The Immortal Who Wanted To Die

She got off of his body, her skin glistening and her aura rich, while he simply lay there unmoving and unmoved. This was not an unusual occurrence; she would stop by his room once or twice a week to stir his physical body and use it for her own purposes. Dual cultivation was what she called it, but he knew in reality that he was nothing but a furnace for her, a cauldron of elixir to be exploited. Sure, his own cultivation had improved thanks to these nightly visits, it was just that he really did not want it to.

To cultivate was to seek immortality, an ever lasting life and what he longed for was death.

Done with her business, she left him to several low levelled disciples, who leered over his naked body, while roughly wiping it down. Again, he remained still, for he could do nothing else, controlled as he was. Their thoughts were crude as were their mouths.

"To think the Lady would lower herself to lie with this bastard."

"So true. I heard that he was a dog picked up from a lower realm. Not only that, it was a rural place and his clothing was just rags!"

"How disgusting!"

"But you know, he is a top rated furnace and is indispensable to the Sect. No matter his low birth."

A little exaggerated, but not untrue. He was born in the countryside of a land far different than the one he was trapped within now. His parents had named him Xing Xia.  Being of a lower realm, there was very little spiritual energy there, thus society had developed in other ways. They did not rely on inner Qi, but technology, did not use swords but guns. And life wasn't grass; the weak cut down with death's scythe simply because the strong viewed them as unneeded. Of course that didn't mean that life was fair in his home realm.

When he was only ten years old, his identical twin brother, Xing Jia was involved in an accident, hit by a car on his way home from a friend's house. Himself had been stuck indoors ill at the time or perhaps both of them would have shared the same fate. His brother was taken to hospital and his parents wept as they were eventually forced to make a choice; hold on to slim hope and fall into even larger amounts of debt due to the hospital costs of keeping him alive or let their son go.

He was angry, he didn't like what the doctors were saying! Xing Jia was still alive, why was it that they were saying that he would never wake up? He fought with his parents, told them if they didn't want his brother, then they couldn't have wanted him either! He would find the money to keep his twin alive by himself! And with that, he had foolishly run away from home.

There had long been a rumour, that there was treasure in the mountains near his home, the results of ill gotten gains from bandits centuries ago. Of course, the adults dismissed these as fairytales, what fool treasure seeker hadn't combed those mountains until not a rock was unturned? But children always kept these tales alive, holding onto the hope.

And so he had hoped. He would be the one to find the treasure and use it to pay for his brother's medical needs! By some miracle, he'd even found it, but it was not what he had expected nor would it save his brother's life.

After the low disciples left, Xing Xia remained on the bed, a thin blanket covering his dignity, despite his pride having been shattered over a century ago. He fell asleep within his unresponsive shell now that things were quiet. His peace would be broken soon enough.

As expected, the woman came back for him at dawn.

If he'd met her more than one hundred years ago, he would have stated that she was beautiful. Her long hair was silky and a hue so dark that merely calling it black seemed inadequate. It was like still water on a moonless night absorbing the darkness around it until not even sunlight could penetrate its depths. Her eyes were much the same, but framed with a ring of dark crimson when one looked close enough. Her skin was pale like milk and smoother than satin, richer than silk. Her oval face was flawless with bow pink shaped lips and a delicate nose with her eyes shaped like peach blossoms. She was not full of figure, but her frame was not lacking and would catch many an eye no matter the realm.

However, he could no longer see any of that, only the ugliness of her soul.

They had called him a dog, but she didn't even treat him that well. At least a dog she would show some moderate affection before it bored her and she would kill it swiftly and without remorse. Instead he was beaten when she was angry, 'loved' when she needed his strength. He was a nameless tool, kept alive by means not wholly unlike his poor brother within the hospital and due to this he could kind of understand why the doctors wished to turn off his twin's machines. He would choose to die rather than be in that vegetable state.

But this was hindsight, through the eyes of the adult he had been forced to become.

"Get up!" The woman ordered and he felt his limbs respond to the instruction. The blanket fell to the floor revealing his nakedness, but she did not look upon him as if he were a man, despite her actions the night before. She spat out a series of instructions and not just to him. He was dressed, forced to swallow another fasting pill to keep his body living and then led out into the open pavilion where a whole series of disciples were waiting for him.

"Open the dimension!" he was instructed and as had become a habit, his soul rebelled. It was futile though, while his soul was his own, his body and mind no longer belonged to him. An agonising pain coursed through him, affecting every nerve and synapses, causing his soul to scream and instinctively let go of its control.

The air shimmered about them and the cold stone surroundings became lush and green beneath an azure sky. The spiritual energy thickened tremendously and the sound of lapping water could be heard.

This had been the treasure Xing Xia had found that day. It wasn't that treasure seekers hadn't seen it as they sought for gold and silver, but that they had overlooked it. It had just been a smooth looking stone, with slight colour variations that were shaped like the arch of a rainbow. But to a child of just ten years, it looked interesting enough to capture attention. And he had picked it up in curiosity. The rough exterior had shed beneath his fingers revealing a vivid blue stone that shimmered in the sunlight. It had suddenly become hot as he held it in his hand burning the skin of his palm. He had screamed and tried to throw it away, but to no avail. He'd passed out in pain.

On wakening, he'd found himself in the dimension and the stone had vanished, leaving just a white scar on his palm. During a moment of panic, he'd escaped it and he'd run home freaked out. His parents had chided him, grounded him, but then comforted him as he had wept and told them what had happened. They naturally thought he'd fallen asleep in the mountains and had a nightmare. They fed him and tucked him up in bed, not mentioning about it anymore. And when he'd asked them about his brother, they had looked at each other and then told him that they would speak about it in the morning. They told him to get some rest, then they'd all visit his brother again tomorrow no matter what.

Only, that was the last time he ever spoke to them.

In the middle of the night he had woken up to screaming and strange noises. He'd looked out of the window to see people in clothing he'd only seen in the history books waving about swords and killing people. One person was dragging his mother along the ground. He'd run out then, but what could a child really do? Everywhere were splashes of red, there were people crying, people yelling. The strangers were saying over and over; "Where is the stone of Qishi?"

"We don't know what you are talking about?" He heard a neighbour cry out while hugging her small child to her breast.

"The stone of Qishi!" A woman sneered and slapped her. "We know it was activated and is in this village, hand it over and we'll let you live!"

A man had his mother by the hair and his sword to her throat, tears were flowing down her face and by the cruel expression upon the man's face, he instinctively knew that the man had no plans to allow her keep breathing.

"Stop!" He'd cried out desperately. "Please!" His mother's eyes had widened when she had seen him and despite nicking her neck upon the blade, causing blood to trickle from the wound, she shook her head at him, begging him with her eyes to keep quiet. She must have known, must have realised that his nightmare had not been a nightmare at all. But how was he, a ten year old child to understand and he questioned the woman; "Is the stone blue? The stone you are looking for?"

The woman had a thin, but not unattractive face despite the coldness of her eyes. She stopped the man from stealing his mother's life with a gesture, before gripping him by the shoulder, her fingers bruising his tender flesh. "What do you know?"

And so he had told her, thinking that that would be the end of it, that they would learn the stone had vanished and then they'd go away. He'd been too naive!

Their slaughter on the village had stopped, but as compensation, they had taken him away with them. At first, they had coaxed him, told him that he was special and no longer belonged in the lower realm. They had taught him how to cultivate to become stronger making all sorts of false promises; such as being able to visit his parents in the future, even to save Xing Jia's life. All was such nonsense.

When he had more control over his spiritual energy, he had managed to enter the dimension for the second time and as he had promised in the beginning, he had brought his Master with him. She had patted his head and had told him that he would be rewarded.

His 'reward' had been a Gu in the form of a pill that stole away his will and freedom to resist, to become a 'mindless' slave for an endless future. He'd been just sixteen years of age at that time. But watching as others used his dimension to raise excellent quality herbs, the common and the rare as well as steal the pure waters of its lake in order to advance more smoothly or to create better spiritual pills had been nothing compared to what occurred after the sun descended.

The daughter of the woman he'd once called 'Master' had learned from her mother that he had a rare inner root that happened to make him a perfect partner for dual cultivation. Naturally the woman had kept this tidbit to herself for the time he would be of use to her own child. That girl had been fifteen when she had first entered his room, but nothing like the gigglish teen girl of his village nor the shy and coquettish ones from teen dramas. No matter how they were portrayed sometimes, they were still children.

This girl had entered his room and ordered him to be stripped, looking at him with indifferent eyes. He had protested silently in his soul, begging them to stop all the while his mouth remained closed and throat still. She then had ordered them to touch him, to violate that private part of him which made him male and they did so without qualms. He could only watch in horror as his member stiffened against his will; he felt no pleasure from him only nausea and disgust. And then she had waved her subordinates away and climbed on top of him, pressing down upon him. Not a flicker of discomfort marred had her face as she bled that first time.

She swallowed something. Later, he came to understand that it was the Queen Gu, ruler and mother of the one that controlled his body, the one that had once belonged to her own mother. After that, she had ordered him to repeat a chant, one that would allow his consciousness to cultivate united with her in this way. This part had not been so bad; at least in meditation he could forget that she was raping him, that she had stolen away the last slither of his innocence. That night had broken him almost completely.

But where there is life, there is hope and for the past one hundred years, he had hoped to be free of his nightmare. Hoped that he could resist, hoped that he could escape.

He'd listened to those crude mouths, learning much for they had no filters in front of him. Perhaps they were unaware that he had consciousness behind his dull eyes, that while his shell was a mere puppet, his soul remained awake. He'd learned about the Gu, for instance where it was located in his stomach and he'd learned about when his former Master had encountered a bottleneck in her cultivation.  Unfortunately she had later broken through it after fighting with a mysterious masked man, who'd managed to sneak into the Sect to spy. There had been mention of all the money made from his high level herbs and that the Sect had lured an Elder alchemist to their spider's web. He, too, was now a puppet to their whims.  Their dumb mouths had even spilled out secrets about the guards formations and about the boundaries barrier's weaknesses, but at the end of the day, what could he do with such knowledge anyway?

The herbs were harvested, the disciples took them away and he was led back into the cold, dark room that was his unlocked cage. Why bother with a key when he had no ability to move upon his own? Despite the Sect growing ever more prosperous, with its architecture becoming more refined, its adornments more luxurious and its disciples ever more arrogant, this room had not changed in the long years. There was still just a wooden bed with its thin blanket and a small wooden table with a bottle of fasting pills upon it. Only the pills within had ever changed, but that was in number as they were used and replaced.... when was the last time he'd tasted food?

He really missed his mother's cooking...

A sudden yell alerted him; it was coming from outside as well as numerous explosions. This was nothing new; this Sect had its enemies, those that it had offended, those that envied its wealth. The barriers usually kept those people out and that mother and daughter were both quite powerful, not to mention there were other elders, even if their enemies broke in, they would not be easy to face.

A large cracking sound indicated that the barrier had been penetrated and screams filled the air, while he just listened unmoving, but inwardly imagined those falling from the throats of the Sect members. His lips twitched as the notion gave him cheer. He'd cursed them a thousand times in the first few days of his incarceration, wasting time and energy, imagined also that the slaughtered ones had not been the people of his village but these unholy bastards and bitches. Over time, these had lessened as despair had set in, but occasionally, he'd still be filled with notions of their bloodied corpses filling the entire mountain. Preferably, he would have also done so with his own two hands...

The door behind him shattered as it swung open and slammed into the stone wall. Pain shot through his back and a shrill squeal echoed through his mind. He spat out blood, shocked at first then revelling in the metallic taste as his mind felt control return to it and for the first time in a hundred years, he moved his arm by himself. And then his knees gave way as he tried to turn, so he could only look over his shoulder at a man who seemed so very familiar but also unfamiliar.

His vision began to cloud over, though his sharp ears picked up clearly the words the man uttered. They didn't make sense, but he really didn't care. His lips curved upwards and as the light faded, he whispered; "Thank you."