Legend of Fu Yao Volume 1 Chapter 11
Book 1: Winds Begin to Blow in Tai Yuan
Chapter 11 - Storm's Fury
It was raining.
The downpour in the middle of the night suddenly came
furiously, like a tear in the heavens poured down an ocean. With a "hua la
la" sound it pounded down, and in a short while thousands and thousands of
thin streams began to flow on the ground.
Pei Yuan came out from the front hall holding a oil-paper
umbrella, and under the waiting of a maidservant she tread on water puddles to
return to her "Orchid Pavilion". Another maidservant was carrying a paper
lantern to light the way. The wind and rain was fierce and the lantern swayed
side to side, and despite the maid using her own rain cloak to protect the light
the whole way, the lantern was still quickly extinguished by a surging gust of
tempestuous wind and rain.
Before the maidservant had time to apologize, Pei Yuan had
already backhandedly slapped her. Sharp fingernails sliced a couple bright red
streaks on the maid's face and fresh blood began to drip down. The child didn't
dare to cry, only hugging the extinguished lantern and shrinking back a little
in the rain.
"Useless idiot! Can't even take care of one
lantern!" Pei Yuan raised her eyes to glance at the turbulent currents of
wind and rain in the deep night sky, and a feeling of irritation washed over
her without reason. She furrowed her brows and covered herself better with the
rain cloak, speeding up her steps to enter her secluded courtyard.
"You are not allowed to enter the courtyard, don't
dirty my grounds." Pei Yuan hated people intruding and was obsessed with
cleanliness - even her chosen residence was the most spotless and elegant
"Orchid Pavilion". These habits everyone in the sect knew, and so the
maidservants lowly concurred and retreated far from the entrance.
Outside the doors was the furious storm that hit the ground
like a deity's whip, inside the doors was a deep, silent darkness without any
movement.
Pei Yuan went to push the doors.
With a creaking sound, the doors slowly opened, and Pei
Yuan's eyes casually lowered. In that moment, she spotted on the wooden
floorboards some light wet stains.
Her heart shook, and Pei Yuan's reactions were extremely
quick, immediately shooting backwards in retreat.
However it was already late.
"Cha!"
In the inky dimness a white glow flashed, and faintly a dark
shadow materialized with a sharp blade piercing forwards. The attack was silent
and traceless, fast like flowing light or flying lightning - in only a split
second, it had already reached in front of Pei Yuan's face!
"Chi."
The thin, vague sound of skin and flesh being sliced open
shockingly sounded in Pei Yuan's ear, and she only felt on her left temple a coldness
then a pain. Following her left eye became an expanse of blood red.
Scarlet red covered her left vision, causing Pei Yuan to be unable
to discern clearly the person who used the cover of darkness to sneak attack
her. The only thing she knew was that at this moment, only she could save
herself. Biting her teeth and bearing the pain, Pei Yuan drew her sword with a
ringing noise. The sword tip vibrated with the light of the heaven's stars, the
resplendent radiance drawing one's eyes. In this emergency situation, she even
used the clan inheritance her master had secretly pa.s.sed down to her, the
treasured sword technique "Vast Sky Sword".
The opponent seemed to realize the power of the sword art, and
didn't confront it head-on but twisted their body, already flitting over to the
side of her body like a swimming fish. In the instant the figure pa.s.sed by her
side, it flipped its hand and fiercely sliced upwards. Pei Yuan's right
forehead felt another pain, and more fresh blood splashed down like a red
spring. A waterfall of blood appeared across the horizon, completely obscuring
her last bit of clear vision.
The powerful strike of the blade, was swift like sprinting
thunder; the barely contained fury in the attack, was sharp like shocking
lightning.
In that moment, the opposing side had already ruthlessly
drawn an "X" on Pei Yuan's face.
With her two eyes soaked in red blood and unable to see anything,
Pei Yuan no longer used any special techniques in her sword attacks - the
splitting pain on her face had already caused her to be deeply panic-stricken
and apoplectic. She didn't know how serious the wounds on her face were, but
from the amount of flowing blood it could be inferred that her face had already
been ruined. The opponent's actions were malicious and ruthlessly planned-out,
as if they had some deep-rooted vengeance with her.
Beautiful woman have always valued their appearance over
their lives; right now, Pei Yuan was in so much excruciating pain that she
didn't want to live, with her only thought being to not stop until she killed
the other person. Ignoring her two cut wounds, she swiped her hand horizontally
over her sword and smeared the fresh blood on her palm onto the sword body. The
sword instantly flashed scarlet - in the darkness the b.l.o.o.d.y glow began to
wriggle and flow, and inside the flowing blood gradually arose bubbles as big
as crab eyes. They were vividly multicolored like countless poisonous spiders,
and started crawling erratically on the sword body causing one to feel nauseated
just looking at the scene.
If there were any descendents of the Tai Yuan royal family
present, they surely would yell in shock at the use of "Blood Sacrifice
Magic", the royal family's secret magic skill. Now that Pei Yuan had displayed
it, it signified that she felt it was a life or death struggle.
However, even if her intention was to fight to the death, the
opposite side was not willing to. Once the intruder saw the mysterious red
light shine, they immediately and silently leapt away with large steps. Their
foot tip kicked on the doorframe, and with a roll they had already escaped the
red light's area of encirclement. Amidst the howling downpour the black shadow
was like a large bird of prey, in an instant flying out three zhang and vanishing within the almost
solid sheets of rain.
Pei Yuan brought her sword and chased after, her magic skill
ready. As fast as lightning, she raised her foot in the initial position of the
skill, while in her palm the long sword's glow brightened. It seemed like she
only needed a lift of her hand to immediately reach the shadow's back with her
weapon.
However, before she could slice upwards, she suddenly felt
something slippery shoot past her side with a small whistle of air, then
following that a pain in her finger, causing the long sword in her hand to
clatter to the ground.
In astonishment, Pei Yuan thought there was still another
enemy inside the pavilion and desperately opened her eyes wide. Within her
blood red vision she could only make out a round shadowy ball, disappearing in
an instant.
Then she felt something soft underneath her foot, as if she
had been tripped by something, and Pei Yuan stumbled forward.
The two slice wounds started to numbly itch at this time,
feeling like there were an innumerable number of small insects crawling inside
the cuts. In shock, Pei Yuan couldn't focus on fighting to the death anymore, and
hurriedly went to scratch her injuries. However, the more she touched the stronger
the itching, and in that expanse of red she couldn't see anything at all. Panicked,
she started to loudly scream. "SOMEONE COME! Come! Get water for me! Call
the doctor, call the doctor!!!"
There was nothing but stillness.
Those maidservants who she had just exiled to the outside
rain in fear of dirtying her floor, were still hugging the extinguished
lantern, stiffly and indifferently staring at her.
They stood like wooden statues in the rain, looking at the
usually n.o.ble and overbearing woman whose long hair was scattered in the pouring
rainstorm, and her whole face full of fresh blood. The woman who stretched her
two arms out in the middle of the luxurious wooden courtyard while mournfully
crying, with two streaks of slice wounds intersecting in the middle of her face
in a hideous "X". The woman whose fresh blood dripped from those
brushstrokes, dripping onto the courtyard she never allowed anyone to enter,
staining the shining clean floor surface with a region of turbid red color.
"Someone come ... ah ... someone come ..."
No one moved, and no one spoke. Those low-status maidservants
who had personally witnessed the previous brutal mutilation, stood callously
nearby in the storm.
The howling rains were gusted by the wind into layers and
layers of crystalline walls, curtaining their eyes that, because of long
periods of abuse, held hatred inside them.
"Some ... one ... ah ..."
Pei Yuan's miserable cries were drowned by the ferocious
storm, gradually fading into nothingness. She madly scrambled around the
courtyard, yet because she kept colliding with the columns and worsening her
wounds, the itching on her face became even more severe, and her strength
finally depleted.
Rain fell into the courtyard from the deep red over-hangings
above, staining the cloth into a b.l.o.o.d.y color. Inside the rain the red-clothed
and blood-stained Pei Yuan fumbled around, sorrowfully moaning, and sank down to
the ground slowly in despair.
Her body landed on the stairs, and her black hair spread
across the wet ground underneath, meandering across the puddles on the floor
like snakes. Her hand desperately reached forwards, as if she wanted to grab a
hold of a hope to escape from this nightmare.
Unfortunately, she never was able to grasp anything.
The night had not yet reached its end, with the storm
continuing to rage.
A low mumble, full of hurt resulting from incomprehension, was
barely audible in between the rumbles of thunder.
"You ... why ... won't you help me ..."