Chapter 116 - Madness

In the time it took a stick of incense to burn a fast carriage had sped from the City Lord's manor to the Feng residence and returned with Ao Wen, Feng Xi, Tang Jin, and Zheng Bai. In the Moon Viewing garden, Ye Kexin held a shattered and softly sobbing Hou Jia while the box containing Ao Yang's severed hand had been closed and moved out of sight of the distraught woman. 

"What happened?" Ao Wen asked, slightly breathless from rushing to the garden. The messenger had told her only that something had happened to Ao Yang and then immediately brought her and her friends here. Unfortunately, when Ye Kexin had sent for her, she hadn't told anything further to the messenger leaving the poor man powerless to provide more details on the tense carriage ride over. 

Seeing that Hou Jia was in no state to explain, Wan Yue stepped forward, handing Ao Wen the note that had come along with the package. "Long Ma has taken your father captive," she said bluntly, not knowing any other way to break the news. "He, the, in the box over there," she finally managed, pointing at the box as though it might explode. "He sent your father's left hand."

For a moment, near-perfect stillness descended on Ao Wen and her friends. Zhang Bai's eyes hardened, Feng Zi pressed a hand to her chest and the other to her lips and Tang Jin's hands curled into claws, reddish golden energy gathering at his fingertips. Ao Wen, however, had gone nearly completely still as her eyes scanned over each carefully written character in Long Ma's note. Then, as Feng Xi recovered enough to begin to move to Ao Wen's side, the young alchemist threw her head back, unleashing a wall-shaking ROAAAAARRRRRR! 

All of the hurt in her heart, all of the pain in her soul, every failure as Jun Biyu, Cong Daiyu and as Ao Wen, every person she'd failed, every person she didn't know if they lived or died, every moment of helpless fear, every ounce of powerless fury, all of it poured into the cry of a deeply wounded dragon that could be heard from the City Lord's manor all the way to the heart of Turning Leaf town. Flames gathered around her feet, swirling around her legs, pouring themselves toward the azure blue sky as though chasing the sound of her scream. The note in her hand burned in an instant leaving not as much as a wisp of smoke or a scattering of ash behind, so hot were the flames that consumed it. For once, not even Feng Xi could approach her lover as Ao Wen's energy raged completely out of control. 

A long breath passed followed by another and then a third before Ao Wen's cry of pain ended and she lowered her gaze to the world around her once again. The gentle amber eyes of a healer had vanished in a blink, replaced by intense bronze orbs set with elongated pupils filled with the shadows of flickering flames. With a step forward, the cobblestone footpath cracked under her feet, crushed by her surging earthen aura. "Mother," Ao Wen said, stopping in her tracks as though realizing that nearing her mortal mother in this state would only injure her. "I'll bring him home," she promised, her voice deeper and less human than it had ever sounded before. Seeing no reaction from her sobbing mother she turned sharply and strode to the box containing her father's hand, collecting it without opening it as she marched directly to the garden entrance. 

"Wen, wait, where are you going?" Feng Xi said, chasing rapidly after her departing lover. 

"Sister Ye, can you watch Sister Jia?" Wan Yue asked, waiting only long enough to receive a nod before hurrying after Ao Wen, Zhang Bai, and Tang Jin following directly behind her. 

When Feng Xi managed to catch up to Ao Wen, the younger woman had already begun frantically piling up ingredients on her alchemy table, cauldron at the ready, the box containing her father's hand sitting disturbingly close to the other ingredients. "Wen," Feng Xi said stepping into the room. "WEN!" she shouted when she failed to catch Ao Wen's attention the first time. "What are you doing?" she pleaded, still unable to draw too close to Ao Wen's raging aura. 

"Not strong enough to kill him yet," Ao Wen said sharply, dropping several additional ingredients on the table before beginning to write out notes on a long strip of parchment. "I won't be stupid Xi," she continued, never taking her eyes away from her work, her hands never stopping their movements even as Wan Yue and the two young men piled into the alchemy lab behind Feng Xi. "I don't need to be strong for long, an hour is plenty of time to tear that serpent into a dozen pieces and feed them to the eels," she spat. "I just need to last long enough to kill him."

"Okay, but Wen, stop, let's talk first, we need a plan to rescue your father," Feng Xi began, trying to find a thread, a chord, any note she could strike that would make a break in the raging inferno of Ao Wen's emotions and allow them to solve this problem together. "Help us understand what you're doing so we can help," she pleaded. "I want Father Ao back too."

"You can't help Xi," Ao Wen said, working mechanically. "He said alone. If you come, it's worse. This is my fault, my failure, and someone else is going to suffer for it AGAIN! I won't risk you too, not any of you!" Ao Wen shouted, hot tears beginning to flow down her face. "Once I've killed him, once he's dead, get father home, okay? I'll do the rest," she forced out, scrubbing at her face with a sleeve as she tried to resume her work. 

"Is this like your Dragon's Tongue Firebreath Elixir?" Wan Yue asked, hoping to find a path to Ao Wen with reason even as Feng Xi reached out to her with emotion. "Something that will give you the strength of a Soldier?"

"Champion," Ao Wen said, taking a final ingredient out of a special jade box. Thick bloody energy flowed into the room as soon as she lifted the lid of the box and a palpable anger resonated with her own aura like a second drummer following a first. "For about as long as a stick of incense would burn, as strong as a Champion," she explained, opening the box that contained her father's hand and looking at the other component that was vital to the concoction's success. Setting the beast core down, Ao Wen gently lifted her father's hand out of the box, fingers trembling slightly as she hesitated. The hesitation lasted only a moment, however, as she worked her father's jade thumb ring free and placed it carefully at the edge of the table, well away from anything to be used in concocting. 

"Wen, stop, what are you doing?" Feng Xi exclaimed, holding herself back no longer as she stepped forward to grasp Ao Wen's wrist. Flames licked at her flesh, burning her hand like grasping the hot handle of an iron pot above the fire, but Feng Xi held tight to Ao Wen's wrist. "Xi, your father's… you're going to… " even she struggled to say it, hoping that she wasn't about to watch her lover use her own father's hand as an ingredient in an elixir!