"Grandma..."

Neither of them knew how much time had passed.
Neither of them could dart their eyes away from each other.

"Yao Xingjuan."

The Elder Lady Ruan froze. Never had she imagined in the wildest of her dreams that she would hear this name again.

"Who is Yao Xingjuan, Grandma?"

The large palatial room seemed to have shrunk in on her all of a sudden. She felt suffocated and bloated both at once. She couldn't breathe.

And Caihong? She was sitting coolly on the floor as if she had just asked about the weather.
While, her grandmother was feeling like she had been pinned to a card like a frog under the laboratory light, ready for dissection.

'Those eyes... Those same tea brown eyes... O... Oh... Oh my...' Elder Lady Ruan thought.

She turned white as a sheet under the piercing gaze, which was scorching its way right to her soul.
Her bosom rose and fell tumultuously.

"Y-y-you f-finish the knitting, w-we..." She gulped in vain. No matter how much she swallowed, her throat felt as dry as sand. She could hardly get the words out.

"Please tell me, who is Yao Xingjuan?" Caihong implored.

Elder Lady Ruan helplessly tried to find a way out of the mess she had somehow landed into. She was in deep shit, she knew it, and her granddaughter's persistent, unwavering gaze wasn't helping at all.

"Sh-she..."

'GuanYin... P-please...' she prayed.

"She... She i-is-"

"Elder Lady?"

Both of them started at the voice.
It was a guard.

"Elder Lady, Second Mistress, my greetings," he bowed low. "Elder Lady, Sect Leader Ruan requests your presence at the Main Hall."

'Thank God.'

Caihong had just nodded, acknowledging the bow. In the meanwhile, the Elder Lady Ruan had already leapt up from her seat and was now smoothening her robes.

"Tell my son I'll be right there," she replied in a clipped tone, trying her best to hide the tremble in her voice and her knees.

The guard bowed and left.

She paused to a halt in front of Caihong and stood there as if trying to decide whether to look at her or not. She decided in favour of the former and immediately regretted it, for she realised that the little girl's eyes had never left her at all, and they held an expression that she couldn't fathom, and it made her insides churn.

She tore her eyes away and shuddered, as she strode out of her chamber with a thumping heart.
Unknown to the whole world, a lone tear descended her cheek.

Caihong waited just long enough till she couldn't hear the footsteps anymore, before kicking the wool out of her lap and flopping down on the floor with a sigh.

Her head was crammed with thoughts.

'Why did Grandma go so pale?'

'Why was she stammering while answering my question?'

'Come on, if I was her sister, what's the problem in admitting it?'

She had expected the Elder Lady Ruan to smile and say with a longing in her eyes, " She was my darling little sister."

But she had given no such reaction. She had never breathed a word about even having a cousin, let alone a sibling.

The Elder Lady Ruan was surely hiding something deep inside.

It was a difficult guess as to what it could be, for she hardly spoke gently. She was always strict and was an overly taut bowstring, ready to snap at the slightest twang. She was TOO STIFF.

Her grim visage stood as a boulder barrier for almost all emotions (excluding anger). There were not many who could read her, and her worst plight was that Caihong was too good at this very thing.

Caihong yanked the half glove off, revealing the buff scar on her palm. She caressed it absently.

This was the first time Caihong had seen her grandma lose her composure like this. She had almost fallen apart; gallons of emotions, out of which anguish was most prominent, had been displayed, like a raw gaping gash, for everyone to see.

It was as if someone had hacked open her deepest secret.

Out of the blue, a loud wail resounded throughout the compound outside.

"SECT LEADER RUAN!!! OH, SECT LEADER RUAN!!! PLEASE HELP ME!!"

Caihong sighed and pulled herself to her feet. She sauntered into her grandmother's bedroom.
All the while, though she could hear the conversation outside in the compound, she didn't pay much attention to it.

"Hey, where's your Sect Leader? Tell me. I wanna know. Tell me right now!!"

There was a sound of the heavy rustling of robes.

"WHERE IS YOUR SECT LEADER?!!?"

"T-There."

There was a thud and the sound of racing footsteps echoed away, accompanied by desperate, frantic cries calling for her father," SECT LEADER RUAN!!"

Caihong stood still, gazing at the scar on her palm. Once, when she had a fever, she had overheard Father whisper something to Mother.

Something about a soul mark.

She tugged on the robe on the left side of her torso. On her white chest, just above her heart, there was a design of such a deep shade of red, that it was almost black.

'Was that a soul mark thingy too?'

Though they had been nothing but birthmarks to her all this while, if she considered the turn of events, her grandmother's odd behaviour, could she brush them off as something utterly normal and insignificant?

'How did I get these marks?'

Her fingers traced the outline of the design on her chest.

'What is a soul mark?'

She lifted her gaze, only to find that she was standing in front of the mirror. She stared deeply at her reflection.

What was she looking for?

Answers?

Reasons?

She had no clue.

With these thoughts clogging up her little head, Caihong finally huffed out. "I. Need. Some. Air."

Almost at once, a wide grin spread across her face, which screamed 'I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good, never was, and never will'; a plan on how she was going to 'get herself some air' had already been hatched.

She clasped her hands in glee.

'MISCHIEF TIME!'