[Li Mie's POV:]
I was once an invincible genius. I crushed all those who stood in my way. 'Oh look, there goes Li Mei, the unparalleled peerless genius of the Chun family,' they used to say. But it didn't matter. I wasn't a Chun family member. I was a branch family member.
There were always envious eyes around me, people who wanted to see me and my family burn. When I was 10, my mother was poisoned and killed because she drank from the cup I was supposed to.
The Chun family ancestry was old, and the knowledge in their libraries was vast—something I was restricted from.
My father grew weaker by the day due to an illness, but the Chun family gave no assistance. They merely wanted my family to burn... And in time, I came to wish the same for them. I was 15, and I was much stronger than all the Chun family heirs combined. Their shackles were not enough to hold and suppress my talents... And so, they found new ones.
'Oh, there goes Master Jin Pei's future daughter-in-law,' they started to say.
'Who decided that?' I asked.
It was they who decided it. It was two days prior that I was notified of it. It was one day prior that I ran from it.
*(Back to present)*
It was a rainy day as she lay there in the mud, in the middle of nowhere, on the outskirts of the city walls. Rain poured all over, and her body sank into the wet mud as she awaited death, recalling her past. There was no one there but one figure who was sitting on his toes right next to her, watching her life gets washed away by the rain. There was a pretty wide hole in her gut.
The woman was so lost in thought she did not even notice him until she did. She glanced at the figure and then back to the sky. The figure continued to stare intently, although his mind was off somewhere else.
"What are you doing?" she finally said in a weak voice, barely audible.
"Oh, I was just pondering whether I should save you or not, "the figure replied.
"Well, you can't... no one can," she said.
"Oh, no, I totally can. Just... I mean, I normally would not, but the last guy I rescued... well... turned out not so bad... and I have this jittery feeling that you won't disappoint?"
With silence, she replied as she tried to look away from the crimson eyes that glowed under the hood, surrounded by darkness, and back to the grey sky from where the water poured. "Gah... goddamnit. Should I... or should I not... damn," the figure angered itself, got up, and walked away.
***
They could not let that be. They sent people to chase me, and I ran. By some string of fate, I ended up in the hands of a bunch of people who called themselves the Butter Knife, a guild made up of assassins who locked me up in some underground training facility to train me as an assassin.
I was a genius, and so I excelled, while the majority of the rest of my peers who were kidnapped as well died.
They had to kill someone from the alliance and wanted to leave no traces, and therefore, they went with the standard procedure of training and abandoning. The deed was done. The Butter Knife had its victim, and I and my team were discarded. We were once again hunted. We split up, and I got caught. It was then that he came and rescued me.
*(Back to present)*
The figure came back and bent down, sitting on his toes again. "But then again, you are pretty..." the figure said.
"Just who are you?" she said. It felt as if she was crying, but the rain covered her.
"Just some guy who was passing through, who stopped to check on the random dying person," the figure replied.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
"Well, it felt like a waste to let you die."
"How would you know that?"
"Well, just a gut feeling," the seer said, immediately realizing something and immediately putting his hand on his mouth to stop himself from laughing. But a little chuckle got out regardless. "Apologies, that was too insensitive even for me," said the seer genuinely apologetically.
"Just leave," she said, and the figure obeyed.
*(Back to present)*
'Don't worry, come with me. You will be safe,' said the man who rescued me. 'Trust me,' he said. And I did. I was finally free, and it was all thanks to him. 'It's not your fault you were forced to do those deeds,' he used to say. It was soothing, not that I needed it.
There was a girl he liked, and I used to help him sneak into the alliance headquarters so he could see her. She was a nice person, but not nice enough to forgive someone who had murdered her brother. But it was fine as long as she didn't know. No one knew... except him.
*(Back to present)*
"I'm back, bitch, and guess what? I'mma, to save ya, No more need for those pathetic back flashes you have been having," the figure was back.
"Well, I don't want to live... I see it now... it's so much easier to just... die," the woman said, her breath getting fainter, and the skin growing paler.
"Oh, I am sorry. Did I make it sound like a choice?" said the figure. "You will be saved. And you will like it."
"I am dying here if you don't mind," she begged to be left alone. And now it was obvious she was crying.
The figure just stood up and watched her lose more and more life until the very last moment when he could still save her from her fate.
"Oh, I see it now. You... you are beautiful. I mean Liu and Cao just cracked open. But you... you have been like this since day one," the seer said with a crazed face and followed into a burst of maniacal laughter, a face the woman could not see but sensed and felt regardless.
For in front of her was a completely black figure, with the only visible color being his crimson-red eyes. "Oh shit, I can't let you die. You are a fucking miracle... I need to know more... maybe I can recreate this!"
Running into this monster was about the worst thing that could happen to a person and at the same time be the best. A tall figure stood next to her, and to her at that moment, that creature was the Grim Reaper himself.
For within that faceless figure hid a monster. And the monster demanded she live. Who was she to defy him?