The Moment of Truth (2)

Did I hit the mark? Was I really dead?

My brain was chewing in any possibilities to the matter of life and death. I closed my eyes tightly, afraid that when I opened them I would see myself in the Netherlands, walking on the bridge saying goodbyes to the fun of this world.

The tiny muscles around my eyes quivered for a good fifteen seconds before my lids finally fluttered. I was trying to open my eyes, but they seemed to be resisting. A gunshot? Oh, bloody wandering ghost, leaving the world with a bullet hole. I was scared to find my head had a hole in it. My heart was already tripping in fright.

After a few more seconds of fluttering, I finally managed to open my eyes all the way and caught a glimpse of a man dressed merely in a Western suit.

My whole body jolted in shock. Of course, that priestess already pulled her trigger. Only that the bullet didn't hit. It stopped. Midair. I saw a man standing back at me, facing that priestess. I would recognize that strong, broad shoulders from anywhere. He halted the bullet using his bare hand under my place. And then just—it fell to the ground.

He turned around and met my gaze.

That was it.

I stared at him. My salvation. Jie Moshu.

And I could feel rising tears, mixed with rising relief. Oh my God, I had never been so enlightened before.

Through my blurred vision of tears, I could see his dark hair burnished under the lights. One moment he was brimmed with holy power. The next I felt his powers had turned into rage and magic.

He didn't bother to look at the priestess. "Die."

Just as the priestess about to open her mouth, Jie Moshu swung toward her. The flames within him were straining to break out. A moment later, a fire crackled to life from his palm, burning against that priestess's throat where he had choked her. She struggled under his grasp. From her inaudible moving mouth, I could even feel myself hearing her shriek in agony and despair.

My jaw dropped before I knew it. I was so shocked that my tears stopped streaming down. But before I could hold my stares any longer, Jie Moshu immediately put his arms around me, covering my eyes from that horrible sight.

At once, a breeze rustled lightly around me, cutting the ropes that bound my whole body into tiny pieces. I knew it was no ordinary breeze, but magic—soft, silky magic that slid against my senses, embracing me, allowing me to feel safe from the horrors of the world.

When I jerked my head up looking at him, Jie Moshu's expression showed as if he had been punched in the gut. And through his eyes, I vaguely felt something shattered inside me—that deaf-mute woman's real feelings. How haunted, utterly lost, and bewildered she must have been.

Jie Moshu took my hand and brought it to his lips. He pressed the gentlest, reassuring kiss on my palm. Then he made it clear with his mouth's movements, "I'm sorry that I'm late."

Tears were edging down my cheeks. My shoulders were shaking slightly and I knew his words had touched my sore spot. He gave me that warm feeling that everything would be fine. Just by his touch.

Another realization struck me; the deaf-mute woman's fears were now my fears.

The questions in her head whispered straight into my mind. What happened if he hadn't come on time? And something crossed my head that the possibility of what had occurred during my past lives—inescapable death.

My eyes were closed again. Exhaustion set in, as if massive weight rested on my shoulders and kept getting heavier and heavier. As pain filled me, I stifled a sob, letting my guard off.

He cupped my face, brushing away the tears from my cheeks. His passionately intensified eyes locked on mine, again my gaze traveled to his mouth. "I'm here now. I'll never leave you ever again."

Suddenly, the fact that I was inches away from a crazy priestess who wanted to kill me had vanished by Jie Moshu's presence.

He used his strong arms, gallantly carried me. My face was leaning against his chest. The rhythmic pounding inside him made me realize that this was real. Even if it was only shards of memory, at that moment, Jie Moshu was ultimately real for me.

As real as that feeling may be, the intense and stunning pain dissected my muscles through phases of agony. God, it hurt me like hell to the point I couldn't catch my breath.

It was as if there was electricity struck right into my skull, shredding my very soul. Every instinct in me screamed when I sensed a surging ache overflowed my whole body. My heart kept on beating, emphasizing the fresh waves of pain along with every steady thump-thump-thump.

I bent over and started coughing. My hand covered my mouth, but the warm, sticky drops of blood splattering onto my skin. But no matter how hard I tried to keep it from Jie Moshu, he still saw the blood trickled out between my fingers.

Jie Moshu stared at me for a moment, wide-eyed. As if he had heard something, he swiveled his head around. Following his gaze, I found that the priestess had yet met her death. And through his expression, I knew those words he uttered seeming to penetrate his rage.

"What have you done to her?!"

Fire aflamed, scorching the floor in front of me. I saw that priestess scurried to the side. The swift move lifted a bit of her hooded cloak, revealing a cold, cruel smile on rouged lips.

Still grasping me tight on his arms, he put on a burst of speed, surged up to grab the neck of that priestess's cloak with the other hand. That power pulsed from his hands could have set her entire body blazed in pain and slammed her. The wall behind her crackled and shriveled. "What have you done to her?!"

Jie Moshu stabilized her, hand turning bright with the startling blaze of flame, and he put it on her throat.

Abruptly, a frigid mist swirled up, putting out the flame on Jie Moshu's palm. The next, ice immediately crept along that hand he used to hold the priestess, wrapping his arm like crystallized tendrils of ivy gnarled. Glittering as the magic was, it looked deathly as ever.

Her face twitched as if she was scoffing at him. "Ah... Do you think you can burn me again? Not so fast, Your Highness. Especially when you've lost so much of your power for a mere human's soul."

Jie Moshu had lost his powers for me? How? What had he done?

The pain inside me was sharper and deeper. My fingers clenched into fists, trying to suppress myself from coughing more blood. I breathed steadily to calm myself as I tried to comprehend the priestess's words.

I saw his mouth moving, as he spoke, "You're from the Sky Realm."

A faint grin spread across the priestess's face. After a moment, cold overcame the whole area, like a nuclear winter. Ice zipped around the ground, silvery light magic spread fast to Jie Moshu's hand. While his attention focused on his frozen arm, the priestess took her chance scurried away into thin smoke, disappearing from his sight.

As if the coldness pierced through my veins, I drew in a short, ragged breath, my exhalations turning into frost given how cold the air was. Seeing my condition worsened, Jie Moshu quickly touched my face with his wet hand from the melting ice.

Heat sparked from his touch, he was burning with golden magic, so much that he almost glowed. His magic reached out to me, so warm and soft. It wrapped around me, but I didn't dare to move. Afraid that I might lose this feeling. His touch, his warmth—all of Jie Moshu.

Despite the fact he tried to comfort me, I still felt weak and light-headed. I knew it was so close to dying, no, she was on the verge of dying. Maybe I was about to, in this past life.

He looked at me, I didn't know why—probably it was my past self—but my lips quivered into a smile of its own will.

His mouth grew tighter as I glanced over the broad features of his face, the strong cheekbones, and broad jaw. It was as if I was imprinting his every detail into my brain so that I wouldn't forget him.

Like what I had done in my past lives, I had tried to remember him.

But in fact, I was born not remembering any of his attachment to my previous life. Every single lifetime was showing pools after pools of blood. So much blood splashing everywhere like scarlets of teardrops. And in the end, me dying in his arms. Every single lifetime followed by those apologetic gazes through his shadow.

"No," he said, his reluctant eyes and touch made me realize how much he cared for her. The thought itself flooded me with warmth. "I won't let you go."

Tears were pricking my eyes. The truth was, I barely knew the reason why I felt like crying. It could be my past life saying her last words of goodbye or the fact that I noticed how marooned I had been all this time.

The second before I knew that my past self couldn't make it, a red spark flickered on Jie Moshu's palm, and magic spread out from his hand, ran up to my body.

He combined all of his deep and thick reiki, pouring it all into my body and using his glowing fire magic to keep me warm. And when he forced all of his energy out to me, the white of his eyes had already started to blacken. As he tried to cure me, sweat slicking down his face, neck, and hands.

Out of nowhere, another hand took Jie Moshu's hand from healing me.

Si Ming stopped in front of Jie Moshu and me, his eyes flickering over my bloody clothes and my face which I assumed pale and bloodless. I got the sense with all that troubled look filling in his eyes, although I had no idea what his purpose was inside my memory—and death.

"Your Highness," Si Ming's eyebrows shot up in warning. "You must not—"

"Don't try to stop me, Si Ming!" Jie Moshu cut him off with a glare as his eyes going glassy. "You've stopped me from before, but not this time. I'll definitely let her live, I won't let her suffer from this mortal pain anymore."

Si Ming's expression looked as bland as ever, but something in his face was bothering me. It was almost like he was expecting me to die, but I couldn't comprehend what possibly was his problem with Jie Moshu healing me.

His eyes turned back at me with a cold, hard one on his own. "But there is nothing you can do. And you know better—she's nothing more than an incomplete soul."