Chapter 54: A lost woman

After a long period of silence in which Chang Hua helped Hong Li-Wei by giving her some potions, the girls eventually simply sat close to each other.

"Stella, I swear I will kill you, you b*tch." Hong Li-Wei growled after sitting.

Stella simply shrugged when she heard those words.

"Not my fault if you are such a fragile woman." Stella smirked after saying those words.

And without surprise, Hong Li-Wei didn't take them well.

"Not my fault if you think that everyone moans when they get hurt like you." She threw back.

Stella's eyebrows twitched when she heard her words.

"You little…"

"What are you gonna do?" Hong Li-Wei asked with a smug smile that further annoyed Stella.

Meanwhile, Elena, Chang Hua, Jia, and Bing Qing just observed all this exchange.

"They are really close." Bing Qing remarked again while seeing them both cussing each other.

Elena simply nodded.

"Bing Qing." Elena called her while looking at Hong Li-Wei and Stella who were now punching each other.

"What?" Bing Qing felt strange being called by Elena who never directed her a word without Hai being close by.

"What do you intend to do?" Elena asked while shifting her gaze to the Sakura tree at the middle of the island.

"What do you mean by that?" Bing Qing asked confused at her word choice.

Intend to do with what?

Elena understood her confusion and remade her question.

"You are Ye Chen's ex-master, and were dragged to our side by young master. Although he never touched this subject as he is waiting for you to recover yourself from your problems, I'm not as gentle and considerate as him." Elena looked at Bing Qing in the eyes and the latter flinched.

"What do you intend to do now that you only have young master as some sort of "support"? Bear in mind, that depending on your answer, I may or may not kill you." Elena's eyes were now a darker purple without any light reflecting on them and she talked with Bing Qing with a small, gentle smile on her lips.

Needless to say, but Bing Qing was scared when she saw such an expression.

Closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath, she recollected her thoughts before facing Elena again.

"I… I will save my mother." She said with a resolute light in her eyes.

Elena simply nodded.

"And then what?" She asked after seeing that Bing Qing didn't continue.

"…" The latter fell silent. She hadn't thought about anything aside from saving her mother.

*SIGH*

Sighing, Elena's darkened eyes vanished like a lie and her usual mesmerizing purple color returned.

"You know, I will change my question." She said while she waved her hand and everyone that by now had stopped what they were doing and were paying close attention to the conversation, suddenly found themselves with a teacup filled with light green and aromatic tea before them.

Jia looked bewildered at it.

'When did she prepare the tea?' Ever since meeting Elena, Jia has been questioning her own competency as a maid and it wasn't by small amounts.

"After meeting and spending time with my young master, do you think you will be able to run away from him?" Elena questioned while picking up her teacup and taking a sip.

'It needed to be boiled a bit more.' She thought after tasting the flavor.

Meanwhile, Bing Qing speechlessly looked at Elena after hearing her question.

What kind of question was that?

Run away from him?

Is she a criminal or someone who owes him anything?

"I don't seem to understand your question." She said after a few seconds of processing the question.

Elena just gave her a side glance before slightly sighing to herself.

*SNAP*

After Elena snapped her delicate fingers, Bing Qing suddenly widened her eyes while memories started to flow in her head.

The memories of their first meeting.

The day when Ye Chen was tortured.

And…

*PUFF*

With a puff of smoking seeming to come out of her head, Bing Qing became red enough to make even a tomato die of envy.

"Wh-Wha-Wha-Wha-" Like a broken record, she kept repeating those words while the memories kept endlessly replaying in her head.

Everything Hai did to her.

All those…

*PUFF*

Another puff of smoke seemed to come out of her head.

The more she remembered, the more embarrassed she became.

By now, Bing Qing was so red that everyone could guess more or less what she was thinking about without even using two brain cells.

"Such a dirty-minded woman." Jia commented in a low voice with a hand on her mouth to hide her smirk.

Needless to say, but with the silence that the surroundings were, everyone heard her words.

Bing Qing by now was becoming a synonym of the word "red" as she was nearly fainting.

Elena simply smiled and said nothing. From now onwards, it is up to Bing Qing to make her decision.

"Achk!"Jia suddenly yelped while holding her head.

Chang Hua raised her teacup to her mouth while still maintaining her other fist on Jia's head.

Hong Li-Wei and Stella just looked at it while repeatedly punching each other's arms.

Bing Qing meanwhile was going through a rollercoaster of memories and emotions.

The memories of when she only heard Hai's voice, his touch, his warmth…

No matter from which angle she thought, she got embarrassed instead of annoyed.

While she was reviving yet again her memories, Bing Qing suddenly heard Elena's previous words.

'What do you intend to do?' Those words echoed in her mind; her memories stopped showing the ones of hers and Hai's first meeting, and everything went black.

What do you intend to do?

Those simple 6 words are yet another simple but deep ones.

Even more so to someone like Bing Qing.

While Bing Qing was absentmindedly looking at the air and thinking about something, Elena was drinking her tea while an almost invisible and thin purple mist was leaving her body and surrounding Bing Qing.

Elena closed her eyes while savoring her tea and waiting for Bing Qing to wake up.

'What do I intend to do?' Bing Qing asked herself this question again, but no answer came.

When Bing Qing looked back at her life, at all she has done,

She saw nothing.

Her training back in her clan? Did she have a goal back then?

To protect her mother? Did she even devise a plan to do this?

The more she thought, the more lost she got.

Before losing control over her body, what was she doing?

As Bing Qing immersed herself in this self-questioning, she eventually noticed something.

In all those years of having her body controlled, did she wholeheartedly try to free herself?

There were sometimes in which she had no choice but to sit back and watch everything unfold.

But there were also times in which she thought that it was good that she had a direction to follow. However, she used to immediately shake those thoughts off as dark and pessimistic ones.

However, now pondering about Elena's words, were those really just dark and pessimistic thoughts?

With her mind free from worries and her problems, Bing Qing started to rewatch her decisions and actions throughout her life, and noticed that all this time, she had no motivational factor fueling her decisions.

She simply moved forwards for the sake of moving forwards.

'What was I doing all this time?'

As Bing Qing delved deeper into her thoughts, a thought suddenly tugged her attention.

Focusing on this thought, Bing Qing suddenly saw the memories which she became so embarrassed of.

However, this time, she saw it from a different perspective.

She observed again and again, over and over those memories until she started to notice and pick some things with her behavior.

Every time that Hai gave her a command, she felt pleasure fill her, she felt more complete, more like… herself.

Although his touch also gave her immense pleasure and his teasing even more, Bing Qing could say that by far, Hai's voice and commands were what gave her the highest pleasure.

'Ah… So it is this.' She thought while gazing at the memories yet again repeating themselves.

This time, she watched with a different glint in her eyes.

Meanwhile, as Bing Qing was "discovering herself", Elena kept releasing that purple miasma that by now was messing with Bing Qing's mind.

As much as she loves her young master, she also knows that sometimes he needs help with some situations.

With the way Bing Qing was going now, Elena wasn't sure if she was trustable enough as she could be swayed by an enemy.

And Elena just being behind Hai in being paranoid wasn't going to take chances.

So, with her special magic and a bit of trickery, Elena subtly guided Bing Qing's mind to where she wanted it to go.

Someone who wouldn't betray her young master.

Her magic coupled with the pale pink aura that the Sakura tree was continuously casting over them was making Bing Qing "realize" her real self.

Smiling like she had nothing to do with it, Elena kept silently drinking her tea.

Meanwhile, Chang Hua observed her from the corner of her eyes.

'She is dangerous.' Chang Hua thought while clearly seeing what Elena was doing.

However, she did nothing.

As much as Elena is dangerous because of her fervent devotion to Hai, she is also just like him.

So, if Chang Hua were to move or do something against Elena just because she is "dangerous", then wouldn't she have to do the same with her nephew someday?

Shaking her head, Chang Hua drank her tea while resisting the urge to beat Jia who was again teasing her.

Bing Qing meanwhile was already in the last stages of her "enlightenment".

After rewatching her memories and seeing how she has lived her life, she came to know one thing:

She likes to be ordered, but doesn't like to have no other option.

She likes when Hai orders her because he does it in a way that she also has the option of denying his orders.

Bing Qing likes to have an order, a direction, a goal which she has to complete or follow.

As someone who has lived her whole life without a clear goal or the work for one, she found solace in having someone else giving her one.

Someone whom she considers important enough to do so.

Looking at her life, she only has her mother.

And she would never agree with this. She would say that she needs to find her purpose and that she has to live on her own.

Her "father" doesn't count.

Ye Chen is out of question.

Ye Zhen is also out of question. After that episode where Ye Chen supposedly r*ped her, she became distrustful of everyone.

This leaves only one person in her life.

Hai.

The ex-young master of the Jin family, now someone whom she got to know that is more than a simple young man.

If it's him…

Bing Qing smiled at this thought.

She observed him enough to know that he really cares about those close to them.

So, if she manages to become one, then maybe…

A blue aura started to leave her body.

Elena smiled seeing this and dispersed her miasma.

*FUUUSH*

Bing Qing broke through.

Opening her eyes, Bing Qing took a second before she could understand where she was.

Looking around, she saw that everyone was looking at her.

Although she found it strange, she smiled at them without saying a word and laid down on the grass.

'She looks like she went through a rebirth.' Elena thought while observing Bing Qing's attitude.

She seemed to have changed to the point that even the awkwardness she had when dealing with them had vanished.

'Maybe, I went a bit overboard?' Elena asked herself but shrugged immediately afterward.

It wasn't like she really cares about Bing Qing. As long as she doesn't harm her young master or any of his women, she won't care much about her.

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A/N: Hello there, I hope you are having a wonderful day!

So, what do you guys think about this chapter? Mainly about Bing Qing's enlightenment and how she was just like a doll even before she lost the control over her body.

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