Phoenix Rise: XieRong

XieRong hadn’t known that FeiHong had felt that way, but what her sister said had been true. She had not wanted to depend on her little sister. For that matter, she didn’t want to depend on anyone. She had grown so used to looking out for herself and others that she’d forgotten that she had people she could depend on too.

"YueLiang, do you know where I can find FeiHong?"

-Master is near the Willow tree. I’ll lead you there.-

Just as XieRong was about to leave she felt the pull on her mind again. She picked up the sash of needles and gave it a stone cold glare.

"This miss is not in the mood to bind with you right now. I will keep you in my space but if I feel one more pull from you, I swear I will melt you, make you into jewellery and sell you to the highest bidder. Is this miss understood?"

XieRong felt the pull die instantly.

She put the sash in her ring and ran to her sister.

FeiHong was sitting on a swing when XieRong found her.

"FeiHong, can I sit?"

FeiHong didn’t say anything, just moved aside to make place for her sister.

"I’m sorry I made you feel like you are undependable FeiHong, when you are not. It’s just that I am not used to depending on anyone except master. I have been looking out for you, mother and I by myself for years with no one to depend on in return, so now I feel ashamed, useless and a like a burden when I depend on someone else, even you, especially you because you are my little sister; the one I have been protecting, or at least trying to protect, for years. I’m sorry I didn’t keep my promise to depend on you, FeiHong and I’m sorry if it felt like I was treating you like a child."

"Jie, I’m sorry for yelling at you. I didn’t mean to."

"It’s okay, FeiHong. You didn’t say anything mean to me, just something that made me open my eyes. You have my permission to scold me and correct me if you feel that I’m doing something wrong. I promise from now on I’ll try my best to depend on you when I need to, and take things from you if I want or need them. As a start to keeping my promise, I’ll bond with this," XieRong said, taking out the stash of needles.

She picked one and pricked her finger. A bond formed as a drop of blood was sucked from her finger.

"I’m sorry for getting angry at you," she apologised, feeling the presence of a child spirit inside the needles.

"I promise to play with you the next time I go come in any of the spatial rings."

"Jie," FeiHong said, when she saw that her sister had put back her new weapon.

"I didn’t bring you here because I wanted to help you cultivate or show you around. I brought you here because I wanted to tell you something. Do you promise not to get angry or leave me after I’ve told you?"

"FeiHong, sister will never leave you. I can’t promise I won’t get angry or upset or hurt, but I can definitely promise you with my life that I will never abandon you or hate you, ever."

"Sister do you believe in rebirth?"

"I don’t know. I have never really thought about it, but I think I do. If I could meet mother, then I don’t see why I shouldn’t believe in rebirth. Why?"

"Jie, I was reborn. I regained my memories when I saw mother get punished by Fa LiHua again. Do you believe me?"

"I believe you, FeiHong," XieRong said, noticing the sadness and depth in her sister’s eyes. She believed that FeiHong was telling the truth looking at the desperation on her face, besides her mother had said there was more too FeiHong than what met the eye; that she had changed.

"Go on FeiHong, tell me what happened."

"Jie, I think it’s better if I showed you by forming a sisters bond with you."

XieRong pricked her fingers with one of her needles and pricked FeiHong’s as well.

"I, XieRong, swear by the blood that flows within me, to take FeiHong as my sister in blood in this life till death brings us apart."

FeiHong repeated the oath and a bridge formed between their minds. XieRong felt immense sadness, hatred and loss from the bond

"Jie, what I’m about to show you is extremely ugly and painful, to the point that it may break you. Do you still want to see it?"

"I want you to show me FeiHong. I will carry this burden with you."

XieRong was inside a foreign body.

Her hands were long and slender, her body full of curves and that of a woman’s. She was in a room filled with jewels and luxury which overlooked the capital.

She saw herself in the mirror as she adorned herself. Big brown doe eyes, full cherry red lips and straight brown locks of hair that fell down her back.

’FeiHong?’

She adorned herself for her husband, the emperor, to whose chamber she had been summoned. She hadn’t married for love, but she had found it with her husband over time.

XieRong felt her heart overflow with love and butterflies in her stomach. She couldn’t wait to tell her husband that she was with another child.

XieRong entered her husband’s chamber only to see her son held by a guard and forced to watch with tears streaming down his face as his father made love to another woman.

Gone was her happiness, she felt an intense rage and desire to kill.

"What is the meaning of this?!" she demanded, pulling her son in her arms and shielding him.

"Guards, seize this woman!" Her husband shouted, while making love.

"I’m the empress! You dare?" She challenged.

"Not for long dear second younger sister. Ah!"

XieRong looked horrified. The woman she called sister, the one whom she loved and cared for more than her own blood sister, had climbed into bed with her husband.

XieRong looked away as the woman groped her husband, rubbing herself on his body, making lewd noises that sounded like a widow’s wailing to her ears.

"Dear, my sister refuses to watch the show we prepared for her. I feel displeased."

"Guards! Hold her head!"

XieRong struggled as the guards seized her and forced her to watch her husband and Fa MeiLien make love over and over again. The man’s grunts, the woman’s moans and gasps were carved with the sharpest blade into her heart and soul. When they were done, Fa MeiLien draped a robe slowly over her shoulders.

The guards pulled XieRong with her son over to the bed, that reeked of their pleasure. She was forced to kneel, tears trickling down her cheeks. However she looked the woman in the eyes refusing to bow her head.

"I never saw you as my little sister," she said, lifting XieRong’s chin higher with the tip of her finger.

"Why? Why would you do this to me? I gave you everything you wanted, did everything you wanted, then why?!" She screamed as she jerked away from the disgusting finger that had just touched her husband.

"Oh, but you see, you took away the thing I wanted most: the throne. So little sister, you and all my other enemies need to be eliminated now that it is right within my reach. Hm, I wonder who should I start with? Dear, whom do you suggest?"

"Whoever you have in mind," the emperor replied sweetly, as he got dressed.

XieRong stared in horror at the ungrateful man’s back.

Had she not helped him win the throne? Had she not been a dutiful wife, even if there had been no love between them at first?

"I know let’s start with him!"

XieRong snapped out of her reverie and hugged her son closer

"No, you will not touch my son!"

XieRong’s head snapped to the side. She felt a rusty taste fill her mouth.

"And what can you, a commoner with no cultivation do to stop me? What right do you have to command me?"

XieRong glared.

"Don’t look at me like that!" Fa MeiLien shouted as she kicked XieRong in the chest, sparing no force.

XieRong vomited blood.

Fa MeiLien dragged her sobbing son away by the collar.

"Guards bring her to the dungeon!"

XieRong didn’t know how many days it had been since she had come to the dungeon.

Each day was the same, the guards would assault her son and she would scream for them to stop. She would scream until her throat was sore and then she would scream some more. That was all she could do as she saw her son’s eyes grow lifeless day by day until they had turned dead and glassy. He was like a living rag doll the guards used and discarded each day.

Fa MeiLien and Fa LiLing came to watch every single miserable day of every single wretched week that passed. ’Entertainment’ she had called them, that made her dull life as a newly appointed empress more interesting.

"This has grown boring," Fa MeiLien said, one day.

"Cut him up, piece by piece each day in front of his mother."

XieRong felt a deep boiling thirst for blood grow within her.

Each day a little part of her son was cut and each day he would say the same thing,’Be strong, mother. I’m fine,’ and each day her heart would break a little and soon nothing of him remained.

She hadn’t known how many days had passed after her son’s death. She had lost track. Each night after her son was gone, Fa MeiLien would let her watch her husband make love after which she’d toss her to the guards to do as they please.

XieRong never screamed.

Both her children were gone. She could only be glad that the other hadn’t been born into this cruel, wretched world.

She had finally lost everything she had loved.

Fa MeiLien, however, was not done yet. She wanted to make her little sister suffer for taking what she wanted, for making her suffer a slap from her beloved father, for making her, her mother and sister suffer humiliation as they bowed down before this very little sister of hers.

"Little sister, guess who came running after she found out that a new empress had been crowned?"

XieRong finally looked up.

’No’, she thought, ’please, not her.’

"Yes, it is second brother, Fa Chun. No, wait. Shouldn’t I be calling her XieRong Jie Jie?"

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