112 Taking a Stroll (1/2)
A look of hesitation appeared in Xue'er's eyes appeared as she gazed at the bag that was hanging next to her wais. The bag was a mere layer of fabric, in addition to the clothes she had on, that would make it so that only a mere three layers of fabric separated her from that horrid thing she had right by her side.
She began to ponder whether she should simply just feed it to the flames and let it become ashes, or keep it by her side so that she may slowly piece together what the book was truly about. Whether she could be viewed as an 'accomplishment' or if she was merely another chapter in this journal of failure.
She wondered if Shen was one who embodied the virtue of empathy. A normal person would certainly not have such an obsession. To spend a lifetime searching for a herb was one thing, that act in of itself was not one that would hurt anyone, but his later descent into insanity to the point of using living creatures in an attempt to accomplish his goal was… how can one even put it into words?
As Xue'er thought more about it, she found herself looking at it from a different point of view. Perhaps one can also see that ailments were the source of evil, and to combat such a thing was the very embodiment virtue. It did not matter how many people would die, as finding that medicine would in the long term, end up saving more people than it killed. And in his mind, this was something worth doing.
Thinking up such an idea, Xue'er found herself in deeper fear. She silently sealed off her thoughts, in fear that she might find herself agreeing to Shen's ideas.
Deep breath in, deep breath out. She soon found herself calming down. She reminded herself that there were some things that she couldn't be concerned with. This was simply something that she should not care about, as with the absence of this book, no one would ever find out about this journal.
Such thoughts gave her peace of mind as she continued to walk on in this place where the sun never shone.
Her footsteps seemed to merge in with the surrounding stillness of this cavern, the quite state of the mountainous cavern managed to make the footsteps seem lonelier than when no one had walked these halls.
The dripping of water from her soaked clothing had stopped long ago, and now the dry fabric was giving off the impression of floating at every step she took.
Up ahead, she could smell the scent of rotting flesh. The smell had always been within the cavern, but up ahead, it smelled especially concentrated. As she came drew nearer there was a stone door that had been left open.
Xue'er looked on with great curiosity, these doors are usually too difficult to open, and she had assumed that no one would really enter a room just for the sake of it and that most of the doors would simply remain closed. But it seems, this one was one opened.