"Girl, I have been watching you from the past ONE HOUR. ONE WHOLE HOUR."

Both the occupants of the room stared at each other with big eyes. It was just that the cause of the widening of the eyes differed. One was due to anger and the other was due to fear.

"Did you think I was sleeping? Huh. I know everything, even in my sleep. And you have done NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!! THE HECK, YOU HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU UP TO?!?!" Elder Lady Ruan screeched, her face a ripe tomato. She shook a finger that was already trembling with rage, at the little girl who was sitting in front of her in a daze.

"I JUST DOZED OFF A BIT, AND YOU DECIDED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT!! HOW DARE YOU, RUAN CAIHONG!!? DO YOU REALIZE...."

Little did Elder Lady Ruan realize that her words were not even reaching Caihong's ears. Caihong was just sitting there, staring at her, a dazed look in her eyes. Her tea tinted pools held in them twin whirlpools of turmoil and swirling rapids of other emotions, which her grandmother wouldn't be able to decipher even if she tried.
Her glower, clenched teeth or any other frightening expression of anger, which would have made a grown-up soldier want to tuck his tail between his legs and flee, had no effect on Caihong.

' Yao... Yao...'

Her grandmother was still wringing her hands and screaming, but she couldn't hear any of it. Her mind was in a different world of her own, oblivious to everything else in the real world she was living in. The all familiar throb in her head crescendoed to an unimaginable peak, making her see white, followed by a burst of colours.

*/ A girl, who looked 13-14, but was 16. Royal blue, purple and golden robes. Caihong didn't have to think who the girl was. She already knew, and she smiled inwardly at the thought. It was she, back when her name was Yao Xingjuan.

She was knitting, or rather, creating a mess in the wool with her attempt. And the needles... she didn't know what to say about them, but they were so ornamented, that you were always in greater fear of damaging them, rather than concentrating on the work itself.

She was sitting in a room, similar to the one in which her grandmother had detained her, except that this room was adorned with blue and purple tapestries, instead of golden ones in the Ruan Sect.
She leaned over the fabric, sighing, as her needles got tangled up in the mass of threads.
Suddenly, she felt a presence right behind her. She began to muster up the courage to turn her head and confront it. Just then...

SMACK!!!

"OUCH!!" she yelled at the stinging pain at the back of her head, due to the force of the whack she had just received.

"Your name may mean arising grace, but your knitting is a fucking massacre like always." a voice gritted out. "YAO XINGJUAN, JUST HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES DO I NEED TO TEACH YOU THE SAME BLOODY THING?!?!!"

Xingjuan finally turned, still rubbing the part of her head where she had been hit.

Caihong's jaw dropped.
In front of her, stood her grandmother, Elder Lady Ruan!

Well, not exactly. She looked much much younger, the wrinkles hadn't caressed her skin yet. Neither was the parting of her hair, partially streaked with grey.

Her hair was jet black. Her coal eyes were ablaze with anger. Her face was red too. She stood with her hands perched on her broad hips and was dressed in the traditional royal blue, purple and golden robes of the Yao Sect.

"Jie?" Xingjuan groaned.

To put it in a nutshell, Elder Lady Ruan wasn't Elder Lady Ruan yet. She wasn't even married. For if she were, she wouldn't have been wearing the clothes of Yao Sect.

So she was...

"Jiejie... What did you hit me for?! Aigoo that stung!!" Xingjuan pouted.

"First Mistress Yao Ahlam, His Highness, Sect Leader Yao, awaits your presence," a maid bowed. /*

" MIND YOU, RUAN CAIHONG, I WILL DETAIN YOU HERE FOR THE ENTIRE DAY, IF YOU CARRY ON LIKE THIS! FIRST YOU WERE STARING AT THOSE NEEDLES."

Caihong blinked a couple of times, her mouth slightly open.

"YOU'VE WASTED TWO HOURS. TWO WHOLE GODDAMNED HOURS!!!"

Caihong's eyes which had been glazed for all this while suddenly became as sharp as steel. She closed her mouth and looked at her grandmother who was still scolding her.

"NOW YOU ARE  GAWKING AT ME! WHAT ON THIS WHOLE WIDE EARTH IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!! I'm GOING TO-"

"Grandma," Caihong whispered when she finally found her voice, and also the other had paused for breath.

"WHAT?" The latter deadpanned.

"Do you... Did you know someone called Yao Xingjuan?"

It was now the turn of Elder Lady Ruan to lose her voice. All the words she was going to say died on her tongue. She felt like someone had splashed ice cold water right in her face; she was stunned at the curveball thrown at her.

Her former screaming voice pitch dropped to a barely audible whisper.

"Wh-..Wh-..Who?"

Caihong exhaled.

"Yao Xingjuan," she repeated.