80 Since It's of No Use, Take It

After a while of looking around the area, Hui Se Ying had had enough. The girl was obviously not here anymore. After waking she probably left to try and find, either one of them or a person that could point her in the right direction toward finding her way.

Wasting time here, staring around the cave and wandering just outside its entrance wasn't getting them anywhere. There were about a handful of rock formations in the cave that she couldn't have possibly hidden behind. Though it went back pretty far, it wasn't that large. The area just outside was the same, with little obstacles around to block a person from sight.

Pulling Paoxiao to face him after being ignored the first few times he called his name, Hui Se Ying bellowed. "This is ridiculous, the longer we stand around here staring at the rocks the further away she's going to get."

He would have left long ago to hunt her down himself were it not for his newly discovered fact of the mists that surrounded Cloud Frost Mountain. Getting lost in the mists would be just as unproductive as staying here. Therefore he had been trying, rather unsuccessfully, to get Paoxiao to leave with him.

Paoxiao, on the other hand, was too busy examining the cave's rock walls to care about the impatient spirit angrily shouting at his back. However, upon hearing the last outburst, he finally paused his efforts to slant him a look.

"I've already explained to you that she couldn't have left the cave without leaving behind footprints in the process. She has to still be here. When my sister and I stayed here in the past, she often spoke of eyes watching her from somewhere in the cave. I've already said there's probably a secret entrance to some secret room, so why are you sitting here complaining instead of helping me look for it?"

The spirit shot the demon a look of complete disbelief. "You didn't say any of that! After yelling at me for my negligence you insisted that she still had to be around here somewhere. You started looking around without so much as another word, ignoring me!"

"Oh," Paoxiao shrugged, uncaring as he recalled the words to be true. With a nonchalance that drove Hui Se Ying mad, he said. "Well, I thought about it. Anyway, help me look around the entrance."

He thought about it...

Upset with such a flippant reply, Hui Se Ying ground out as he joined in looking around once again, "next time just say it outright. I'm not a satori, I can't read minds." All the cave walls looked the same to him, never-the-less he began to look around for anything odd.

After half an hour of pressing rocks, looking for arrays, or anything that stood out as odd the ground began to shake. The cave wall nearest Hui Se Ying pressed inward and began to shift as it opened. Paoxiao hurried over after the shock wore off.

"What did you do?"

"I didn't do any-"

Before the words could finish Hui Se Ying bit them off as the tapping sound of footsteps neared. The footsteps were followed by mutterings that were too low to make out even as the tapping grew louder. They debated whether to wait or quickly enter.

The pathway descending downward was dimly lit by torchlight.

If they were quick enough and kept to the shadowy side of the wall, it would be possible to catch the ascending person unaware. However, before they could wordlessly communicate this idea to each other, the ascending figure came into view.

A clean-shaven head reflected the torchlight as dark eyes were riveted to the documents held in black-gloved hands. Though the gloves were black, one could still see the off colors of a myriad of substances staining the leather surface.

It was a man. A spirit.

Tongchuu was reading over his list of needed items as he ascended the stairs to exit his secret, underground, laboratory. Although the girl who would give birth to his master's child carried the proper energy in her core, it was not originally hers. From his findings, he discovered that the energy had assimilated with her core at around ninety-eight percent.

There was a two percent chance that, should she be able to conceive, it would not carry over from her blood to the child.

He didn't like those odds.

Therefore Tongchuu began to brainstorm ways to force the energy to fully assimilate within the girl's inner core. After writing out the ingredients he felt would work, he left his lab to contact one of the nameless spirits to gather the ingredients he didn't have on hand.

However, as he looked up from checking over the list, he was stunned to come face to face with two unexpected figures. Tongchuu had no fighting prowess to speak of. Instead of facing the two intruders, he made an about-face and raced back within the secret underground room.

As he ran he called for his master.

The sounds of pounding feet in pursuit of a person encouraged him to run even faster. As he flew to the alcove where the first experiment was kept and where his master was tangled with the new subject, he shouted again.

All the while he cursed himself for being so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't check for outsiders before opening the door. This was the first time, in all his years of having this secret research lab, for such a folly to happen. He was quite upset with himself as they would now have to abandon this place that had served them so well for so many years.

Though he shouted, his master showed no signs of acknowledgment. As he drew closer he noticed that his master was in a state of unconsciousness though his eyes were wide open. Shouting again woke his master from whatever brought him to that state. He gasped for air as if breaking the surface of a large body of water.

In that gasp an agonized breath that sounded as if he spoke a coherent word broken-heartedly fell into one's hearing, but Tongchuu thought it had to be his misconception.

His master didn't have such emotions.

Before Tongchuu could say anything a vicious growl sounded out as a murderous aura filled the room. "It's you!"

The man came to himself at those hatefully growled words. As he came to himself, he forgot his name. He forgot her name and he forgot the memories he relived at that moment. However, fragments of it remained; it changed things.

Bile rose up as a sort of strange and sickly breathlessness enervated his limbs while looked upon the disheveled red-haired girl in front of him. His cheeks were cold and wet. The desire he had before falling unconscious evaporated without a trace.

Looking at the girl that nearly freed herself, he understood that she had done something to him. She had done something because even though he needed a child he couldn't bring himself to even entertain the idea of touching her again. Even though he wanted to torture the answers from her mouth, he couldn't bear to disrupt even a single strand of hair.

"Bastard!" There was a shouting and clamoring that finally entered his notice. He slanted his sight to clash against two pairs of murderous eyes. "What have you done to her!?"

He recognized them both. The man, his name forgotten, stood languidly as a twisted grin marred his blank expression. "Ah, the brother," he murmured as if a relative happy from a sudden reunion, "you've grown quite well these past years."

Paoxiao, unwilling to entertain such nonsense, snapped. "Return Nast-"

"Ah, right, you can take them both. I don't need them anymore." He walked a few steps to the side, not even bothering to right his disheveled appearance. Once he pressed his energy into the wall, a gateway opened up. "Tongchuu were leaving." Though he couldn't choose where to go, the gateways never led anywhere beyond the stretched of either the Mortal or Spirit Realms.

Although Paoxiao felt regret at that man getting away before he could remember to question him, he was satisfied at managing to rescue Nastasia. Hui Se Ying had already crossed the way to her side, making her decent. He then released her bound wrists.

Paoxiao made his way over to join them. He wanted to ask after her condition, but the words died in his throat before they could be voiced.

His lips became numb as a sense of disbelief crowded his mind and heart at the sight that entered his vision. Though it had been fifty years, he would never forget.

He was finding it difficult to breathe.

Though he could hardly dissociate the vision in front of him from a dream, he had to admit that he was, in fact, awake. He wanted to swallow but his mouth was dry. He wanted to move forward, but he was suddenly powerless...

… because the corpse in front of him was his sister.