Chapter 24 Tortured

Yuxi watched over the sleeping Yang Tian, cowering in the tatters of her belly binder. She had struggled to defend her modesty to the very last of it.
Fortunately, it ended with a few flogs from the guard. She fainted for a few moments, but she woke up after she was carried to her cell. The marks of the cruel whip marred her white flesh, and her back still stung from the pain.
She gathered herself together and shivered in the cold.
Yang Tian, on the other hand, did not seem to have any visible marks on his body, and was sleeping soundly. She knew that something seemed off, but she had no strength to move over to him to take a look.
Instead, she forced herself into a half-lotus meditation style and closed her eyes, allowing her mind to flow naturally. In this state, instead of restricting her thoughts, she allowed them to run wild. She soon found herself in a strange place. It was a beautiful waterfall.
Yuxi fathomed this was a sacred spot that her mind had created by itself, despite she had never been there. She conversed in her heart with herself, telling herself to heal. A myriad of different colours of light illuminated her in a bright ring.
“Yuxi, how are you?”
She looked up to see another person enter the area. It relieved her that the said person was not the witch, but her aunt, Su Yan.
“Aunt, where have you been? Tell me I’m not seeing things,” she tried to get up, but a magical force held her back.
“Xiao Xi, you should not come any closer,” the voice said monotonously. The voice that exhibited from Su Yan was the same as how she remembered her aunt speaking with her. There was no doubt about her identity.
“Take care… of my son.”
The voice died down abruptly. When Yuxi opened her eyes, she found herself partially healed. Yang Tian was still asleep, and she was able to get up to take a good look at him.
The man’s snores were getting louder each time! It was horribly annoying, but she needed to care for him as a younger sister. He was her aunt’s pride, although she didn’t have any idea when her aunt birthed him or even if she had a man in her life. She covered her ears with her hands and scrutinised her alleged cousin carefully.
No blood stained his clothes, neither did he bear the marks of any obvious punishment. That seemed very suspicious. He was also sleeping very soundly like nothing had happened.
She tried to wake him. But no matter how she tried, he still continued sleeping.
After numerous tries, she resolved to wake him in the most tortuous manner: to tickle his bare sole with her finger! As she expected, Yang Tian jumped up immediately with little effort!
“Yu…xi?” He called out her name in surprise. “What… happened….”
“To you?” He finished his sentence.
“And to you?” She questioned him back.
“Wait.” He looked around their surroundings. “Where are we? I don’t remember coming here.”
She glanced at him. “Yang Tian, try to remember carefully. What happened to you? How did you get captured?”
“I just remembered that I was tired after coming back from the festival. There was a girl who said men were chasing her. She asked me for a place to stay, so I brought her back to the cottage.”
“Then, when I woke up again, I saw faces I didn’t recognise. But then, a man snapped his fingers and I fell asleep again. I slept, until now, which is when you came.”
She hugged him immediately, increasingly relaxed that he was fine.
“What.. happened to you? Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?” He suddenly realised and took off his clothes to cover Yuxi. Just as he did, he saw the lines from the whip.
“You were…”
“I was tortured.”
She helped him finish the sentence. “But I’m fine now. We should think of a way to leave this place. Before-”
Before the sun rises and they try to kill us.
But it wasn’t even sunrise yet. She heard footsteps approaching, and she closed her eyes. With her intelligence, she knew that was what they meant by ‘seeing him one last time’. It was either they would kill her, or kill them both.
“Yuxi, I wish those marks will be away from you. I wish those marks will be away from you…”
He said those words repeatedly, as if it was some magic. She entertained him with a smile, but in one split second she felt energy absorb her and a numbing feeling envelope her.
“I don’t know how you did this, but…”
“It’s the power of a pure heart.”
She didn’t need to touch her back to believe him. Surely most of the marks were gone, because her back didn’t throb as much as it did earlier. She held her breath as the keys turned in the cell, and the doors swung open.
“Take her.”
Strong hands pulled her away from Yang Tian to separate them. She wasn’t fully healed and couldn’t fight them just yet. Yang Tian searched around him for his weapon, before finding it a few steps ahead. But when he tried to wield his weapon, and search for the power inside him to fight, he realised he had none.
“What’s wrong, Yang Tian?” She shrieked, seeing that he was incapable of defending them.
“I can’t fight!” He howled in despair. She couldn’t respond, because the men were now dragging her out of the prison cell, leaving Yang Tian sitting down in the cell, helpless like a cripple.
They had dragged her for about fifteen minutes when out of nowhere, a gust of wind hit them on their faces, causing them to lose their consciousness. Yuxi witnessed a dark figure appear, and recognised the weapon in his hand.
She swallowed. She couldn’t be dreaming right now, could she?
“I’m sorry I am late.”
She turned away, not sure whether to be happy or sad. But this was not the time to be petty over his treatment. She pointed towards the end of the cells.
“Go rescue him, quick!”
She watched tearfully, Zhan Peng running towards Yang Tian’s cell, and told herself again and again, He wasn’t here for her. He was here for his sworn brother. Nobody mattered to him as much as his sworn brother. Her heart ached, and it became clear to her how she felt about Zhan Peng.
She had liked him after all, but she was unwilling to admit it. But this was not what either of them was here for. She fathomed that he hadn’t loved her and only saw her as a partner to satisfy each other’s lusts. Xima’s words repeated them in her head.
She just needed to be herself. It didn’t matter that she was breaking the norms of their culture by being that delinquent who lusted after a man and enjoyed those forbidden pleasures.
She fell into a corner and thought of how he readily played around with Yonghe, even though he said it was just to trick her into submitting herself to him.
But what if there was no Yonghe? Would he have just satisfied his needs through another countrywoman?
She ended up with the resolution that if he was ready to bed another woman, she, Qian Yuxi, could do the same with another man without any retaliation from him!
“What are you doing Yuxi? Have you no regard for your safety?” Zhan Peng towered over her, and along with Yang Tian, they dragged her out of the prison.
A crowd of bandits encircled the exit. Knowing Yang Tian had his martial arts destroyed, there was no way he could fight his way to escape. That meant Zhan Peng had to be the one to lead him to safety.
“You leave with him.”
“What?” But before Zhan Peng could stop Yuxi, she charged towards the army with all her might. Armed with just a small dagger, that could mean the end of her.
“I release you from the mission!” He heard her shout, but they had her pinned in an instant.
“Go!” she shouted. “Before the leader comes, or you’ll never escape! Heed my words, you must stay alive!”
Zhan Peng looked listlessly at Yang Tian, making up his mind in one split second.