(A/N: Who would have thought I come back in a week? Not me…
Anyway, everything went well with my thesis but something else happened that almost made all my works for the past years come to naught, I won't go into the details as everyone have their own problems IRL but luckily it is getting resolved or you can say the losses are minimized.
So here I am, back and writing this snail-paced novel again. I will try my best to stick with the plan that I had and release it daily.
About discord, as I won't be able to control it now I won't share any links. Hopefully, I will be done with IRL issues in a week and then you can join there to talk and interact more. Aux chapters will be out at the same time.
I wanted you all to read this so I added it at the beginning of the chapter, smaller things are talked about at the end of the chapter…
Okay, go on and read the chapter.)
——(POV Li Huang)——
"Don't worry—" was all I could say before my vision got dark and the environment changed.
I was afloat somewhere and something was guiding my movements toward a place. I think this is supposed to be moving me toward the memory or memories that Anjing is hiding the most.
I know that she was an assassin, but I don't know what is it that she is consciously or subconsciously hiding.
As I was drifting, I was also thinking about what I am hiding the most. What could Hu Anjing get out of this test and how dangerous could it be for me. I just hope that this is not going to dig so deep that something unexpected would come out of it.
After minutes of roving in a place that I could only guess to be a representation of Anjing's memories, I come to a stop in front of a memory fragment.
How do I know that this is a memory fragment? Because I can see glimpses of what is stored inside.
Instinctively, I reached out to the fragment and as soon as I touched it, I was seeing the world as Anjing saw years ago.
…
What I saw was one of her memories of when she was 5 or 6 years old.
She had a bloody knife in her hand and a corpse lay in front of her who was the same age as her.
I saw from her eyes and felt what she was feeling at the time. She was horrified and didn't know what was happening. This must be the first time that the organization used the controlling technique to make them kill someone.
She wanted to drop the knife and rush to the half-dead body of her friend but couldn't because she was under the control of her instructor.
As she was thinking about what and how of the events her instructor spoke.
"Wushisi (A/N: number 54) you have passed the first series of tests…" the organization's instructor said but I doubt that Anjing heard anything at all.
"… as for Liushiqi (A/N: number 67), dispose of the body." The instructor waved his hand dismissively and Anjing started moving to fulfill her given task.
With her eyes welled up with tears she picked up the body absentmindedly and followed a path that she was told about before.
After a minute or so she was in front of a pit and was using every ounce of her willpower to stop herself from dropping the body in the pit, as she should have according to the order she have received.
The instructor who was in her line of sight nodded to himself and wrote down something.
'they probably monitored them this way to set the right dosage of pills to completely control them…' I thought. The fact that she was struggling to stop herself would only come back to bite her in the near future as they can control her better.
'She is at most 6 years old, it is too much to expect cunningness from her…' I now get why they choose children to train. Children are like a blank slate and they can form them easily as opposed to someone who has a personality of their own beforehand.
The instructor gave the final push to collapse Anjing's willpower.
"Drop the body in the pit." He gave a new order to her.
She dropped the body without much resistance and only stood there, crying her heart out.
'Giving them something and taking it to show that they are the ones in control, this is the oldest trick in the book.' I couldn't help but feel bad for her.
Just as I was thinking about that, I was back outside of that memory and got into the next one without any delay.
The memories that continued after were some of the most gruesome kills that she had in her time in the organization.
'It seems that the test shows a series of memories to each of us.' I thought.
…
This time it was a memory from years later when she was 19, and only joined the sect recently after Yuan Jia found her and the organization was destroyed.
She was training under Yuan Jia's supervision until a knock was heard and someone entered the training ground.
The person who entered was the 8-year-old Li Huang.
Seeing the unfamiliar face He cupped his fists toward Yuan Jia and spoke.
"Senior sister." He said and Yuan Jia gestured to him to come closer. Meanwhile, Hu Anjing was curious about this boy's identity as she had never seen her master this open.
'Seeing your memory from a different perspective is interesting and weird at the same time.' I know how I felt at that time and now I also know how Anjing felt.
"Come here Huang, let me introduce you to someone…" Yuan Jia said and I went and stood beside her.
"This is Hu Anjing, my disciple." she said as she pointed to Anjing.
"…And this is your junior martial uncle, Li Huang." She said to Anjing as she pointed at me.
The eyes of the 8-year-old Huang shone upon this revelation as he would have one more person to interact with.
Being born with a golden spoon in my mouth in a world that is strength-based is not as good as it sounds. I had to be safeguarded from a very young age from assassins and ones who wanted to take advantage of me, so there wasn't many people that i could talk to on a daily basis.
Hu Anjing cupped her fists to show her respect but Huang was too excited at the moment to give her the appropriate response and only gave her a nod before turning to Yuan Jia to ask her a question.
"Senior sister Jia, I don't know how to interact with one's martial niece, can you guide me?" Huang asked with seriousness and tried to act formally but He called Yuan Jia by her first name so that defeated the purpose.
'I was 8, I was 8, …' Seeing this memory now, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I just reminded myself that I was 8 at the time like a mantra.
"Yes, this is what a big sister should do." Yuan Jia nodded. She was normal as she had perfect control over her facial expressions but Hu Anjing was far from normal and was this close to pulling Huang's cheeks.
Luckily, Yuan Jia saw this and show her her place.
"Anjing, you can go and do 10,000 basic sword slashes until I'm done talking with Huang." She said and Anjing's mood changed but she couldn't refute.
"Yes, master." She said and started her 'training'.
'I don't know why this memory is here. Is this like the first memory? To create a context for the other memories that are coming after this?' after I was done with my mantra I asked myself.
…
It didn't take long before I knew why that memory was there.
'Honestly, I couldn't see that coming.' I thought but before I could put much thought into it, I was back to the place that we were before we entered the memories.
Looking around, I saw Anjing and before I could call her, she ran toward me. If a soul could cry, their expression would look like her at this moment.
When she reached me she punched my chest a couple of times with her face down and looked at my face soon after.
"What did you see?" was what she said first.
I was thinking about the same thing but if this is her first question she shouldn't have seen something important, right?
"…And why did you hide that you have your past life's memories?" She said and I know that the cat is out of the bag.