Chapter 189 - Traces Of Bad Memories (1/2)

Meanwhile, Jing Yi was wandering through another part of Qiu Ling's inner self. He had finally managed to get out of the complete darkness but he wasn't sure if that was any better.

Jing Yi frowned at the hut in front of him. You couldn't say that it was dilapidated. Actually, it was in a pretty good condition. It was just that it looked somehow eerie. He couldn't say why, though. It was just a normal, wooden hut with a door, two windows and a roof that was jutting out on one side. There was a bench below the roof as if it wanted to invite you to sit there on a rainy day and look out at everything getting wet while you didn't have to worry about a thing.

This should have been a harmonious picture. So why did he feel so creeped out?

Jing Yi slowly inched closer. He listened for any sounds but there were none. Right, there were no sounds at all. Jing Yi stopped and looked around once again. There was nothing besides this hut: No people, no animals, not even any plants. It was as if everything had been sacrificed so that this hut could grow right out of the ground.

Why was this thing in Qiu Ling's inner self? Did he have some kind of connection to this hut? Had something happened here?

Jing rubbed his arms to disperse the chill that was creeping up his body. Slowly, he stepped closer to the hut, half expecting the door to open but nothing happened. When he arrived in front of the door there was still no change around him.

He reached out to open the door but jerked his hand back as soon as he touched the handle. It was wet. He turned his hand and gulped. Was that … blood on his fingers? He looked up at the handle and indeed, it was coated in blood.

Jing Yi gulped again. He didn't want to touch it but he had to. He needed to find Qiu Ling and he needed to find out what his inner demon was. Maybe Qiu Ling was in this hut. Maybe whatever was in there, whatever had caused these bloody traces, had to do with his inner demon. He had to make sure.

He opened the door and looked inside. Everything looked normal. There were two beds and a table with three chairs and some cupboards. Nothing out of the ordinary. There were some more bloody traces but not many and all of them were small.

Jing Yi went over and examined one of them. It looked like the mark of a hand, a small hand. He frowned and went over to a chest that was standing next to the bed. There were clothes inside. Sifting through them, most seemed like the things Qiu Ling liked to wear: Made of fine fabric in dark colors and sometimes with embroidery on it. It seemed those weren't the clothes of just one person, though. There were robes for men and for women alike and he even found some clothes for children.

Jing Yi paused with one of those little robes in his hands. Two beds, clothes for a child and small, bloody hand-prints. Was this … something from Qiu Ling's childhood?

He couldn't piece together what had happened, though. Where did the blood come from? Had Qiu Ling been hurt? Or had something happened to his family? Jing Yi felt that the latter was quite likely. Hadn't Qiu Ling once said something along the lines of him being the most important person to him? If he didn't have his family anymore, that would explain it. After all, it was impossible for him to value someone he only knew for a few days more than his own flesh and blood, right?