Chapter 52

"Duan Cai," A soft and tender woman's voice called out in the vast darkness of the night around him.

"Who's there?" Duan Cai responded as he was jolted awake in his bed. He could feel his heart pounding as the voice calling out to him sounded familiar. It was a voice that he had known in the past but he was well aware that the owner of the voice had long passed on to her afterlife. His eyes began to glow gold in the darkness of his room. His top half was exposed and naked as he had been sleeping without a shirt on and his lower half was covered in the warm blanket.

"Duan Cai," The soft voice called out to him again as if she was whispering in his ears.

"Letya?" He asked with a puzzled expression as he knew the voice could not belong to the dead. Letya had longed passed on before he had fallen to earth and now he was hearing her voice. It felt like he was trapped inside a nightmare the more he thought about it. "I must be hallucinating."

"Duan Cai," She spoke again as he could see the image of the woman appearing before him as her figure was clear in his eyes. She was transparent and yet beautiful even as her faded figure sat down beside him on the bed. Her hair was long and hung down her sides as she seemed to gaze deep into his eyes.

"Who are you?" Duan Cai snarled his voice as he glared at the transparent figure of Letya that sat beside him.

"Duan Cai," she repeated his name once again as he thought he saw a tear roll down Letya's cheek. It seemed as though she was sad about something. Her hand slowly reached out until her fingertips were an inch from his face. Letya clearly wanted to stroke his cheek as she would have in the past but she was not a real being that could touch him simply because she wished it.

"If you're going to haunt someone should it not be Saigai?" Duan Cai smirked as he thought of how angered Saigai would become if he found out he was hallucinating Letya so vividly.

"Duan Cai, I'm sorry." Finally her words to him exceeded just his simple name. Her apology was something that Duan Cai could not understand because he had no memory of Letya ever doing anything to him for her to apologize for. It almost felt like he was hallucinating her as a joke the more he tried to think of a reason why he would imagine her apologizing to him.

"Sorry for what?" He could not help but to ask her.

Letya never did respond back to him with words and simply smiled softly at him. Her arms slowly opened up as if she wanted to hug Duan Cai close and her transparent figure slowly floated towards him as if to embrace him. Before their bodies were able to touch her form evaporated into the silent air of the room surrounding him. The only thing left was a cold silence and the dark of the night.

The more he thought about it the time passed by and he realized he had been spacing out for a while. He could not understand what just happened but he tried to tell himself it was just a hallucination of the girl. After thinking about Letya he collapsed onto his bed again and pulled his arm over his forehead to try and fall back asleep. Duan Cai could not help but wonder if he was thinking about her now simply because his mortal parents had been killed by Juniper. It felt like it was dragging up old memories that he had long put to rest before he fell to earth.

"What is this?" Duan Cai asked out loud to nobody in particular as his hand firmly grasped against his chest. To him it felt as though someone had a firm grasp on his heart and was squeezing with all their might. It was a pain that hurt and yet felt heavy at the same time. The feeling was new to him and he was not able to understand what it meant to lose someone and actually feel pained over it. In his years of being a god he had lost many people under him and lost a number of those who had cared for him deeply but it was the first time Duan Cai had lost someone while being able to feel something towards the loss. It was as though the loss of his mortal parents were starting to take affect by dragging old memories up that were affecting his mind.

Duan Cai was a man who had been alive for over ten thousand years so he had lost a number of people that could not be considered small. He had family, followers, worshipers, every possible loss a person could imagine someone going through he had experienced them all while he was incapable of feeling. Now that he could finally feel towards a loss he did not know what to call what he felt. He had been able to suppress himself at the beginning but now he was starting to wonder if it was messing with his own mental state in his mortal body for him to hallucinate Letya talking to him.

"Hah. Maybe, it's all because of him dragging up old things." Duan Cai thought out loud as his eyes flicked with the golden light. He did not want to think about things any more at the moment and simply wished to fall back asleep. The heaviness in his heart, however, had other plans for him as Duan Cai spent the rest of his night restless and unable to sleep. For the type of man who had never lost a wink of sleep over anything in his existence to finally be unable to sleep because of the pain in his heart it was a new experience for Duan Cai. It was the type of experience that he never thought he would have and could not help but wish he did not have to deal with it in that moment. For a split moment he even wondered if it was normal for a mortal to go through such a painful feeling.