Revelations

["Y-you can't expect me to wear them the entire time you're away!" Tsi Yi shouted. He was referring to the fact that Xing Yue often times left him alone for what was more than hours on end, or sometimes even days until he visited and took the ankle manacles off.

"Look! The skin on my ankles has already been worn down by the steel!" Tsi Yi had exclaimed while jutting out his foot for him to see; Han Xing Yue didn't look down.

His expression was locked dead tight in rage at his defiance.

Xing Yue suddenly pounced on him, shoving him down onto the bed as his hand came to grip his jaw painfully. His entire body lied on top of Tsi Yi as he whispered menacingly close to his face: "That will be the last of your problems if you don't accept that this is the way things are going to be."

Tsi Yi couldn't help himself, he tsked in fury and spat into his face.

He wasn't going to submit to him.

Han Xing Yue growled in absolute fury and-]

Tsi Yi's sleeping expression contorted in overt pain from the memory. Though, he'd punished him for speaking back to him, within a day Tsi Yi found his ankle lock replaced with a soft leather one.

Through his semi-conscious state, Tsi Yi heard fragmented statements from familiar voices:

"...this is incredible..."

"...will need to be reapplied every 3 days..."

"...an abomination..."

"...can't be allowed to remain..."

"...brings shame to our sect..."

Tsi Yi's brows furrowed, fighting to awaken across the heavy blanket of drowsiness -they...they had to be talking about him right? He was the one bringing shame to their sect? Because of his ineptitude? Because he'd been captured and...and...oh god, did they all know about what Xing Yue had done to him during his imprisonment?

If so...how could Tsi Yi ever face any of his disciple brethren again? Just the shame alone was enough to make him want jump off the nearest cliff.

By the time, Tsi Yi fully woke up, he found himself lying in one of the many patient beds in the atrium of the Lan Xiu Sect's Medical Division. Tsi Yi was lying on his back with his right arm dangling off to the side as his Shifu, Xuanren Mei, checked his pulse.

Beside Xuanren Mei was everyone whose voice he had heard while unconscious: his Ouyang Shisu was staring at him with his hands inside his sleeves, a strict almost...paranoid(?) unwavering look in his eyes; his eldest disciple brother, Ma Shixiong, showed -to a lesser degree- the same expression; only Xuanren Mei and Mo SuFang had degrees of kindness in their eyes.

His Shifu helped him sit up against the backrest of the medical bed before asking: "How are you feeling?"

Tsi Yi tried to speak but his mouth felt utterly dry -feeling extremely cottony. Mo SuFang handed him a bowl of a brothy herbal decoction, helping him sip it slowly.

When he was finished, Tsi Yi's gaze couldn't help shifting from his Shifu to the two people who were still watching him with half paranoid-half hostile gazes. He couldn't resist asking: "Why...why is Ouyang Shisu and Ma Shixiong looking at me like that?"

Xuanren Mei audibly sighed here; Mo SuFang's entire form stiffened next to his bedside.

"What's wrong?"

His Shifu softly patted his palm with his aged wrinkly one. "Tsi Yi, I'm going to tell you something but I need you to remain calm after hearing it. Can you promise me that?"

Without thinking, Tsi Yi nodded.

Xuanren Mei: "You're...technically not alive right now."

...

Tsi Yi flashed a bewildered look. "This disciple does not understand."

Xuanren Mei sighed once more before continuing: "Tsi Yi, you...died at least 10 years ago."

Tsi Yi considered the possibility that they were all playing some morbid joke on him but the expressions on all of their faces made him think otherwise. Plus, neither Xuanren Mei nor his Ouyang Shisu was the 'joking' type, to any extent.

But that meant they had to be serious?! How -how could this be?!

His shock must have shown overtly through his expression because the next second Tsi Yi felt his shoulders being held tightly by his Shifu, the man's ardent black gaze staring into his trembling green ones without waver. "Tsi Yi, think back, what is the last thing you remember before being taken by Han Xing Yue?"

Tsi Yi had to search his memories because it was a really long time ago and all of his most recent memories were about his captor...the last thing he remembered was...

...

Tsi Yi shook his throbbing forehead, raising one palm up to cradle it. "I don't remember."

For one reason or another, all of his memories, including those involving Xing Yue, seemed to be jumbled together in an undiscernible cloud of nonsense.

Two people spoke at the same time the next second:

"Do you remember the war?" his Ma Shixiong suddenly asked while maintaining his distance from the bed.

"Why don't we let Tsi Shixiong rest some more?" Mo SuFang suggested.

That latter's words for some reason grated Tsi Yi and he chose to only address the prior: "What war?"

That was clearly not the right response because everyone in the room seemed to either shudder or draw in a sharp intake of breath after his words, even his Shifu.

Tsi Yi bit his lip again in anxiety and internal frustration.

Why was it that everyone always knew more than what he did?!

He felt his growing ire but being unable to vent out his anger in front of his elders, Tsi Yi could only pushed back these feelings. He turned to his Shifu and asked as politely as he could force: "Please tell this disciple what war does Ma Shixiong speak of?"

Xuanren Mei stroked his beard for a couple long seconds, before finally answering: "13 years ago, Han Xing Yue started a war against the Five Great Sects."

Tsi Yi's eyes couldn't help bugging out here. A war involving all Five Orthodox Sects?! How in the world could he not have heard about something so big?!

"Wait Shifu said 13 years ago? Then that means it happened before my so called death, how come I have no memory of the event?! Or for that matter how could I have died and have no memory of that either?!"

Xuanren Mei's expression became complicated here. He said, "Tsi Yi...no one is sure of the exact circumstances but it seems your memory has been significantly altered by the process Xing Yue used to bring you back."

Tsi Yi: "What else have I forgotten?"

The question came out before he realized how stupid it was; how could anyone tell him what he himself had forgotten? Tsi Yi's ears flamed in embarrassment and he fell silent.

Mo SuFang came to his rescue, as he always did: "Tsi Yi, do you remember our childhood together?"

This, he thankfully did. Tsi Yi nodded. "We grew up together as the only orphans of our age group in the Lan Xiu Sect."

For some reason, everyone's posture stiffened yet again at this answer.

Mo SuFang added tentatively after a while: "...only us two orphans?"

Tsi Yi frowned, irritated yet at the same time feeling a strange sense of foreboding terror at what he was about to find out. He answered: "Yes, just us two."

Xuanren Mei exchanged looks with his Ouyang Shisu, Ma Shixiong and then finally Mo SuFang, silently communicating something.

Tsi Yi bit down his ire again.

Back in his sect after god knows how long and everyone was still looking down on him...thinking he couldn't handle something and thinking it'd be best to keep him in the dark.

Tsi Yi wanted to shout, wanted to scream, wanted to hit something! But in the end he simply...didn't. What good would violence do for him? Other than make him seem like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. It would only make people look down on him even more. Call him petty and childish.

But wasn't that the story of his life? Always at the mercy of others, waiting for them to give him what he needed or wanted...like a hapless infant.

A wave of blood surged up Tsi Yi's esophagus in his emotional turmoil but he quickly pretended like it was a strong cough, covering his lips while turning away, forcing the blood back down. Tsi Yi didn't want to look even more fragile and cause them to coddle him even more. He only turned back facing everyone when he was sure there was no trace of blood in his mouth.

"Please tell me more."

His Shifu stroked his beard once again, silently contemplating.

But Tsi Yi knew the man had already made up his mind just by the look in his eyes.

Xuanren Mei stood up and bid him to rest some more, that they 'would talk some more once he'd fully recovered' before walking out of the atrium with everyone except Mo SuFang.

His best friend flashed him a consoling smile. "Tsi Yi, don't hold it against Shifu, he just doesn't want to upset you."

Oh for fucks sake.

"Why did you give them the idea that I needed to rest some more?! Do you think I can't handle the truth? That I'm some egg yolk without it's shell, liable to crack under the slightest pressure?!" Tsi Yi's anger was a bit misplaced here; being so coddled and kept in the dark just because they feared him not being able to handle the truth rang too similar to Han Xing Yue's treatment of him for all these past years: refusing to ever tell Tsi Yi anything about himself while continually throwing luxuries at him in a bid to keep him ignorant and distracted.

What was he? Some hybrid man child?

Even his best friend was coddling him!

Mo SuFang was taken aback by Tsi Yi's sudden outburst. "We- I...I never said you were."

Tsi Yi's brows remained crossed in fury. "Then tell me what you guys are hiding from me!"

Mo SuFang: "There really isn't that much else...we're just as unsure about things as you are."

SuFang's gaze prevaricated away. His best friend was always a terrible liar but it didn't take a genius to discern his expression.

Tsi Yi impatiently interjected: "Why did you ask if there were just the two of us as orphans? Implying as if that was the wrong answer?"

SuFang's jaw slightly parted (or dropped) before him, still hesitating.

At his wit's end, Tsi Yi furiously lied back down onto the bed and turned his back towards SuFang, silently telling the man to leave him alone.

His best friend stayed where he was though; Tsi Yi could feel his eyes trained on his back but he ignored the sensation and closed his eyes, pretending like he was trying to fall asleep.

It seemed like an eternity before his friend finally spoke again.

"Do you remember growing up with Xing Yue?"