⚠️🔞 A little description of sexual foreplay ahead, but I'll advise my sensitive readers not to skip it because you might end up missing out on a vital point. The rest is up to you. 🔞⚠️

Doctor Cheng twirled his fingers in his long, grey beard out of habit. He huffed, rolled up his sleeves and tried again. He pressed his stubby fingers to her pulse, trying hard to detect any wrongness anywhere.

"Are you sure she lost control of her spiritual energy, Sect Leader?" He asked, blinking his tiny eyes.

"Yes!" Ruan Fai frantically nodded. "She was-"

"No," A confident Renshu interrupted.

Doctor Cheng pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. "Well, Sect Leader, her qi is completely normal."

"What??!"

"Yes. It's the strangest affair I've ever experienced in the three decades of my career. Though these marks on her definitely indicate a strong curse, her qi is flowing in the right direction. It's very steady. And also-"

Quinyang stormed into the room, her hair falling out of her uncharacteristically messy bun.

"Caihong!!!" The distraught mother cried, looking around for her daughter. When she finally spotted her on the bed, she rushed over, ignoring Anbai's pleas not to move around rapidly.

"My child... Oh, my little girl-" She froze when her vision which was blurred from her tears finally cleared.

The sight of an unconscious Caihong with menacing dark lines scribbled all over her pale skin and coagulated blood lining her eyelashes, nostrils and the corners of her parched mouth made her clap a hand on her mouth to suppress the renewed wave of nausea that curdled her entrails with a vengeance.

Within a split second, her restlessness turned into shock, disgust and intense agony and she wheeled around and howled, "WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO MY CHILD?!! RUAN FAI!! ANSWER ME!!"

"I haven't done a thing, I swear!"

"THEN WHY ON EARTH IS SHE LIKE THIS?!!"

"I have no idea! I don't know!" Ruan Fai glanced at the doctor, pleading for him to help.

"Ah, My Lady, your daughter is fine..." The Royal Physician mopped at the sweat above his almost non-existent eyebrows.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE IS ALRIGHT?! YOU THINK YOU KNOW HER BETTER THAN HER MOTHER?!"

"Umm... well..."

"Please don't mind her, Doctor," Ruan Fai began to apologise earnestly.

Quinyang burst into tears.

Anbai held her mother up by the shoulders, trying to calm her down.

"Mǔqīn..."

Quinyang removed her hands from her face. A pair of little hands were tugging at her robes. Earnest hazel orbs smiled at her and she couldn't help but smile back a bit, though with the tears streaming down her face, it looked more like a grimace.

Renshu led her over to the chair he had been perched on. He looked up at her again, his large, doe-like eyes urging her to sit. "Mǔqīn," he uttered after she was seated comfortably. "Caihong is okay. Renshu was there. Caihong scared those bad men away."

"But she looks... horrid..."

"She is okay," Renshu stated firmly, his luminous eyes glowing in determination.

Seeing that she had calmed down somewhat, the Royal Physician turned towards Ruan Fai. Leading him a few steps away, he spoke, "Sect Leader, please, believe me, there's nothing wrong with Little Mistress Ruan."

"Are... are you sure, Doctor?" Fai anxiously inquired.

"Yes. With a few days of rest, she should completely recover."

Relief washed over him in tidal waves, leaving him overwhelmed. He laughed thinly, tilting his head back in silent prayer.

'Oh, Goddess... I'll take Quinyang to your temple tomorrow itself. Thank you... Oh, thank you.'

"But, Sect Leader..."

His joy evaporated as quickly as it had gushed in; the skin between his brows furrowed as he regarded the plump, old man.

"From what you have told me, this should be a curse," he frowned, running his fingers through his fluffy white beard. "But the problem is, I can't locate the chink through which the curse might have attacked her." He then shook his head. "Sorry, I'll rephrase. There's no such vulnerability anywhere in her core. Neither is there any strange aura being emitted as an effect of a curse."

"What might this mean, Doctor?"

"I do not know, Your Highness. I cannot locate the origin of the curse anywhere on her body. Even if it has been cast from outside, there must be some mark on her body, to indicate the entry point of the curse. But there's none."

"This is the first time I'm hearing of such a thing," a dumbfounded Ruan Fai mumbled.

Nodding, the Royal Physician turned towards the bed where Caihong lay. "This is the reason why I find the lines on her skin so intriguing, for they bear strong signs of dark powers at play, but..."

His face washed blank with confusion like his brain cogs couldn't turn fast enough to decode the information from his impossibly wide eyes. He froze in his tracks. He couldn't be more at a loss for words if she'd suddenly learned the art of metamorphosis.

The frightening, black lines scrawled all over her skin had vanished as if they had never been there in the first place.

******

His heart seemed to weigh him down. Li Liang sat down heavily on one of the chairs as soon as Ruan Fai left the room.

In the meanwhile, Shing supervised the disposal of the corpses.

"Shing."

"Yes, Father?"

Li Liang's eyelids fluttered shut. "You have no idea what you just uttered, have you?"

"I am only dealing with the corpses..."

"To Renshu."

"Oh, that," Shing shrugged a bit nonchalantly. "He needs to learn more about obeying m-"

"If it involves that particular girl, he will do anything under the sun an-"

"You mean to say that I can't stop him?"

"...Exactly. But that's beside the point. Why did you say that to him?"

Shing bit his lips to suppress the sharp pang in his chest. "Ummm," He cleared his throat. "Well, I-"

"Have you forgotten that even thinking of that particular deed is forbidden??" Liang gripped the edge of the seat with his uninjured hand so tightly that his knuckles whitened.

Shing gulped at the rise in the octave of his father's voice. "Baba... I really didn't mean anything-"

"Come."

He had no other choice but to follow him till they reached a deserted corridor; his father's tone had left no room for argument.

They both stood there facing each other, Liang trying to rein the seething emotion that itched beneath his skin and Shing with his head hung low.

"Li Shing."

He couldn't bring himself to look up.

"Li Shing. Look at me when I talk to you."

Shing lifted his face slowly to look at his father's wrath-reddened, stormy eyes. He swallowed and lowered his gaze again.

"Li Shing. I won't repeat myself."

He took a deep breath to steel himself and looked up again. Li Liang had pulled himself up to his full height and his fist had tightened on the scabbard, making his knuckles whiten.

Shing couldn't help but wonder whether his father was actually taller than him.

"Why did you say that to Renshu? Why did you say that-" Liang glanced around to make sure no one was near and lowered his voice, "you would grab him by the back of his neck and drag him back to his room?"

Shing opened and closed his mouth like a fish.

"Do you not know it is forbidden??"

"Baba, I was only trying to..."

"Save him."

Shing nodded rapidly.

"But there are so many other ways in which you could have tried to stop him, not that you would have succeeded though, but again I will not stray away from the main conversation. Why did you find it so necessary to try this tactic?"

"I thought..."

"What did you think?"

"I... I thought that... maybe he would listen to me and not go there..."

Liang let out an exasperated sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Looks like old school thoughts don't work on you youngsters anymore. Everything must be explained to you or you just rush headfirst to explore." He sighed again. "You disappoint our ancestors, Li Shing. When there is a custom, there is a reason as well. If the reason is kept hidden away, then there is a reason why we do that, isn't it?? What's so hard about accepting it??"

"Baba, why are you reacting like this?? It's just a custom, right? We all know it. What's so important about it??"

"Renshu is your son." Li Liang could barely contain his fury. "Your only son. Yet, you thought of doing something to your son that has been prohibited by our ancestors."

"I... I'm very sorry, Baba, but-"

"When the custom has been engraved upon stone by our ancestors, is it not your duty to follow it?? Please realise that this custom was made for our security. This is why it had been engraved so many years back on our secret tablet of Protection! We keep it hidden and protected by our strongest wards and warriors for a reason, Shing! It's a dangerous secret that we have been hiding. It's been centuries since our first ancestor and we uphold the tradition. GuanYin knows what might happen if this secret-"

"Baba... I really didn't mean anything by it, I swear I wouldn't do anything to him. Besides, the secret is still a secret," Shing held his father's hands between his.

"But you would have done it if I didn't stop you, right??"

"No... I... I.."

"WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST OBEY THE RULE?!?!" Li Liang yelled.

Scalding tears pricked the corners of his eyes; it took up all his efforts not to let them spill over his eyelashes.

"Baba!!" Jia stood a few feet away from them, horrified at the scene. 

Li Liang had never raised his voice at them, even when they did something wrong. He punished them, oh yes, he did; but he had his secret stash of cunning ways to make them feel guilty enough to cry.

Shing shot her a warning look, pleading her not to intervene.

"Baba, what's wrong??" Jia finally managed to waddle up to them. She puffed, fully red in her face and out of breath with just a few quick steps. "What has Gege done??"

"What has he done, you ask?? Ask what he hasn't done," Liang snapped, his face flushed with fury.

"Gege, what happened??"

"I.. told Ren that I would grab him... b-by the b-back of his neck..." Shing hiccuped, his face crimson with shame and tears.

"Eh??" She shook her head a bit. She wasn't sure if she had heard it right. "You told Ren what??"

Shing could never say such a thing.

She prayed to the deities, to anyone who still had an ear out for the prayers of mortals that she had heard him wrong.

Shing looked at her with reddened watery eyes. A deep, shaky inhale forced the tears that were brimming in his eyes and the words out of his mouth. "I... told Ren that if he didn't listen to me... I would grab him by the back of his neck..."

Jia sucked in a breath.

"... and drag him... b-back to his room..."

All the sounds around her suddenly disappeared. Her ears rang with white static noise and her heart dropped away from under her feet. When the sounds gradually faded back in, she wondered about the last time she had felt this awful. Like someone had knowingly ripped open a gash that had never healed. Her hands instinctively pulled the high collar of her robes taut to hide her neck.

*/ "Hey, beautiful..."

Soft lips made their way from her shoulder, up her neck and his teeth nibbled at her earlobe. Slender white hands swept the gorgeous red robes off her shoulders, revealing sun-kissed skin that shimmered like gold in the light of the candles.

"Mmmmm..." she clung to his already bare shoulders and he turned her around to face the mirror.

"Look at you," his warm breath caressed the shell of her ear, raising goosebumps all over her arms. Her eyes met with their reflections on the polished glass. "How fine you are." The weight of his arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him with her back to his chest seemed like her anchor to reality amidst the myriad of sensations.

Her teeth dug into the tender fullness of her bottom lip as her crotch tingled deliciously and gradually moistened.

"Jia..." He whispered against the sensitive skin of her shoulder and sucked it leaving a deep crimson mark. She jolted up at the sting of his teeth and immediately moaned.

Her spiritual energy seemed to be buzzing in her veins, igniting a devouring flame that was at least three times more amplified if not more. It felt like the pleasant burn in her muscles after she had sparred for too long, or more like when she did handstands while switching the balancing arm.

His free hand cupped her jaw, pushing her head to rest on his shoulder. His thumb dipped into her mouth, the slight saltiness of his skin catching on the tip of her tongue, and brushed against her lips smearing the red lip paint a little.

'He's claiming me... We belong to each other now...'

She gazed into his dark, liquorice pupils looking back at her from the mirror and smiled. His eyes were like black holes, pulling her into a trance, into a world where there was no one but the two of them. Her hand reached up to cup his cheek and brush her fingers along his elegant cheekbone.

His lips curled up into a lopsided grin as one of his hands slid up her waist and perched itself on the back of her neck, his long fingers brushing over the two pulsing energy points on the sides of her neck. She jerked, her eyes widening with alarm.

"What- hey, you can't..."

He squeezed. Hard.

Hard enough to punch a shocked gasp out of her mouth.

"No!! What have you done?!"

The energy pathways in her body screamed in agony at the abrupt cease in the flow of her qi and all the strength left her body at once. Her legs gave out beneath her and she slumped to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. A raw emptiness gnawed at her, making her shudder.

"Please, what wrong have I done to you??" She tried to move in vain. "Ughh..."

Her core was sealed.

Numbness began to spread within her, starting from the tips of her fingers, shaking her body as it refused to listen to her anymore.

Her body felt so foreign to her; tears welled up in her eyes. She seemed to be lugging in vain at someone else's corpse. She felt crushed with painful abandonment.

"Why did you do this to me??" Jia wept. "I love you... Then why..."

It was worse than having broken her sword arm. It felt like someone had stabbed out her core and had replaced it with a cold, dead rock.

"WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME??!! HOW DID YOU COME TO KNOW OF THIS??!! TELL ME BEFORE-"

"Hush... Quiet, pretty girl."

Her mouth closed at once while tears kept running down her cheeks smearing the kohl.

Her body didn't belong to her any longer.

"Mmph! Mmmph!" Jia wanted to kick him in his ridiculously handsome face and break some of his facial bones. But neither could she move from where she was kneeling on the floor nor could she will her lips to open up to scream.

"You've got too many questions, little girl. You speak too much," He waved his hand dismissively. "Females shouldn't question. They should never talk directly unless told to."

'Lemme go, you bastard!! Fight me if you dare!!' She screamed in her head. But all that came out was a shrill "MMMMPHH!! MMMPHH!!"

She tried to inch her fingers towards the secret dagger she always kept within the sole of her boot, but her arms were made of lead. Unless he allowed, she wouldn't be able to move. She hung her head down in helplessness, praying to the deities above to turn this into a nightmare and wake her up.

"Yeah, that's like a good wife," He remarked looking at her lowered head. "Always keep your head lowered before your husband. You are wise, it didn't take you long to understand your place."

Her head shot up and she glared at him, the sheer amount of insults at the tip of her tongue making her foam at the corners of her lips.

"MMMMMNNNNPPHHH!!!"

"Awww, it's not like you can do anything." He brushed a few strands of hair away from her face. "I hate females who think they are entitled enough to carry the weapons of males."

She stared at him, her eyes reddened with rage and betrayal.

'You bought me a dagger just a week back... You told me how beautiful I looked while wielding it... Were you lying to me??'

"A female should only focus on bearing children to uphold the family honour and being obedient to her husband's wishes. A female is not allowed to voice her thoughts in a society of males. Only children, laundry, knitting needles and cooking utensils look good in her hands. Not swords."

Each word of his that reached her ears was a knife to her heart. She shattered into a million shards as she broke, all the while trying to hold onto him, while he stabbed and swung vile words like weaponry.

'You lied to me... Why??'

"Come here, pretty girl," he drawled, smirking at her from the bed and tapped his thighs. She hated her body for becoming so pliant to his commands, even as her knees made her crawl over to him and seat herself on his thigh.
She was shoved face-first into the pillows, his hot breath ghosting over her back and his fist gripping her hair.

'You never loved me. All of it was a lie.'

"MMMHHH!!!" Her nails tore at the sheets, as he plunged himself deep into her, making the bed creak with each thrust.

Tears dampened the pillows, kohl blackened the red, silky covers, as her rocking body became his toy to play with. /*

Liang exhaled deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Gege..."

Shing spoke in a raspy voice. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it... I. I was only trying to protect him... He wasn't listening to me... I got m-mad..."

"There were so many ways in which you could've tried to stop the child, Shing! Not that you would've succeeded, as the boy is immensely loyal to his little saviour, but why did you have to say this??" Liang glared at him.

"Baba... I'm sorry... I regret what I said..."

"Everyone belonging to our Sect knows that you CANNOT GRAB SOMEONE BY THE BACK OF THE NECK WITHOUT HIS OR HER PERMISSION. This particular rule has been ingrained into every single child since birth. There's a big reason why our robes are different from all other sects. You wanna know why?? That's because-"

"It's a vulnerability. A weakness."

Both of them peered at Jia. She was still clutching the high collar of her robes tightly, her face pale and her eyes dark with turmoil.

"How do you know that, A-Jia?" Liang asked.

She lifted her face to look at both of them. "He did it to me... I know why it is forbidden to hold someone by the back of the neck without permission." A shiver ran down her already aching spine and she shut her eyes, leaning against a pillar.

"Mèimei..." Shing quickly bundled her shorter frame into his arms in fear that her legs would suddenly give way due to her unbalanced weight.

"Gege, never ever say that to anyone anymore... It's dreadful... Gege, please, never utter it to anyone ever again... Baba... How did he know?? Who told him?? He isn't supposed to know such a deadly secret of our clan!"

"Rascal," Liang murmured under his breath. "I can't begin to think about the amount of secret information he siphoned out."

Jia gradually regained her composure. "Let's go back to my room. This shouldn't be discussed in the open. Gege, Baba, come with me."

Liang nodded and held her arm as she took careful steps back to her room.

Shing locked the doors as soon as they entered and cast a soundproofing spell in the room.

"Gege, we have two qi pulse points on the sides of our neck which are easier to reach from behind. If you put the right amount of pressure on them, then they are a direct way to seal off the golden core."

"What??" Shing uttered in a faint voice.

Shame came crashing down like an immense boulder on his chest, an inescapable weight that seemed to want to crush Shing beneath it. If that was its intent, then it had succeeded with flying colours.

"With the core sealed like that, your entire body will become a plaything to the person who did it to you. He will be able to control your body as and how he wants. The only thing that remains free is your mind. But your body won't obey you as long as your core remains sealed. In that state, you can be compelled to murder, steal or even..." She gulped dryly. "Present yourself to that person."

A tear rolled down his cheek as he lowered his head.

He felt a hand on his cheek, wiping his tears away and soothing the sting of the slap.
"Don't cry Gege... Neither of us knew the reason. Only the Elders know. It's kept secret for this very reason. So that no one can misuse it for personal gains or even as punishment."

With tearful eyes and a heart that had dropped to his stomach, Shing helped her walk over to her bed.

'Oh, Goddess... Please forgive me...'

Li Liang heaved a sigh. "I suggest you stay away from Ren for a few days. Although he didn't react to what you said, we must keep in mind that he's very sensitive-"

"But Baba, Gege didn't know..." Jia began.

Shing stared at the floor for a while. The tears decided not to obey his will anymore and cascaded down his cheeks, hot and endless. He bit down hard on his lower lip, almost drawing blood and dashed wildly out of the room.

"Gege ah!"

"Sit down, A-Jia. You should rest now."

She sat down on the bed, already sore. She got worn out far too easily nowadays. She set her sword down beside her and poured herself a tumbler of water, wincing a bit at the wetness in the breast region of her undershirt.

"Baba, what happened that you both felt that Ren was in danger and needed to be stopped?? Did something happen during the interrogation? A while back, I saw Ren with Sect Leader Ruan."

Liang sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was sighing much too often nowadays. "Yes, well... The three criminals... They are dead."

"Ah, that's great. Did Sect Leader Ruan call for a public execution? Aiyaa... Why didn't you take me there? I would've been so glad... Oh okay, what was the method of execution? Hanging? Leaving them to hang over a bamboo patch so that they get skewered to death?"

"Well, he didn't get the opportunity to call for an execution..."

"Eh? Didn't you say just now that the criminals died? Don't tell me that they had someone to smuggle poison or something into the prison."

"No. They died in front of our very eyes. The Flowers of Agony were used, and..."

"Oh, how lovely. A very fitting punishment indeed."

"The ten-year-old daughter of Sect Leader Ruan killed them."

"How I wish- What??!! Who killed them??!!"

"Second Mistress Ruan Caihong. The girl whom Ren calls A-Hong. She burnt off their skins and then broke their necks."

‡******‡

Hiiiiiii!!! The long-awaited update is finally here!! And... *sobs* Us Against The World turned one year old today... *cries* My babieeee.... *hiccups* it feels like I brought it to the world only yesterday and it's already one year old...

Happy Birthday to my babie of a story!! *gives all the characters of my story and all my readers a big tight hug* THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING ME AND MY BABYYYYY!! I LOVE YALL SO MUCH AAAAHHHH!!!

Anyway, please look out for the next update which isn't a chapter (don't worry I will update soon, my semester is over and I am on a break) but a thing I felt like doing in celebration for today!

Stay safe and healthy and happy!!

Love love!!