving away from the water but feeling eyes watching her from the dark. She tried to ignore it—she was terrified enough already. She guessed she was in a cell and knew the prison of the immortal sect held no ordinary prisoners… perhaps not even humans.
Slowly a faint light appeared from a small window barely wide enough for her head. Light brought relief. She sat against the wall beneath it and looked out. She was in a tall tower on the top floor standing in the center of a huge square marked with the eight trigrams. No one was below.
She relaxed a little. She needed rest to build her strength—she would find a way out yet. Leaning her head against the window she drifted off to sleep.