Bai Rong's Curse (1)

The sun was shining bright, the birds were chirping, flowers were blooming... And yet, Bai Rong felt uneasy.

Yin Xue was at the market, so she was alone. Bai Rong's right eyelid kept twitching, and that usually meant disaster ahead. She flipped a small hourglass over, watching the golden sand spill downwards. Then, Bai Rong stood up and ran her hands along the walls of the cave. Over the years, she and Yin Xue had carved countless words and pictures on it. The walls of this cave were a chronology of Yin Xue's growth.

Bai Rong's fingertips stopped over a line of text so faded with age it was barely decipherable. It was her favoirite line from her favourite poem:

'A song of goodbye until next spring.'

The words stayed, even after time and rain and wind and friction, proof of the meaning behind them.

Bai Rong didn't let herself think too deeply on it because if she did, all those memories she had locked up would come flooding back in. She felt along a shadowed wall until she found the small crevice she was looking for. In it was a piece of paper yellowed with age. She unfolded it carefully. It was a list, but it was written in blood instead of ink.

Ten names of ten people who had ruined her life and killed her loved ones.

Bai Shen, Lu Mei, Bai Wen...

It had been so long since she reread this list. She remembered using her own blood to write those words one cold winter day. Each stroke reflected the pain within her. She had cursed those people a million times over in her heart, but it didn't change a thing. Every single one of them were still living like kings, maybe even better off than before she'd left. It was as if karma had forgotten these people existed and decided to give them a happy life.

'The world isn't a fair place,' thought Bai Rong. 'You don't get what you want by praying; you get it by seizing it yourself.'

Thankfully, Bai Rong had taught Yin Xue all the things she wished she herself had known when she was Yin Xue's age. She just hoped it was enough.

Bai Rong refolded the paper and returned it to the crevice, leaving a corner of it exposed. She flipped through some old books, tore out the blank pages, and began writing.

Page after page, Bai Rong wrote letters for Yin Xue. All those stories of her past were inked on paper and folded into that crevice as well.

Everyone knows to expect death, but no one is ever really ready for it. Some say when you know, you know. Bai Rong just knew, and she was ready. Time to end this stolen life, once and for all.

The hourglass ran out. Time's up.

She walked out of the cave into the forest of white beyond. She recognized the thrumming in her blood—her past was beckoning.

***

Spirit beasts roared in the distance. Bai Rong ignored them and kept walking. Although it was spring in the Mortal Realm, The White Forest did not follow nature's laws. Every flower was as white as the winter frost. The grass crunched underneath Bai Rong's feet as she calmly strolled through the dangerous forest.

Silence—it was too silent.

Here, there were no birds or beasts. No sound nor sign of a living creature at all.

Bai Rong stood amidst the trees, breathing in to calm her racing heart. The silence didn't have to mean anything, did it?

An arrow whizzed through the air, and Bai Rong barely managed to sidestep before it embedded itself into the tree trunk behind her. "Who's there!" she shouted. "Show yourself!"

At first there was no reply. Then more arrows were suddenly fired from every direction. Sharp, deadly and precise.

Bai Rong was surrounded, and as a mortal without cultivation, she was doomed. One arrow flew true to its mark and pierced her shoulder. Bai Rong fell, clutching her wound as blood spurted out, splattering on the white grass. She climbed to her feet, weakly swaying, eyes on the ground.

Feet clad in black walked towards her.

A cold male voice taunted, "You never give up, don't you... Sister."

Bai Rong stopped breathing. Her lungs had forgotten how to take in air.

Sister.

The title she used to love with all her heart. When he called her that, her childhood self would feel as if her world lit up, because she was cared for, she was needed, she was...

Loved.

But the day everything changed, the word 'sister' became a curse. It became a word of mockery, one filled with disgust and hatred and fear, completely devoid of the pure love it used to emanate.

The day it was revealed she was cursed to be a Devil Lord, 'Sister' became a word she feared, for what came after it would always scar her, emotionally and physically.

'Sister' became the start of her nightmares...