318 Untitled (1/2)

It was all just a possibility, and she would never be able to prove it with her life. Just like the past in that blood-colored palace, it had already rotted away into dust, never to be picked up again by anyone.

Ten months later, Nameless Feng was born into the world.

She would never forget the first glance she had of this world.

She saw a room with no light, saw the pale-faced woman gritting her teeth as she cut the umbilical cord in the bloody water, saw a tiny, jade lotus floating above the bloody water, heard the woman's cries muffled by the sheets, smelled the metallic stench of blood in the air, felt the tears from the woman's eyes falling ceaselessly upon her face as she begged, ”Child, don't cry… You cannot cry… Once you cry we'll both be dead… I'm begging you, don't cry…”

Henceforth, she had become the first infant never to cry, in order to save the lives of that woman and herself.

After that, there had been many occasions during that hellish five years, when she had really felt like crying. 'I should just cry. Honestly, crying is better, dying is probably more comfortable than living,' she had thought.

Back then, why hadn't she cried?

After that, she hadn't even known how to cry anymore.

Her mother of this world had brought her up inside a cupboard.

For five years.

From the moment she had been born until she had been five.

When she had been five, she had still been as small as a three-year-old child. Because of prolonged crouching, her back was bent, and her legs were shrunken, all the bones in her body had been deformed. Until after she was five when her Master had been training her ceaselessly, using powerful techniques to reform her bones. She had trained extremely hard, even harder than anyone, but that was simply because she had never stood at the same starting line as the others.

… The wind flew from a different world, carrying with it the smell of smoke and grass. That was the smell after the courtyard caught fire. The grass was the spring grass growing beneath the house, long and green with beads of dew clinging to it—She had never seen it before, her mother would squat by the cupboard and whisper to her as she tried to recall images from her previous life. In the five years of darkness, all she could see had been the faint glow of the purple palace lanterns, faint silhouettes. Although the memories of her previous life had still been extremely clear, many details had become a blur, and she had to think for a long time before finally recalling what grass had been.

Every night, her mother would sit by the cupboard and murmur things to her, such as the story of the Five Regions and the seven nations, the current situation, talking about whatever she thought about. She had seemed to be afraid that her daughter would go mad from constantly being locked up, and tried to find time to communicate with her. She had only wanted to share with her daughter a little bit about the outside world, but what she hadn't known was that every line she had spoken, her daughter would respond, except, there had been no sound.

She couldn't speak, she could only have a silent exchange with her mother with words that only she would know.

Sometimes, she would feel as if she had to say something, but every time she would let out a monosyllabic word, her mother would immediately move away, leaving her open-mouthed, her face filled with sadness and despair.

Once, her mother had suddenly sighed while speaking and murmured, ”My child… You are the princess born with a lotus… You should have been the most treasured princess in Xuanji… Sometimes I don't understand the will of Heaven… Why… Why…” She would then stand up and search under the bed for something, then retrieve it and hand it to her through the crack beneath the drawer.

She had grasped it in her hand, the tiny little lotus, pale jade in color, looking just like a real lotus, yet she immediately laughed silently—it had probably turned to stone already, right?

Who had ever seen the most treasured princess in the Five Regions Continent that had been born with a lotus, brought up in a cupboard never to see anyone, fed with only two cold buns a day?

This damned lotus was but a cold annoyance.

She had thrown the lotus out as her mother hurriedly caught it, blaming her lack of understanding before carefully hiding it again and leaning against the drawer as she whispered, ”… Perhaps, one day, this will prove your true status…”

Status? Status was the most boring thing in the world. She didn't need to be a princess, if that lotus could give her back her freedom, she would immediately kneel before the lotus!

What was freedom? What was darkness? What was hunger? What was the neverending torment of never seeing sunlight? And the most painful thing of all was that she couldn't even talk back or resist against this daily humiliation and torture!

Pure lotus! Dirty hands!

Her heart had sunk to the point of despair, and from then on, she no longer cared about cleanliness.

… She crouched in the direction of the smell, playing with the wood shavings in her fingers. She had always been careful when picking wood shavings; once, she had been too loud, and coincidentally, there was a guest in the room. The woman had looked over suspiciously, but her mother insisted that it was a rat. Through the cracks, she could see the ground turn wet. That position was precisely underneath her mother's skirt.

From then on, she became extremely artistic in playing with her wood shavings, using her saliva to wet it and pick at the wood, kneading it, imagining it to be a chicken drumstick, oh, a chicken drumstick… She had not tasted one in so many years. The concubines had always been extremely temperamental with the palace maids, their food depended on their moods. A single mistake could cost one their meal, hence, after a while, she began to be able to tell the moods of the concubines. Two buns: normal, one bun: Upset, No bun: angry, the palace maids were getting punished. When there was no bun to eat, her mother would lean against the drawer, their stomachs rumbling together. Her mother would sometimes reach in to comfort her, yet she would immediately push her hand away. Thinking that she was angry, her mother would sit by the cupboard until nightfall, then creep to the kitchen to steal scraps of leftover food. One big portion for her, one small portion for Mother.

Actually, leftover vegetables weren't so bad; apart from the rotting smell, at least they had oil.

… Crouching in the direction of the smell, sniffing her fingernails filled with wood shavings, she dreamed about the half-piece of turkey skin that she had stolen previously.

Suddenly, the smell of the wind changed.