"You must be kidding me…" Yang Lin was speechless. This woman confused him, and it was scary, all because he could not tell the truth from the fake with her.
At any rate, rolling the odds what she said had a lick of reason, he did not want to render crippled. He was yet to experience many joys of life, the woman that captured his heart was still out there, somewhere unknown. His mother, he did not know whether she's still breathing or not.
If she died, how did it happen? He had a bad feeling, an inkling that words of the Silver Coin had spread wide enough to attract even more thugs towards a dilapidated house under the care of an incapable woman. Still, he shook the notion aside, the front yard might still be decorated in blood and corpses, who would dare advance after witnessing the fates of their predecessors?
Although he was trying to extinguish the spark of worry in his heart, Yang Lin was restlessly trying to thoroughly feel every mote of energy in his body. Over and over again, biting down on the pain coursing his newly formed meridians, he tried to sense the Qi, control the Qi, and guide it through his body.
Sense. Control. Guide.
Sense. Control. Guide.
Sense. Control. Guide.
With a distorted countenance, contours drenched in sweat, after an hour of silent torture, Yang Lin realized a discrepancy. This Qi was rebellious, deliberately contending against his will.
No matter how he commanded it, it acted as though to disobey and wreck his meridians and vital organs, albeit slowly. Through gritted teeth, their creaks as their grinding continued to withhold Yang Lin's pain, coupled with a dagger-like glare, he spoke in a hoarse voice.
"W-What's so a-amusing?..." Greeted by the woman's devious grin, a cold sensation gripped his heart.
She just smiled, not telling him that this unorthodox method held 'other' hidden dangers. For instance, the potent Qi residing in Yang Lin's body did not originate from spiritual herbs, nor from the ambient, it originated from HER.
The Qi followed her will, conveyed her rejection of him as a whole; thus the Qi in his body is in a riot. She knew that individual is watching at this moment, she could visualize their anger. She FELT it just by imagining it.
Unable to contain it, his expression of helplessness was just too good to be true. She laughed, loud, maniacally. Unreserved.
In contrast, he screamed in pain; silently.
Bloodshot eyes. Anger within. Yang Lin placed the pieces of the puzzle together and attempted to stop refining the unlawful Qi. Alas, it disobeyed him, again.
Just as the glimmer of his eyes began to dim, he saw IT again. A small, fluffy white fox, adorned with immaculate fur and three tails. Up close, the fox seemed to be the size of an adult's head, its tails twice the proportions, engulfed in an enigmatic air of benevolence as it stopped on air.
He had thought that the fox and the woman were connected at first since the flute which brought him to this torment was her doing. But, she eyed him with ridicule, oblivious to the small fox in whatever space separated the two. If she was a Goddess, what kind of a creature was this fox that she could not sense or see?
Pondering, Yang Lin was caught aback as the fox reached its phantom-like paw to graze the former's forehead, directly center the eyes. During that instant, the woman choked on her own breath... Yang Lin's eyes flickered a profound silver, again.
Howbeit this once, the remnants of said gleam occupied space within his pupils, quickly it spread an infested, reforming into a snow-white slit in a pool of darkness. It all stopped.
His struggle. His screams. His agony. His everything.
Disbelief and panic assaulted the woman as she felt her Qi in Yang Lin's body gradually subside in its activity as if relinquishing the ethereal connection and establishing anew with the vessel of this youth.
Was it luck? Was it a backhand left by THAT individual? Was she played?
The woman thought, her poised canines sinking into her bottom lip, a vigorous thread of blood then trickled down her chin as she clenched her fists, killing intent boiling about...