The chill night settled in the silent hut, except for the insects' chirping. A man sitting on the stool, held a sword in his hands, polishing the gleaming blade as he leaned back against the splinter wall.
"How many fingers do you want to be cut off?"
A woman kneeled on the cold dirt floor, picking at the frayed hem of her robe, her hands trembling as she clenched them into fists.
With her silence followed by his question, she watched as the man's in front hard, pitiless eyes resolved on her, his lips curling into a wicked smile.
She abrupt her gaze on the candlelight reflected off the blade of his sword, the cold metal seeming the grow unholy light. She trembled imagining the blade slashing through her flesh.
"Xiao Xin!" He called out as he rose languidly from the stool, picking up the cigarette, his hand brushing against the opium pipe lay next to it, while his eyes never leaving the woman's face, "Don't make me ask twice."
He motion floorboards creaked under his heavy footsteps, drawing ever closer. With a deep, jiggling breath, Xiao Xin closed her eyes, trying to thwart the terror that threatened to overwhelm her existence.
"Heuupp!!!"
A moan discerned to Xiao Xin's eardrum, muffled by the man who was gagged close to her desperate to let out screams. Though, all she distinguished was a strangled and pleading gasp.
*Slash*
A liquid splashed dripping on her face, as Xiao Xin's sweat beaded on her forehead. Having a familiar ominous and pungent smell. It was worse than anything she could imagine. Bile rose in her throat.
The air was filled with the bandits' sobs of agony as the blood spread, even with Xiao Xin's eyes squeezed shut, the sound around her was clear and intense. She realized that the man was asking her the favor to choose between 'Her fingers and the life of the bandits.'
She couldn't have imagined that an innocent woman of noble blood would be subjected to a crime she once never committed. What could the story turn out to be, if he had known who truly she was? The man she had once loved dearly.
She shivered as if her untruth was uncovered, he is blind yet uneasiness oozed feeling his eyes give that of a hunter seeking out his quarry with ruthless accuracy.
"Hmm," He paced in front of her, as he cut down the last bandit, humming rhythmically with no shred of compassion.