Senseless Violence

Time froze as Fu Shulin watched the blood spread around the sword tip protruding out of An Mu's back. The stain was so dark as to be was almost black.

The Soaring Crane cultivator pulled the sword out of An Mu's chest with a disgusted groan. "Stupid cunt."

Fu Shulin held on to An Mu's shoulders, lowering her gently to the ground. He couldn't wrap his mind around what had just happened. She was still alive, but her breathing wheezed wetly, as if coming through wet cloth.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Tears fell down Fu Shulin's face despite the numbness in his heart. An Mu's wrinkled face was so pale, he could see the tracery of her veins as if she was made of paper.

He heard footsteps coming down the stairs, but he couldn't look away from her pained expression. Yao Yan screamed something at the Soaring Crane cultivators, but Fu Shulin was beyond listening.

With the remaining strength she had, An Mu reached for his hand. Fu Shulin held on to her frail fingers, skin thin and papery. He had never noticed how frail An Mu was, she seemed to him so vital and full of life.

Yao Yan was taking on the the group of cultivators, but the sound of fighting and shouting was distant and confusing. All Fu Shulin cared about was An Mu slowly dying in his arms.

"I'm so sorry, it's all my fault." He could only apologize. He wished he had never met An Mu, this would never have happened if it wasn't for him.

An Mu couldn't speak, her breath was growing wetter and more laboured. She was drowning in her own blood. Fu Shulin didn't know how to make it stop, he could only hold on to her thin fingers and watch as the light drained from her eyes.

She was in incredible pain, but she used the last of her strength to hold on to him. If she could have spoken she would have told him that it wasn't his fault. She was an old woman who had lived a long life, on her own terms, she had no regrets.

Fu Shulin had more than enough regrets for the both of them. All of his previous fears and anxieties paled in comparison to An Mu's body cooling in his arms, her face frozen in the pained rictus of death.

He was openly sobbing now, low guttural sounds, the likes of which he hadn't known he could make. To his own ears he didn't sound like a person, only animals cried that way.

The fight between Yao Yan and the cultivators was still raging on. Fu Shulin knew his Shifu was trying to hold them back, but he was their target. He couldn't keep pretending it wasn't happening. He placed An Mu's cold body on the floor and stood above her on shaking legs.

It seemed cruel to him that his childhood could come to an end without warning, on a day that had started no differently than any other.

Fate and its whims. Fu Shulin vowed, above An Mu's dead body, never to be at its mercy again.

With a blank gaze he joined Yao Yan in the fray. It was as easy as breathing to access all the spiritual energy within him and let it out like a terrible wave, engulfing everything in its path.

He raised his hand and threw the man who had killed An Mu clean across the floor, his head colliding with the wall with a wet, crushing smack. Fu Shulin did it again and again, watching the bloodstain on the wooden wall grow larger. He only stopped when there was no longer much of the man's head left to make the effort worthwhile.

---

Xie Bian made himself stop reading, closing the book softly and returning it to his infinity pouch. He couldn't wrap his mind around what he'd just read; the Soaring Crane cultivators' gratuitous cruelty, An Mu's death and Fu Shulin's unraveling. What senseless violence to lay down at the feet of a boy.

He felt hollow, and couldn't stomach reading another page, even though he knew he must at some point.

It was late, but he wanted a bath. He didn't know if he could fall asleep if he didn't clean himself. He called for a servant and request a tub and hot water. Minutes later it was being delivered to the room.

One of the servants asked him if he wanted them to stay and help him wash, but he told them it wouldn't be necessary and dismissed them all with a piece of copper each from what he had left of Tao Yuanming's silver.

He slipped into the warm water with a sigh, sinking down until it covered his chin. Lassitude overtook him, made him want to give into exhaustion and fall asleep right there on the water.

Xie Bian hadn't even started to soap himself up when the room's door opened and Fan Wujiu walked in.

He froze in place, looking up at Fan Wujiu's startled expression without knowing what to do. They had been sharing a bed for a few days, and a room for weeks now, but they had never seen each other fully nude. As by tacit agreement they always turned around when the other was changing or washing up.

But now Xie Bian was completely naked and didn't even have the cover of soap to hide himself.

Fan Wujiu wrested his gaze away and walked away from the door, jaw tight and eyebrows drawn. The sight of his stormy expression made something wrench inside Xie Bian's chest.

Was this his fault too?

Fan Wujiu started pulling at his robes with vicious tugs, undoing the trappings of the wealthy young master and laying bare the dangerous rogue Xie Bian had spent the last month getting to know.

And he did know him. Which was why he knew that he wasn't misreading the split second of raw emotion he'd seen in Fan Wujiu's eyes.

Some of his actions were starting to make sense.

Xie Bian drapped his arms across the tub's edge and laid his face across them. "It seems Wei Xiangsi isn't the only one who wants to fuck me."