At that moment light crossed her young self's eyes. A bolt of lightning as thick as a mountain sped across the sky. The following crack of thunder had cut her mother's words off. Then like an overturned bucket, rain began pouring down from the clouds.
"Where the hell did this rain come from!?" Roared Mo Hong Bao rushing back with several pieces of wood. "Dear quickly close the window! Dammit, didn't Achak forecast a month free of rain?! That bastard deserves a beating when he gets back! Once again all our plans have become sugar dropped into water!"
"Calm down dear, yelling won't make the rain stop." Zen Yue scolded as she reached for the window, fiddling with the latch to unhook it. A preventive message to safeguard against unwanted caught fingers.
'These clouds,' Her young self looked up feeling amazed, her large eyes sparkling with curiosity. She swore they weren't there a moment ago. They appeared in the flash of that lightning bolt, as if some magic had willed them into existence!
Of course she knew now, that was no magic. It was an ominous warning that was unfortunately ignored.
Her wandering eyes lost sight of the sky. The window shut and locked, a magical force bound the curtains in front of her from opening, and to her dismay, blocking off her view.
Her young self deflated but then quickly perked up. She focused her attention on making a burrow in the remaining blankets, listening attentively to the outside activities.
Due to how well insulated the house was made, barely any sound was heard afterwards. The rain was soft. The voices of her parents were muffled. The following thunder sounded like soft knocks on the ground, just barely louder than the rain pelting the roof.
Hong Luo laid back down, waiting for her mother and father to come back inside. This time she was nowhere close to resting. Despite her fever she no longer wanted to sleep. She felt too excited! The magic of those clouds made her itching to understand.
'Please hurry Mommy, Daddy! Luo wants to know why the clouds did that! Get inside. Get inside. Get inside already!' Her young self was all types of impatient as she stirred back and forth under her mountain of blankets.
…
But to little Hong Luo's endless dismay–– to years of trauma that would plague her from one life to the next…
…her parents would never come back inside again.
She remembers when she was just about to push the blankets off her, an earthquake rocked the house and her young self fell with a bang from her bed. She tried to stand up but then the shelf across the room fell. The impact startled her into falling over herself. Her tiny body rolled across the floor, only stopping once she hit the cabinet next to the door, the one containing all the shoes and a few bags out for gathering.
She only yelped once throughout this ordeal. Even in pain her young self wouldn't willingly make a sound, her stubborn heart won over her body's instinctive response, which even now, some habits never change.
Once she stopped moving, she struggled to get off the ground, then leaned onto the cabinet for support. When her small hands went to open the door for her parents, to let them inside, to stare at them in grievance…
…it refused to budge.
Young Hong Luo's whole body felt cold as she looked up. The door that was so familiar, that she'd seen everyday, seemed different. It looked the same but for the first time it terrified her. Like a monster in the dark that finally opened its eyes, the door looked down on her as if it wished to eat her alive. If it weren't for her grip on the door handle she'd have fallen to her knees. Her young self had never felt so confused, so afraid.
Just what was all this? The weather had been bad before but never like this? To her astonishment there was something else. Those eyes she felt belonged to the door had belonged to something else.
And this something else was attacking her parents right outside.
This thing happened suddenly and without warning. It came with the sudden rain– the lighting storm that decimated the yard– the screams– the alarming booms– the cackling laughter.
Her young self heard it from beyond the door that refused to open. Not that she didn't try to make it budge. Her two small hands weak from illness had no strength to pull open the door. It was jammed and she had no way of getting out.
Panic stricken her stubborn mouth opened. "Mommy!!! Daddy!!!" She screamed louder than she'd ever done before. Her entire face was wet with her tears, her large eyes drowning in fear.
As if to mock her, the cruel laughter continued. Along with that laughter she swore she heard agonizing moans and screams that sounded like her parents.
Listening to these deathly screams, her hair stood on end. She took back her hands to bang on the door! "Mommy, Daddy, the door won't open! Please open the door. Luo doesn't know what to do! Luo's scared! Luo's h-head hurts! L-Luo– Luo c-can't breathe. Mommy… Daddy…"
In exhaustion her young self fell to her knees. Her whole body was trembling and twitching against the door. Even her small mouth was drooling as she gasped for air. Her tiny hand grasped the scarf hanging on the wall, trying her best not to fall face first to the floor.
"Tsk tsk tsk," a clicking tongue jolts her young self's heart. Her eyes jumped to the door, to where this voice was coming from.
"W-who?" She mooshed her ear to the door, straining to listen.
"It truly is amazing how the greats have fallen so far." Submerged in a blizzard, this voice erected goosebumps all across Hong Luo's body.
"Shut your mouth!" Her father coldly ordered.
Her young self felt a terrifying force rush her way, but was too slow to do anything about it. The murderous aura rushed past the door and slammed her tiny body to the ground!
"Ah!" Hong Luo's head heavily hit the wooden floor. She screamed and moaned, more tears bursting from her eyes as she sobbed.
She tried several times to get back up but failed on each one. Her tiny arms refused to lock and kept buckling under her weight. The pain and the shock were too much for her tiny body. Finally she couldn't take it anymore and wined.
"D-Daddy w-why you h-hurt me? Why!"
Sadly no one responded. Didn't anyone even hear her soft cries and her painful moans?
Despite her anguish, the world continued on as did the uninterrupted conversation outside.
"Abandoning your son wasn't enough so you ran with your tail between your legs to a world akin to a cushy prison cell." The monster just outside the door taunted, his words triggering a visceral reaction in Hong Luo's abdomen.
'Why, why does my tummy hurt so much?' She fearfully cowered into herself, not knowing what to do, her terrified eyes still locked upon the door.
"This lord said to shut your mouth!" Her father roared out his order once more.
The murderous aura twice as strong hit her young self once more. This time it lifted her from the ground and sent her flying across the room! Unfortunately there was a bed in her way and her back slammed right into it, knocking the air out of her.
The visceral reaction in her stomach rushed up her throat and was vomited out! A cup full of blood splatter across the floor along with her tiny body now incapable of moving. She fell right into her own blood.
"Ahahaha!" That monster cackles with a strong taste of hysteria.
He truly couldn't help himself, drowning the air with his venomous words, to break down the already broken. "Mo Hong Bao, Zen Yue, you've run your own names through the mud! It's beyond ironic. Simply too amusing! You've even leapt so pleasingly over my point. Say, why not rethink my words, eh?"
"This Lord commands your silence!"
This time the murderous aura did not just simply go through the house. It burst the door down, turning the wood into projectiles, aimed right at her younger self who was collapsed on the floor.
Hong Luo opened her eyes just in time to see the sharp wood a hair away from her eyes. That was as far as it went.
It had stopped in mid air, just a hair's breadth away from taking the young child's life. At this moment her younger self naively was unaware of how close she was to death. Even if she did know death was a kiss away, there was no time to worry about that.
The world continued to move despite her pain and fear.
"Where are you going? You! There's nothing in there! Turn around and face this lord! Turn around now!"
Her father's panicked voice captured her attention. Followed by a thumping noise that sounded like footsteps. A pair of black boots walked themselves into the house, a red coat dragging behind them. The deathly crunch of wood loomed closer. The cold wet wind swallowed her tiny form. The shadow engulfed the collapsed tiny body as they got closer and closer.
In a last ditch effort to protect herself, Hong Luo reached for the small bow hidden under the bed. She had grasped the wood right when a cold sensation touched her nape.
"Liu Ruogang!!!"
She remembered through the echoing anger of her father, her younger self's world flipped upside down.
The man laughed as he took the child by the throat. He laughed even louder witnessing her naive attempt with the arrowless bow. He effortlessly lifted the child and left the house and into the rain, raising the child high into the air with a snake-like grin.
Hong Luo had now become completely drenched. One small hand held the bow whilst the other grasped the strange man's wrist. Although she kept hold of the bow, her other hand fell to her side. If her tiny chest weren't moving, she'd have appeared lifeless as she dangled from his grasp.
Even at her young age she knew her life was now in the hands of this monster. A monster she could barely see due to her vision blurred by fever. She now hung in the air at the mercy of the silver tongued snake. Her stubborn heart already collapsed as she called out for her mother and father.
"Release my child. Release her now!" Behind her she barely heard her father cry. She heard hurried footsteps, then a thud, followed by a painful roar from her father, a pained moan from her mother.
'Stop hurting Luo's Daddy and Mommy!' She tried her best to yell, but at some point the stranger's grip increased. Hong Luo's body twitched and struggled to breathe!
Her father's cries continued just as her mother's painful moans echoed further still.
Yet what should have inspired the strange man to sympathize, instead her father's tears fueled him into grinning wider and wider, until finally his eyes curved ecstatically. But his voice, despite his glee, sounded colder than the blizzard in winter.
"Sure, I'll release her. If you were to fall to your knees and beg me."
"..." Her younger self did not know the significance of these words. She did not know how much humiliation this man was putting her father through. The only thing she understood was that this was wrong, and not only was it wrong, she had made it worse.
Her ears began to buzz at the sound of a harsh thud. The words that were spoken were muffled. The hand around her throat sapped all her strength. The fever had grown worse, tempting her into the terrifying darkness just outside her eyelids.
'If only Luo wasn't so weak.' If she wasn't so weak, she could have fought off the monster that threatens her Mommy and Daddy.
'It's all Luo's fault.' In her panic she'd forgotten what her parents had told her. To hide when something scary happens, to hide and wait for their help.
'If only Luo was smarter. If only Luo wasn't stupid.' If she wasn't a slow and disobedient daughter, maybe her Daddy wouldn't sound so upset. Maybe her Mommy wouldn't groan in pain.
'If only Luo wasn't here.'
Suddenly the strange man released her. She fell to the ground in a wet thump. A painful ringing noise burst through her head. She cried and whined as her muffled ears corrected themselves. Just in time to hear that stranger speak.
"Isn't it funny, little one?" His joyful tone grasped her heart and squeezed. "As one wrong is corrected another wrong is made. Just as the rain that burns with the fires of regret, history too, will inevitably repeat itself. Your dead parents are no exception to this fact, and neither are you."
He lifted Hong Luo to a sitting position, to look across her damaged yard, to see the blood scattered everywhere, the destroyed gazebo her father made for her mother, the fallen trees, the ruined path and…
…two motionless bodies collapsed in a hole.
The man lifted his sword under her chin to look up at him. "What will your end be, I wonder."
Her chin slipped from his sword and the stranger walked off into the sky. His chilling laughter was the last thing she heard of him before she fainted.