What was it like to be hit by a jade ornament?
Towards the utterly random and nonsensical question that once plagued the everlasting streets of Baidu, An Fei had finally obtained a suitable answer.
The young girl felt utter conviction in her answer, as though nothing could refute its validity nor raise an argument in defense.
She could summarize it in two – no, three words!
It hurt!
It f*cking hurt, alright!?
When the pair of jade clasps smacked onto the back of her head, directly in the center of which the first impact had incurred a rather painful swelling, An Fei had the urge that the experience of the engraving atop the first corridor was not as bad as she had previously thought.
The young girl clutched at the back of her head with both hands, yet the continuing and ever-magnifying sensation of scalding heat scouring through her head flippantly notified her brain that her attempts were simply and magnificently not working.
The young girl wasn’t a stranger to the principle as to which her suffering had originated from.
As she ran throughout the infinite corridor with tears streaming from her eyes and both hands covering the back of her painful and swollen head, An Fei couldn’t suppress the thought of her twin butterfly swords.
The twin butterfly swords were merely utilitarian-crafted weapons without any implement or decorative accessory. The weapon was forged as a single piece of steel, and the handle itself was merely a wooden block that had been smoothed and adjusted into the shape of a grip, with leather bindings as support.
And yet, the seemingly useless weapon could shear through any physical substance in the world – save for the materials found in the Sanctum.
In the Wu Ji Forest, the twin butterfly swords had phased through every defense imaginable by the fierce creatures and guardian beast, dealing lethal damage upon the slightest and most causal swing.
And now… she was suffering from the same principle that had allowed her to stomp upon every living nightmare and aspiration of a cultivator.
As she continued her useless and helpless action of fleeing, An Fei found herself capable of sympathizing with those that had fallen underneath the playful yet devastating edge of the –
Pak!
“Ah!”
The fan rotated upon one end to swoop onto the back of the young girl’s head, the jade clasps upon the other end delivering a powerful impact to the already bruised and swollen region.
As though thoroughly enjoying An Fei’s shriek of pain and blessing of tears, the fan swayed above her head in a mixture of joy and happiness.
Defending with her fingers?
The jade clasps – no, the entire fan – merely phased through, and its conquest was literally unstoppable, not even by the <Steps of Underlying Shadow>.
An Fei was certain that the fan’s actions constituted as a threat to her personal safety, and yet the movement martial arts technique remained dormant.
Then, running away?
Hmph.
The goddamned fan floated above her head at just the distance her arms couldn’t reach; when she attempted to jump and swipe to wrench control of the object, the devil-possessed fan would soar a few centimeters higher to barely avoid her fingertips.
Moreover, however fast she moved, however fast the fan travelled through the air.
…she literally could not escape from it, however she tried –
Pak!
“AH! No more!”
The young girl howled with all of her might, and rushed into the boudoir at the fastest speed possible.
All thoughts regarding the Gate of Death were driven from her mind, and An Fei dove underneath the protective covers of the curtained bed; even her head found refuge underneath the blankets to avoid its misery.
Alas…
The accursed fan swooped downwards once more onto the young girl’s defenseless body. Completely disregarding the layer of protection imparted by the blanket that covered her entire body, the jade clasps whirled in the air above the bed, to dive once more and deliver a suppressing smack onto a pair of soft cheeks…
Pak!
“Wuu…..”
That night, all misleading or distracting thoughts regarding the Gate of Death were purged from the young girl’s mind under the jade fan’s ‘energetic’ teaching.
When An Fei finally emerged from the Sanctum and into the black steel carriage, the dark circles underneath the young girl’s eyes and the perpetual scowl on her countenance gave a horrifying fright to the little raven.
What had happened, that her usually dull scarlet irises became even more dead?
–
“Xiao Hei, can you make the carriage travel a little smoother? My legs hurt a little too much, ah…”
An Fei muttered between her hisses of pain towards the little raven, her delicate fingers massaging at the heavily bruised skin.
The young girl rolled onto her side to escape the unimaginable torment assaulting her backside, resting her cheek against the soft surface of a properly and wonderfully created cotton pillow.
Caw!
The little raven’s reply prompted a sigh to escape her lips, and An Fei’s ambient mood cooled instantly.
The young girl grit her teeth in a mixture of resignation, humiliation, and rage, her hands tightening around a rather… rectangular box.
All throughout the night, she had been thoroughly ‘tamed’ by the atrocity of a fan!
Her legs, buttocks, arms – everywhere the devilish object had deemed was a weakness, it had delivered a few ‘sermons’ every few seconds.
Hence, the young girl was neither capable of obtaining a good rest, nor could she attempt to sit in any fashion whatsoever.
The same fan that had branded itself as the bane of her existence lay limp and dormant in her hands, having lost the mysterious force that empowered its existence and abilities whilst in the Sanctum.
Nonetheless, the young girl could not find it within herself to be happy whatsoever.
The stupid devil of a fan lay limp and pale in her hands, and yet she couldn’t inflict any damage to it!
When her hands clamped onto the ends and attempted to break the fan, the object obtained an unusual rigidity and durability – as though she were holding onto a bar of tempered diamond.
She had attempted to bash the fan against the armored, exterior wall of the black steel carriage, and yet it was the black steel wall that suffered an injury, not the fan with the jade clasps.
“Just what is wrong with you!?”
In appearance and practicality, the fan was completely plain and ordinary. The slips supporting the leaves of the fan were constructed from an unknown metal that appeared similar to titanium, and the jade clasps at the ends of the fan were of the cheapest suet jade.
An Fei leaned against the windowsill of the carriage as her fingers absentmindedly played with the devilish object.
Her head leaned against the crook of her elbow, the young girl raised the fan before her and with a smooth motion, opened it to its maximum width.
“Huh?”
The leaves of the fan was comprised of an unusual fabric, with a texture not unlike that of silk, but with the appearance of linen. Furthermore… the coloring and design of the fan were unusual and unnerving.
One side was completely black with the word ‘life’ embossed in white letters. The other was a pure white with ‘death’ stamped in black letters.
“Is this supposed to be a Yin and Yang diagram of some sorts?” An Fei muttered in confusion.
“But why are the colors inverted?”
To her limited knowledge of feng shui, wasn’t the color scheme of the fan supposed to be the opposite, in which death was written in white and life was adorned in black?
Why was this fan displaying an inverted scheme – what was the point?
“Could it hide an unusual property like that of the butterfly swords and the qama? Though that shouldn’t be unexpected, since the Sanctum really is unpredictab – ah!?”
“Xiao Hei, stop the carriage!”
The shocked cry was accompanied by the startled order, and the little raven was left at a loss of what to do.
Shaking its feathery head with confusion and willing for the warhorses to cease their fast-paced gallop, the little creature took flight to witness the young girl from above.
An Fei swiftly climbed out of the carriage door to stand in the endless plains, ignoring the searing pain that brushed against her backside in her brief moment of physical contact. The young girl held the clasped fan in her right hand, wading forth into the knee-height grasses.
When she had surrounded herself completely by the unending sea of grass, An Fei took a deep breath to steady herself.
“Surely… what I just saw wasn’t an illusion?”
The fan was opened once more with fingers trembling of excitement, anticipation, and a hint of fear.
An Fei held onto the fan with her right hand, and oriented the leaves that the side of ‘life’ was pointed towards herself, and ‘death’ was aimed towards the grass of the plains.
And at once, without a sound nor presence, all of the grass within her vicinity surrendered their vitality and withered to ash.
At the same instance, the Underworld Bridge welcomed the several hundred million souls of the plants of the endless plains, each bubbling with their own confusions and worries.
