I will go get some herbs to put on your wounds." Le Fangling tried to stand up but her hand was firmly held by a pair of old and wrinkly hands.
"It's fine…my little sparrow…It's fine…cough.." Her grandma gave a smile but her body betrayed her act. She coughed violently as the smoke from the fire had entered her nose.
"Grandma!! Please stay with me.." Le Fangling cried as she held on to the body of her grand mom that was growing cold with each moment despite the hot temperature that was enveloping all of them.
"I think it is good that they came..cough..came today.." She panted heavily as she looked at Le Fangling and the two men simultaneously.
"What good grandma…If only I had been on lookout properly, we could have avoided all this but I.." She bit her lips as she thought about how stupid it was of her to leave her post and bring these man here.
When they had walked from the riverside, everything had been fine but when they reached the main central village which was the heart of this dead place, the bandits suddenly attacked them.
Asking the two men to look after the village and help those who needed it, she had ran to the house to check on her grandma but to her dismay, she could not find her in the house.
After running around in the fire like a madman, she finally found her grand mom but in this condition. She had come here to buy some spices but since they ended up being raided out of nowhere, everything was a mess.
While she was trying to escape, her grandma saw a small kid trapped in between two table and no one was even trying to help him.
So, she went and helped him out but missed the chance to escape and was now in this condition.
"Why…" She pressed her hand on the old hands and squeezed them together as she tried to come up with words to say but they all got stuck on her throat.
"They are your real family, sorry for lying to you all this time baby girl.." Her grand mom caressed her face with her coarse hand and gave a faint smile.
"Don't talk nonsense! You are my only home." Le Fangling held on to her more tightly than before. Listening to her made the old granny let out a light chuckle and her eyes filled with both happiness and sadness alike.
"Why did you come here? You should have stayed home like how I wanted you to!!" Biting her lips, Le Fangling scolded her granny but her efforts to keep the tears at bay were futile. Tear drops trickled like rain drops from her eyes.
"If only you had done what I said…" Tears rolled down her beautiful cheeks, trailing a straight line and fell down on the grand mom's face.
"Silly girl, don't cry..I wanted to make you something good on your birthday." She spoke with a sad smile on her face.
" I didn't think this will be the way we will depart. I wanted to cook you your favorite dish…haha." She once again coughed violently as she tried to speak.
"Please speak no more..I don't need gift..who cares if it's my birthday?" Le Fangling wiped her tears and looked at the two man in front of her.
"Wait, You are cultivators right? You can fix her right? Please fix her." Le Fangling desperately begged to Le Zuan but he just pursed his lips and stood hanging down his head.
They were martial artists and healing people was something they did not do. They were warriors who defended the fort not medical specialist.
"The fire is growing bigger, we have to return back soon." Le Zuan ordered Le Fangling to stand up and go with them.
"What about granny?" She pointed at the old woman on her lap.
"She is not your granny…We paid her money to raised you for 16 years. She is just someone I hired to take care of you." Le Zuan hated this emotional act and clicked his tongue in displeasure.
"Get up little girl if you do not want to be roasted." Le Zhang too rolled his eyes at her. He did not know what was going on but he definitely understood that they had come to retrieve this girl.
"Then who are you? Are you my relative or someone?" She threw questions at Le Zuan.
"I am your father and I have come here to take you back today." Le Zuan coldly spoke to her. Seeing her furious turquoise eye once again reminded him of bittersweet memories so he immediately averted his gaze from her eyes.
"I don't have father." Le Fangling spat on the spot.
"All I have is my granny. I was fatherless and I will remain fatherless for ever. I do not need your help! Fuck off both of you!" She shouted at them and while doing so, she tried to get up with the heavy body of her old granny.
"He is correct my little sparrow, you should leave me here. I am just a burden." She placed her hands inside the small secure pocket on her waist and took out three bracelets.
"These were the only things in your cradle when I was given the task of taking care of you." She smiled as she thought about the day she got to get a beautiful granddaughter like le Fangling.
"These three bracelets are the last gift of your mother, according to the letter in your cradle." She handed them over to Le Fangling who silently took it.
"Mom did? She is alive?" Le Fangling tightly held on to the bracelets that were adorned with small crystals, each one of them in unique design and color.
"I don't know baby, but she loves you a lot..cough..now go go.." She pushed away the girl towards Le Zuan.
"You are a cruel man Patriarch Le Zuan. You abandoned such a lovely daughter." Those were the last words she spoke before her eyes finally lost their light.
With a soft thud, she fell down on the ground and completely stopped breathing.
"Grand mom, let me go.." Le Fangling struggled to break free from the hold of her so called nephew but her raw strength could not surpass his.
"Behave otherwise we will leave you here to be a part of the roasted livestock here." Le Zhang threatened her while he clasped her hand even tighter behind her.
As she was being dragged away, she could see a tear drop fall from her granny's eyes. She suddenly stopped struggling and moving.
'Is she finally going to comply with us?' le Zuan thought but he had an ominous feeling.
"Hey, little girl, you should stop acting like that..hurry up. We need to create a new formation!!" He poked Le Fangling on her shoulder.
Suddenly, Le Fangling started to laugh. It was a light chuckle but it soon changed in to a lunatic's laughter.
'Uhh oh…this is not good!!' Le Fangling who had been observing all this knew what was about to happen. She had gone through it just a few hours ago.
'A possession by the purplish black aura!'
"Lady snap out of it, It won't be good if you get controlled by it!" She tried to catch Le Fangling but in vain. Her hands passed through them.
"This…this is what I was missing!" Le Zuan noticed the purple aura surrounding her and quickly retreated a few steps back. All that confidence and strength despite being a rookie cultivator was all due to the this!!
"But how is this possible…" he gasped when he thought of something and had a realization that he might have been lied to by her.
"I have been trying to control this power within me from when I was a kid!! I won't lose control that easily." The Le Fangling gnashed her teeth and spoke as if answering our Le Fangling's question.
'So this power is something that had been inside me for a long time huh?' Le Fangling repeated inside her head when she got her answer. But as for the origin, it seems like she was t find this person called "her" aka le Fangling's mother.
"Grandma, I used to go on the top of the hill to practice wielding this aura, this power so that I can protect you in future but now since you are no longer here, I might as well get destroyed with it completely!!" Le Fangling suddenly increased the pressure of her aura,
The pressure walls made her untouchable from both inside and outside.
'Self detonation?' Le Zuan looked at his daughter in horror and in a flash of a light, took out a talisman that was used for sealing.
"Le Fangling, let's make a deal!" He proposed and was able to gain attention of Le Fangling.
" We will give your grand mom a good burial but you need to stop this self destruction and let us seal your power." Le Zuan put forward an unfair condition but hearing that her grand mom was getting a proper burial was more than enough for her to let go of all other things.
"You better keep your end of promises.." Le Fangling closed her eyes and a line of tear fell from them before she lost her unconsciousness and fell right beside her grand mom.
"Wait, I still have questions!!" She shouted at them but the view before her got blurry and blurry until she saw nothing.
She was once again engulfed by a black mist and was pulled in to the void like before where she drifted for who knows how long until she heard the familiar voice of her Nagina.
"I love to pet the round head of Nagina more." Le Fangling vaguely replied to the questions.
<"//…//">
.....
"Elder Lin, I am sorry to barge in like this!! but what happened?" An Cheng could no longer hold her curiosity in when the whole residence started trembling like that.
Thinking that there might have been some kind of problem in the procedure, An Cheng had come to check up on Elder Lin and when she did, she was just planning to peek at Le Fangling as her senior sister.
"An Cheng!! Ohh, you are here." Elder Lin looked at the door and smiled while her hands were helping Le Fangling to put on her dress.
"What are you doing?" She asked seeing the unusual level of intimacy between girls.
"Helping her wear dress." Elder Lin shamelessly smiled.
"Heh? You are done? Then what was that about?" An Cheng was surprised to see everything normal. Now the fact that everything looked normal looked abnormal to her.
"Senior sister, I will be done now! Thank you for waiting for me!" Le Fangling waved at her with a smile on her face when suddenly Elder Lin leaned in to her ears and spoke.
"You better remember your part of deal and I will do mine." She smiled as she straightened herself and looked at Le Fangling.
"I won't ever forget my promises.." Le Fangling smiled looking at the veiled face of Elder Lin and nodded.