'I knew people could change over days and months, being cooped up in a small condo with only enough space to place a TV or a desktop can drive someone mad but I never expected it to happen overnight.' Han Mi thought as she laid on her back against the cold and wet tiles of her bathroom. It was a small bathroom too, with the toilet and the shower crammed against each other, it definitely did not make for a good place to die.
'I'm stabbed.' She realized a little too late, after the initial shock of betrayal had died down. When she touched her belly, she found it soaked with warm blood, her own blood which seeped through her nurses' attire and then washed down the drain. Almost immediately, her heart and instincts told her to get up and dress-up the wound to prevent blood loss but after going through a grueling 16-hour shift at the local nursing home, which were overwhelmed with patients suffering from a sudden bout of pneumonia, loss of breath and severe cold-like symptoms, she had no strength to even get up from her spot. Even her brain has stopped working, almost dooming her. In fact, it was a minor miracle in her books that she could even reach home at all without been kidnapped by some low-life, crushed under a speeding car or simply dying from exhaustion.
Words has just gotten out that it was a new pandemic, a world-wide pandemic and this was the reason why she was being overworked to death. Unfortunately, before the management of her nursing home could take her life, it was her own boyfriend who did it.
But why?
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Han Mi was suddenly woken from her musings, possibly her last, when a loud series of banging were heard from the bathroom door. The banging froze her entire body, the fury, the violence that just seeped through the hangings, sent chills down her spine. 'Is this the start of a new zombie outbreak? Is my boyfriend patient zero? This isn't as funny as I thought it would be.'
Han Mi let out a dry laugh, cursing heavens and herself for all the times she dismissed all those directors, producers and actors who worked in all those damned zombie movies.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Crack!
Her eyes moved up to the cracking sound and saw that her crazed boyfriend had smashed through the bathroom door. And from the small slit he made, she could see two crazed yellow eyes staring at her.
"Hello, my love." Her boyfriend spoke in his usual loving tone, only there was a little bit of crazy in it. "Why are you running, Mi'er? Why can't you accept the fact?" He spoke with a gleeful tone, "the Monarch in Yellow has noticed my plight, my love. He has noticed me, Han Mi and He has shown me the truth. The Truth! Everything is clear! Nirvana, Han Mi, nirvana is upon us and He will take us there! And-and He has promised me that He would notice you too. So, just… bear with me, my love, bear with this pain." He said as he extended his arm through the small slit, cutting his arm in the process but just like a zombie, he did not feel a bit of pain.
"Please… Ru…" Han Mi pleaded, her eyes swelled with tears as she could not see the love of her life hurt himself even when he had betrayed her and placed at the edge of death. "Just… stop it…" is all she could mutter before her vision darkened.
"Han Mi? Mi'er? HAN MIIIII!!!"
…
'3 months…' Lan Mi stared right up at the wooden ceiling in front of her as she laid silently on her bed. She looked beside her and saw that her mother had already woken up as well as her elder sister, Lan Na. 'Sigh… is this really happening? Have I really transmigrated? Or is this some kind of governmental simulation training for those people who died in the pandemic?'
The last thought made a little sense at first but then she shook her head. Even she knew, with her advanced knowledge about human physiology and simple digging, that neither the government nor the private sector were even minutely close enough to decode the human brain. But it did spring up another question in her mind. 'What was Ru'er speaking? What Monarch in Yellow? What truth?' She had no idea and due to her naturally curious nature, this made her extremely irrational. Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing since she wasn't even in the same world or timeline as before.
"Breathe… Lan Mi… breathe…" Calming herself down, she deduced that it was perhaps for best if she did not think too much on it. 'After all, what's the use in crying over spilled milk?'
'Sigh… I should stop these meaning musings. If sister found me still lying, she would totally snitch on mom.'
And Lan Mi definitely did not want that so with a heavy heart, she got out from her bed and did her beddings. After which, she took a quick bath that had already been prepared by the clan servants.
'Today's the Divine Moon Festival… hmm… this is not a bad dress.' Lan Mi thought as she ran her fingers along the pink-colored silk dress that had been prepared for her. Adorned with gilded rims and beautiful iconographies, it was truly a beautiful masterpiece that she would have expected to see in the wardrobe of a princess or someone higher but here, this would not even be considered luxury according to their wealth and status as the village head clan.
'The hand-drawn embroidery is also beautiful and unique…'
But she could only admire the dress for only a bit as the door of the bedroom was thrown open as a girl in her mid-teenage years burst into the room. "Mi'er! Mi'er!" She screamed, taking Lan Mi by quite a surprise.
"Yes, what is it? Why are you shouting?"
"This… what are you doing? Why are you not ready yet?!"
"Why should I be ready now?" Lan Mi asked exasperatedly, "the ritual is going to be held in the night. I don't need to wear it now. I will just ruin it!"
"Urgh!" Her elder sister groaned at her, "why are you so fixated on that dress? There dozens like that and no, you're not wearing that tonight. Now, come on. Get ready!"
"Wha—what do you—hey!"
Lan Na had none of her objections and forcefully stripped Lan Mi naked before dressing her like she was a doll in her hand. Lan Mi was powerless against her sister but that was nothing new as Lan Mi was just a 11-year-old girl while her sister was nearly 18-years-old and had already started her cultivation path.
The first thing that Lan Na did after stripping Lan Mi naked was tightly wrapping her in a white gown. This cross-collared garment served as the innerwear and also worked in accentuating Lan Mi's still undeveloped features. It was followed by a pair of trousers and socks before finally donning the dress, a specially made Hanfu along with an associated skirt. For the final touches, Lan Na added a belt to fix everything and other little miscellaneous trinkets to ward off evil gazes and to signify her status. The final product though, was something completely mind-boggling.
"Now… would you look at that!" She cried proudly at her handiwork and Lan Mi could do nothing but gawk at her reflection in the mirror. In the mirror, she did not look like the famished and exhausted Han Mi but a beautiful and budding princess of the Lan Clan. With long flowing black hair, a petite face and large phoenix-shaped eyes, she was a beauty but armed with her sister's makeover and makeup, she looked like she was a divine fairy.
"Mhmm! Fantastic! I'm sure your husband would fall head over heels for you at first sight!"
"Sister!" Lan Mi cried as she jabbed her sister with her elbow but behind the layer of makeup, she was blushing furiously. 'Marriage… I have always wanted to marry someone…'
The thought of Ru'er came to her mind immediately but she shook it away instantly. After all, who would want to marry the same guy who violently stabbed her to death once. 'I am not going to take that chance again. No, I want someone better!'
But that was still quite far away.
"Mhmm! Hmm!" Lan Na nodded her head inquisitively, "you're 11 this year, hmm… so another five years. Yes! I promise you sister, when you turn 16, I will prepare a good husband for you. That is a sister's promise to you!"
"What! No!! I cannot marry that soon! It's too young!"
"What do you mean too young?" Lan Na tsk'ed a few times, "it is customary to marry beautiful girls early so that vile beasts do not take advantage of you when you grow older. Tsk! Tsk! You're a knob-head, Mi'er, a knob-head."
"So to save me from a vile beast, you will simply throw me at another…" Lan Mi mumbled to herself but as a cultivator on her path to immortality, she heard it easily. "That is the custom, sister, whether you like it or not."
"Then why are you not married?" Lan Mi asked pointedly and Lan Na expected that question as she smiled deviously at her sister, "oh, sweet sister of mine… you know nothing of this world. Here, let me show you." She said as she clasped Lan Mi from the back and then with one jump, she shot out of the wide window.
"Wah!" Lan Mi cried out loud when she suddenly lost the land underneath her and a sense of weightlessness overwhelmed her but her sister was completely unfazed. She smiled as she shot up in the air continuously before stopping at least a kilometer high up. "Look, Mi'er, look."
Lan Mi did not dare open her eyes but after a little bit of persuasion, she opened her eyes slowly. And what she was more enchanting than her own beautiful visage.
"Look at the mountains, sister. Look at the sky, the clouds, the earth and the village. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yes." Lan Mi responded absentmindedly as she looked at the world which seemed much wider and larger than ever before. The sky, no longer hidden by the large canopies of the forest, seemed bluer than ever. The clouds, puffy and white whisked around the blue skies like little playful kids while the mountain, larger than anything she has ever seen in this life or the previous, stood proudly with it's peak covered in white ice.
"Isn't it magical?"
"Yes… but how. How are you flying? How are we not blown away? How is this at all possible!"
Lan Na smiled. "This is the magical world of cultivation, sister. We, cultivators or better known as Immortals, are able to do things that no normal man or woman can do. We can fly higher than birds, fight longer than demons and do feats that would make even the gods jealous. This… is our power, an Immortal's power, sister."
Lan Mi looked amazed, her eyes dazzled like little stars in the night sky as she turned around and asked in the sweetest voice that one could ever hear, "Teach me!"
"Teach me how to cultivate! Teach me, sister, please!"
Lan Na smiled, "All in due time, sister." She said as she patted her cute sister's head.
…