Shattered Hope

The disciple gave them the sign to start, but Yin Haoyu stayed frozen. He saw Tian Guanting's movements, saw the sharp edge of the sword coming nearer.

{Sweetheart, let's punish him for what he has done.}

Only at the last possible moment, he stepped out of the way of the weapon.

{If he dared to hurt you, we can hurt him back.}

Yin Haoyu wanted to snort at her hypocrisy, she would have no trouble hurting him herself, but she felt indignant when someone else did it? Moreover, if you followed her logic of an eye for an eye, he would always lose, because he was the one that started it. He wisely kept his thoughts to himself though.

{It's time for some permanent damage. After all these years, he still has not learnt his lesson. Maybe if he loses a limb, he will repent.}

Oh no. She was in one of her worst moods, the one that made her want to inflect damage that would last forever. This included heartache, betrayal, and physical damage. Most of the time she was satisfied with seeing a bit of blood, but now that would clearly not be enough. She wanted to see someone suffer.

Yin Haoyu often wondered what his parents did when they were not with him, if something else was influencing their moods. They never talked about it, about their lives outside of him, and Yin Haoyu pondered if they ever left him, if they even had a life outside of him. Sometimes they did not respond, or did not seem to listen, but he did not know if that was because they were sleeping, or because they had a life somewhere else.

If they walked around here somewhere, he did not know how he would reign in the urge to stab the both of them to death. He would do anything to get rid of them, but too much blood was on his hands already. Now, he had to take the more subtle route, getting stronger in the hopes of being powerful enough to push them outside his head. Only, the path of strength was obstructed by a Selection Competition. A competition that his mother was trying to ruin with her thirst for revenge.

[[A new task was given by your mother. Sever one of Tian Guanting's limbs, and you will gain 300 G-Points. If you fail, you will lose 500 G-Points. You now have 600 G-Points.]]

Relief flooded him when he heard that he had enough G-Points to offset the punishment. His points were always floating on the edge, but he still tried to get them high enough in case his mother went crazy again. For cases like this.

He lamented that he had saved months for this, had completed tasks that would bring him severe trouble if he were discovered, but now he would lose it all in one big swoop. It was worth it though, Tian Guanting did not deserve such a thing, no matter what his mother thought.

He evaded Tian Guanting's next attack, and then launched his own. While Tian Guanting was unbalanced by his own powerful swipe, one who would not have missed if Yin Haoyu had not gotten his resolve together in time, he took advantage. He lunged forward, but Tian Guanting's cultivation was higher than his, so he easily avoided the attack.

As the fight went on, Yin Haoyu was steadily winning ground. Not much, but Tian Guanting's own overconfidence was working against him.

However, he still was fighting fair and square, so his mother soon got impatient.

{What are you waiting for? If you sever off his sword arm, you'll easily defeat him. Or his leg, without one of his legs, his stances will become useless. What are you waiting for?}

After years of hearing her voice, he still had not managed to ignore her completely, but he could push her to the back of his mind and concentrated on the fight. He parried Tian Guanting's next move, but he had to take a step back. If only his mind were stronger, and he could block his mother out.

{Are you too weak? You're too weak, aren't you? Pathetic. You still need your muqin's aid in this.}

A big influx of spiritual energy flooded his body. Now he could more easily predict Tian Guanting's movements, his sword sang much louder as it swooped through the air, and his steps got lighter.

The fight got so much easier after that, but it was just cheating. It was true that he would never have gotten an opportunity to sever one of Tian Guanting's limbs even if he wanted to, but now all his excuses that he could use against his mother had flown out of the window. It was not long before she noticed it though. He had hoped to defeat Tian Guanting before that, even hoped to defeat him without the cheat, but now he could do neither.

{You rejected the task, didn't you? You never intended to complete it.} She cackled a laugh. {Fine. That's completely fine by me. Then, you'll be completely fine if I gave you your punishment now, right?}

When the pain appeared, Yin Haoyu was not surprised. He had been expecting it, really, that was why he had hoped to finish the duel before then. Now, he had to fight with this awful pain that his mother delighted in given him. Over the years he had grown used to biting through the pain. It had not gotten any less, but he had learned to breathe through it, to manage even though his body was falling apart.

[[You failed your task. 500 G-Points have been taken from you. You now have 100 G-Points.]]

Why did every failure have to be accompanied by one of his mother's punishments? As if the loss of points was not already severe enough. The lower the number of points, the closer he was to death. And Yin Haoyu did not want to die. Not before he could get rid of their voices, of their whole existence. Not before he could make the Orphanage System fall. He would live until that day, enjoy it as long as fate would allow it, and then he would gladly go.

If their goal was to break him, he would not let them.

The overload of intense stabs caused his movements to falter, and Tian Guanting took advantage. His sword descended on him, and Yin Haoyu could only just in time parry the attack. His arm trembled as he withstood Tian Guanting's strength, his own strength was being sapped by the mental battle he was holding against the excruciating pain.

The next few attacks and parries were stiff on his side, he lost his agility along with most of his mental capabilities. There was no way he would win the duel now, not like this, but Yin Haoyu was not one to give up. If he was going to lose, it would be because he tried his best, given his all.

It only took a few more attacks from Tian Guanting before his sword was at Yin Haoyu's throat.

He had lost. In the first round no less. He could forget about the sect Liao's lectures now.

Tian Guanting laughed loudly. "As always, you lose, Yin Huan. I don't know why you even try. Your case is a hopeless one." He sheathed his sword. "I don't know why I bothered with you. Even our youngest disciple only has to blow once, and you will fall over in defeat. Truly pathetic."

Breathe. He just had to breathe. Pain stabbed behind his eyes, pierced through every part of his body, but he just had to breathe. He did not want to talk to Tian Guanting, was not sure he could, so he turned around and limped slowly, but surely, off the field.

The moment he crossed the stones indicating the boundary of the field, Tang Jiahao was at his side. Tang Jiahao swung his arm under Yin Haoyu's shoulder and supported him. "Is it another attack?"

Yin Haoyu nodded. This was not the first time Tang Jiahao had witnessed one of his punishments. He was his best friend; how could he not have been around one of his punishments when his mother liked to punish him so much? It would have been weirder if he had not noticed how Yin Haoyu sometimes flinched and did not react to any outside stimulation.

No, Tang Jiahao knew. He just did not know what the attacks were. Yin Haoyu was not allowed to tell him what was going on, so he told him how he was cursed as a child, and that sometimes the curse would act up and it would hurt, a bit. There was no need for Tang Jiahao to know just how much it hurt.

Upon hearing his explanation, Tang Jiahao had insisted that they visited the sect's healer, and Yin Haoyu had agreed, although he warned him that until then nobody had even managed to detect the curse, so he should not have too much hope. Of course, the healer had not found anything. They even got a berating at wasting the healer's time. They did not try to find help after that.

Along the years, Tang Jiahao had become quite adapt at noticing the signs of a punishment and would pull him away to a more secluded area when it hit. Today was no different, and he quickly guided him into the privacy of the woods.

"How bad is it?"

Yin Haoyu did not respond, just looked at him. His mother had different gradations in punishments, they differed in length and severity. For slight failures the punishments were shorter, but still intense. She used the less sever ones just to attract his attention if she thought he was not listening. As if he could ever not hear her words when they stabbed straight into his head.

"A really bad one thus, alright." Tang Jiahao lowered Yin Haoyu onto a rock, and then sat beside him. "The timing of this one is terrible though. Does your curse know when an attack would be the least desirable or something?"

He was not far off though. His mother really had the worst timing. She insisted on him growing stronger, but when an opportunity arose that gave him a way to grow stronger, she always destroyed it by going mental. Of course, she then blamed it all on him. His life would get a lot easier if his mother could get her own emotions under control.

This time she had not only destroyed an opportunity though, she had destroyed his only hope.