My Brain Hurts

"Please! Please don't tell anyone!" Lin Changying pleaded with the white-haired boy, "I'm going to explain everything."

She continued blabbering on, Wu Zhitian thought it would stop after ten minutes, but those ten minutes soon became thirty, and then an hour, until Wu Zhitian's ears could no longer take it anymore and told her to calm down.

Lin Changying instantly shut her mouth. It was quiet, too quiet for the girl's liking. The birds had also fallen silent, dead as dust, even the crickets seemed to have fallen asleep.

It was strange. Wu Zhitian could clearly listen to Yu Xuelan blabber on for hours, days, weeks, years, and he would never tell her to stop. Because if he could no longer hear her voice, that is when his mind will rot and break down.

Without a doubt, Lin Changying knew he was a cultivator judging by his robes, but couldn't accurately identify which sect he was from due to the dim-lit room.

What confused Lin Changying, even more, was the fact that she was so sure her sister was bought by the chief of Xiao Village, yet she was here with a cultivator.

"Um, may I ask for your name, sir?" She asked.

"Wu Zhitian."

Lin Changying, "!"

"I apologize for my rude behaviour, Sect Master Wu!"

This entire time she had thought the Sect Master of ShenMing Wu was the sixty-year-old Master Xiao. She was utterly speechless that such a noble man sat before her.

Wu Zhitian nodded calmly, but the girl's head muddled up into a bucket of dense smoke.

"Is Yuhe a disciple at ShenMing Wu?" Lin Changying hesitated.

He nodded.

Lin Changying wanted to blurt out so many words but constrained herself, not wanting to ruin her decent reputation. She never knew the Sect Master of ShenMing Wu was indeed a man of a few words, just like the rumours had said, perhaps even worse.

Amongst the confusion, she was quite baffled that the boy was speaking to her.

She darted her eyes away from him but was ultimately forced to turn her head away when a strong breeze entered the room.

The frosty wind caressed the back of her neck and ears like the touch of cold fingertips, causing a shiver to travel down her spine.

The boy stood up and took another step closer before stopping.

Each time she heard his light footsteps, like he was treading on clouds, it produced an impression that he wasn't a human being.

Abruptly, the wind started wailing, and the night fell in the shadows, completely drained of light. Although it was just a cold gust, it suffocated her. Her lungs and throat were being squeezed out dry.

She attempted to look at his eyes, but her vision ultimately failed her. A bitterness stung her eyes, and all she saw was the white-haired boy standing in front of her, watching in silence.

Perhaps this was all just her imagination, but she could no longer tell which direction the wind blew from, from the window, the ground, the ceiling. It was everywhere.

"AH!" Yu Xuelan screamed.

Suddenly, Yu Xuelan's sweating body flung upright amidst the unsettling darkness and muttered under her breath, "I'm never doing memory insight every again-"

The howling winds immediately ceased and crawled back to their equilibrium before Lin Changying's breath was drained.

Yu Xuelan stared at the two in confusion when she saw the girl drenched in a cold sweat and the boy who still had an indifferent expression.

"Um, did I miss something?" Yu Xuelan asked, scratching her head in bewilderment.

Lin Changying blinked confusedly and attempted to prevent her movements from staggering. Her mind was still spinning and throbbing, but she didn't know why.

Yu Xuelan darted her eyes between the two and asked, "Did I interrupt something? Should I go back to sleep??"

"No! I'm fine, I mean, yeah, it's nothing," Lin Changying blurted, still in utter confusion.

No matter what, she couldn't force her eyes to look at the Sect Master. Was it because of her shyness? Or was it because of intimidation? Or fear? Maybe a bit of all. She truly did not know.

Everything was in a daze.

"Well then," Yu Xuelan said and stepped off the bed, patting down the creases on her robe.

Wu Zhitian glanced back at Yu Xuelan to ensure she was okay before walking away. The moment he passed Lin Changying, she could not think or move, standing motionless in the deafening silence.

Even after Wu Zhitian left, Lin Changying's unsettling heartbeat did not calm down. Perhaps it even sped up a little, but it gradually relaxed when she saw her sister's smile.

Yu Xuelan noticed the girl was trembling with face dyed in white sheets, and asked, "Changying, are you alright?"

"Huh? Ah, yeah, I'm just cold, that's all."

Yu Xuelan noticed the breeze was chilly, though it wasn't extremely cool to the point it would freeze one's blood circulation.

She glanced at the window and realized it had unlocked itself.

Maybe the wind was so strong that it forced the window to break open, but if that was the case, then the whole wall would've been cracked too. But maybe she was just misremembering things again. She simply just shut the window hoping to stop Lin Changying's shivers.

"I apologize for my quick nap."

The girl gulped and scraped her damaged nails along her palm, unsure of where to begin. Yu Xuelan observed her unusual composure, wondering what happened between her and Wu Zhitian when she was searching through her memories.

Yu Xuelan, "..."

Did he make a move on this maiden while I was sleeping?? How bold! Sect masters sure are something.

A smile appeared on Yu Xuelan's face, but she quickly returned her focus to Lin Yuhe's situation.

Even after going through Lin Changying's memory, there were still so many unanswered questions that left Yu Xuelan quite agitated. However, she just wanted to get this stuff over and done with.

To ease the atmosphere, Yu Xuelan invited the young maiden to sit down at the table beside candlelight, but she didn't seem to want to move.

Lin Changying was still shaken up but finally felt her body calm down slowly. The more she stared at her sister's gentle smile under the soft light, made she was glad that her sister still seemed innocent.

At once, Lin Changying got onto her knees and prostrated.

The black-robed girl's eyes popped out and choked on her own saliva by this scene.

She took a deep breath and cried, "I want to give you an apology. I am so sorry. I am so sorry I lied to you. I'm so sorry... I know you'll probably never forgive me since I was the reason why you went through all of that. I'm so, so sorry..."

Her voice quavered as though her throat had still not recovered from her suffocation.

Yu Xuelan apathetically stared down at the pleading girl and scratched the back of her head. She was unresponsive to her apology, since she was in no position to receive these words. Since the real Lin Yuhe was dead.

The more Lin Changying apologized, the more Yu Xuelan began to simultaneously cry and laugh on the inside. It seemed like Lin Yuhe had brought her back to only deal with her relationship troubles, which Yu Xuelan had absolutely no clue about.

Maybe I should become a relationship consultant after this is over.

"The truth is, I was supposed to be the one that was going to get sold as a slave. But I didn't know back then that the game would do so much harm. I just thought it would be a fun prank but when you left in that cage, you never came back."

Lin Changying's voice cracked and tears fell down her cheeks, "I soon realized you had been sold as a slave, which was supposed to be me. So I just lived as you since mother kept calling me by your name."

Yu Xuelan knew Lin Changying's story did not match what she saw in the memory insight she conducted, but continued listening.

"Mother found out the following year I wasn't you and she was so distressed that she died from shock."

Lin Changying continued digging her nails into her hands, which drew Yu Xuelan's attention to the scabs on her palms. It was as though she had been digging into her palms since birth that there were indents in her skin. However, something was strange. Yu Xuelan knew that Changying was showing her scabs on purpose.

"So I went down to the village and just lived here under your name since the entire village knew that our mother sold her daughter named Lin Changying."

Yu Xuelan stared at the girl who was still prostrating before her and sighed, "Please stand up."

"I-I had to keep your identity because if they thought I was a runaway slave, then I'll be ostracized and kicked out of here... I was just too afraid that they may sell me back." She said and scoffed, "I'm just a self-centred scum."

Yu Xuelan noticed the commandment paper wasn't trembling, meaning that Lin Yuhe either still loved her dear sister this whole time and stayed ignorant, which was quite pitiful if she had to say so herself.

Maybe it was better if Lin Yuhe stayed ignorant because if she discovered her sister's past deeds, it was possible her soul would be corrupted with even more resentment and then manifest into a demon.

Lin Changying added, "A few years later, the slave trafficker, Liu Bu, came past the village again and I begged him to tell me how you were doing and I tried to find out where you were and what you were up to. But he just told me someone in Xiao Village bought you."

"I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry..." she cried, repetitively banging her head on the floor.

Lin Changying continued to apologize and beg for forgiveness, but Yu Xuelan's mind had already indulged itself in another stream of thoughts.

Yu Xuelan rubbed her chin while suspicion arose the more she attempted to decipher the blank spaces in Lin Changying's memory and tried to correlate it with her current words.

Instead, the fact that Lin Changying had two talismans on her at such a young age was what piqued Yu Xuelan's interest.

There were no talisman stores in Ming'An Village, especially in this kind of place. Opening a talisman store would be extremely illogical since no one here practised cultivation.

So that means the talisman of silencing that Lin Changying had was given to her by an outsider. But who would give it to her? If so, why?

Yu Xuelan's breath stopped.

"Ming'An Village?"