Qin Li Ai groaned waking up to an unbearable sharp pain coming from her head, her eyes openeds slowly and cautiously as if she was afraid of making the headache any worst, they were red and swollen as if she had been crying her eyes out due to grief.
She sat up and and flinched as she felt a stab of pain that seemed to be coming from her lower back. It inched its way up her spine and suddenly a fear crossed her mind that she might have a fatal injury.
She sat up slowly and steadied her breathing, her eyes searching desperately. She stilled when she noticed she was in a cave, laying on a flimsy bed of straw that had caused her skin to redden slightly and itch.
Next to her was a little boy sleeping with his head on her lap, an unknown child in an unknown area, she began to speculate what had happened to her.
The child was beautiful and oddly he was blessed with a head of white and seeemed to be a little bit older than five years of age.
This was stranger, she was for some reason convinced that the two of them were runaway siblings. Both were said to be unable to cultivate and were therefore useless.
Useless?
She frowned, runaway siblings? She never had a brother much less one with such a strange appearance. However, right now her head told her that he was indeed her brother, placing a palm on her head she wondered if she was suffering from a psychological disorder that resulted in her believing herself to be another person with another life in another world.
Her hand moved at a calm pace as her fingers intertwined with his hair shifting the strands of silver away from his face, he was her brother.
A boy that was said to be cursed.
Her anger spiked violence as a memory had engulfed her with explicit details of how the young boy had been treated in her family's home. Mercilessly beaten by his siblings and mocked for his odd white hair, scorned and looked down upon by his loved ones.
Unwilling.
Unwilling to swallow down the insults and mockery that he bared, her own flesh and blood. Unwilling to let them sit comfortably at home assured of their safety and their future.
Sighing she gently lifted the head of white and placed it on the straw bed as she
moved away slightly. Once she had gotten out of the way she crossed her stiff legs and close her eyes.
Inhaling she searched her body for answers to her broken cores that rendered her unable to cultivate, for an unknown reason she felt that she had done this multiple times but her memory seemed to say otherwise.
Her memory at the moment seemed to be full of various scenes featuring different people, evidence of a past life, a scene with a death - her death.
She exhaled ignoring the odd beating of her heart scanning through her body until she found the solution to the problems she had encountered, her cores had collapsed.
No, not collasped but rather they were forced to collapse as a way to stop themselves from absorbing spirit essence. It seems like when she was born there was a sort of spirit essence overload, her cores were forcefully filled with spirit essence, it had overwhelmed them so her cores shut themselves down, as a means of self preservation.
That wasn't a bad thing, something this simple, she could easily fix.
Qin Li Ai smiled - she wasn't trash, she was a peerless genius, her cores could swallow spirit essence at an alarming rate, she could cultivate at alarming rate! That seemed to be the most reassuring fact that she recollected, if she was really trash how would she have survived?
No, even if in the end she was trash she would still find another way to take on the word and avenge her brother.
She closed her eyes yet again and began working on fixing her cores. Not many people knew of this technique but if you push enough spiritual energy around your body at a fast pace then you can speed up your regeneration process, and with such fast regeneration you cores will feel the spiritual activity in your body and open up to begin to fix themselves by taking advantage of the situation. Qin Li Ai diligently repeated this until her cores began to wake up from their years of slumber, and they first thing they did was absorb spiritual energy like there was no tomorrow.
She gritted her teeth as the pain in her spine seemed to intensify as the spirit essence all around her attacked her cores furiously, letting out a loud groan she clutched the straw bed to stop herself from losing her balance and collapsing. A huge wave of energy surged through her as she began to break through, again and again and again.
She found herself smiling despite the pain which gradually subsided as she opened her eyes.
Her skin emitted a healthy glow and didn't look as malnourished as it was. She felt the power that had gathered in her and the small specks spirit essence all around her.
Her happiness however was short lived as she recollect pedi from the mass of scenes in her head that until she reached a certain level she wouldn't be able to chose a specific path and learn strong magical or martial art techniques.
Only a novice, she really needed to cultivate, she was still too weak.
"Big sister?" Her thoughts were disrupted by the sleepy voice behind her, she turned around quickly and noticed the little boy with wide lilac eyes, her brother.
"Xie'er if you're still sleepy sleep some more" she said affectionately patting his head.
He looked at her and blinked before bursting into smiles and hugging her tightly.
"Big sister isn't dying anymore right?" He asked as he buried his head in her stomach.
He was just too cute.
"Don't worry wu xie, big sister won't die."
He was Qin Wu Xie, her brother, her only acknowledged family.
"Big sister, why are you glowing?" He asked curiously as he noticed her slightly glowing skin.
"Your big sister is cultivating, big sister can teach you if you want" she said with a charming smile, she knew that he wasn't trash like they claimed him to be, after all he was her brother.
"Can I really!?" He asked with big bright eyes. "Will I be able to? Father always said I couldn't." His face saddened at the memory.
"No, you will be strong, even if you aren't able to cultivate you can train your body and become a pure martial artist!" She said firmly, she didn't care if she would have to go against the gods, she will not allow her brother to remain weak, trash or not.
He snuggled into her, they had been together ever since, he was currently seven and she was fifteen, she had been his rock and had protected her till the very end even when they had tried to kill them, she had launched herself in front of him to protect him.
Li Ai was his hero, and he was determined to get stronger to protect her, trash or not, even if it meant going against the gods!