The sanguine pool meant nothing to Li Mei. Not anymore.
How many years has it been? 1000? 2300? What dynasty rules the lands now?
The rain cried for Li Mei. She no longer felt tears for the dead. Her rampages where her blade would slice through the screams, leaving nothing but of an echo of her wake.
Thrill. Thrill was her vice. Her drive and motive to carve her name into the hearts of the world. Blood, screams — thrill. To conquer, to control and to devour. She never had remembered when the last time her blade had decided mercy or her strings had decided not to bind one into her webs.
She's torn into sects, killed emperors, slaughtered several gods and immortals in her wake. All for the thrill of it. Those fools from the Grand Alliance had never caught wind of her tail. Their late arrivals were always met with a place left in carnage.
She had long branded her name into the lands: the Wandering Crimson Mist.
Her name born fear through legends and myth. Her appearance through the lands through a consistent mark.
But why was it her latest excursion on a small village that sat quietly on the side of the Yangxin river left her disquieted?
She remained in the small ruined village, much longer than her other escapades. The quiet was familiar. The screaming was already finished by her blade. Her namesake crimson mist remained that searched for any remains or traces.
But nothing —
Nothing, she had felt through her mist comforted her unease.
Why was it she felt nothing from this slaughter?
Was she tired? Tired after so many years of bloodshed?
Impossible.
That's what Li Mei thought, yet her blade laid not in her hands— but the soil.
Am I no longer in control?
No, that can't be right. Li Mei's mist surrounded her still did not touch her. It still obeyed her as its master, as if water was to oil.
Then… was she tired?
Li Mei stared up to the rain. As if the heavens she torn apart wasn't crying in her wake. They wouldn't answer to her.
The rain kissed her face. She expected it to be cold and wakening. But yet, she still felt nothing.
Why?
The rain poured harder like hail.
Why hadn't it?
The wind wailed harder.
Why can't I?
Why can't I no longer feel the coldness of the rain?
Li Mei's eyes scanned the village for an answer — as if it had an answer. But nothing had responded.
Corpses were indiscriminately scattered. Every man, woman, and child were haplessly discarded and dishonored. Some positions she left the bodies in were nothing short of grotesque and horrific. But she's seen enough— caused enough, to not gag at the sight of it.
So again, Li Mei looked into the clouds. Her lids closed, protecting her eyes from the waterdrops. For the first time in a while, she could think deeply. Or at least, tried to think.
What was that nursery rhyme the children of these lands made of her name?
Ah, yes.
"When the Rain Falls Red".
Once, Li Mei had overheard the tune at a lantern festival she passed through. She had haphazardly hidden her features off of a straw hat she stolen off from a dead man. He wouldn't need it anyways. Not that he could anymore.
When she entered the town, the rain began to pour. The townspeople ignored it and carried on with the festival. But the children didn't.
"Drip, drop, the cold rain starts, hide away your trembling hearts…"
Li Mei remembered briefly browsing through a market stand, specifically at the ripe peaches. She remembered the woman, old perhaps— scolding the children's song. It'd scare off the customers.
But the children continued.
"Soft at first, then harsh and strong, a storm that hums a ghostly song."
Li Mei couldn't help but form an amused smile under her guise. She above all else should know what rain means.
"Hush, hush, don't make a sound, or the crimson mist comes 'round."
The woman frowned. Did she? Li Mei can't remember.
"Through the cracks and through the halls, seeping past the city walls."
Her attention was focused on their song.
"One step, two steps, close behind, don't turn back, don't look, don't find."
The running.
"If you breathe the mist too deep,
she'll take your voice, steal your sleep."
The death.
"Drip, drop—too late, too late,
Pray she hasn't sealed your fate."
She remembered the old woman snapping her out of her thoughts. The rhyme must've encapsulated her for a moment too long. She remembered, vaguely, the lady handing her the peaches she was staring at moments before. An apology for the "unwelcome song".
"For when the rain begins to pour,
You won't leave your home no more."
Li Mei nodded to the free offer. For all of Li Mei's love for thrill, the song had amused her enough to spare the festival from her wrath.
Li Mei opened her eyes once more to be met with the rain. Was it the song? Li Mei's mouth tried to form words, but what came out was nothing as rain caught into the wrong pipes of her mouth.
She coughed and she wheezed, her lungs finally catching air as she was forced to gaze down from the sky. Li Mei couldn't help but think of herself as pathetic. The deep seeded irony of her situation clawed at her.
Singing a song didn't seemed like an option. Li Mei mentally scoffed at herself for even trying. Now she wonders:
How much of a fool do I seem?
Her audience remained still. Dead corpses sing no praises or scold.
Her eyes gazed over the distant horizon of the rainy night sky. Over the small wooden homes wrecked by her blade and over the distance of trees was fire.
The Grand Alliance, she thought. As late and as untimely as ever.
Li Mei picked up her solemn blade that she neglected on the soil for a bit too long. Her ink black hair cascading as she dropped down to take the hilt of her blade, sagging by the weight of rain.
Her blade no longer felt as light as it did just an hour before. It felt heavy and useless.
It seems like her fears were true.
She was tired. Tired of all the bloodshed, the hunt, and the fear.
Li Mei sheathed her blade and prepared herself to begin her usual move. And then a thought— a dangerous thought crept into her mind.
"What if," she had thought — "What if I let the Grand Alliance capture me?"
It seemed like a foolish thought (or perhaps it is), but behind it was a thought process. Li Mei knew the Grand Alliance had no measures to execute her. That was fact. She'd drunk one too many immortal panaceas, and stolen much more than twenty drinks of wine from the gods. She had cultivated her Qi for longer than all of the current members of the Alliance. So, death isn't a problem.
The Celestial Shackled Prison. That was all they could do if they had. Lock her up. Forget her. Let her rot alone.
The name carried great weight across the lands. A supposedly inescapable jail that withstood the largest threats of the Daoquan. It held criminals who overthrown governments, leaders of rebellions, leaders of black sects, demi-gods, gods, and demonic beasts.
Li Mei had given it a brief thought. In there, there would be no warriors to bother her. There would be no people to pester her or her wrath. At minimum, there would be a guard coming by day by day to keep her company.
In there, she could safely think and contemplate what she's feeling. She could rest. She could close her eyes without worry.
So what if the Grand Alliance took her?
So what if she let them?
Li Mei wanted to breathe.
So let them.