The fALL

Yujing had held the hand holding the gun with his other hand firmly to stop it from shaking as violently as it did. He wanted to touch Xuan yu's bruised lip. Where blood was coming out of. Instead he raised his hands and pointed the riffle at him, pressing it against Xuan yu's forehead. Everyone was expecting a show down, the most awaited revenge of the century.. The best of friends they were but now, one was on his knees at his last and the other had a gun pointed at the other, not wanting to know the outcome of it at all. People loved these kind of plots indeed. The audience was heated.

"Its your turn, show him the power of the Zhi family! Avenge our master!" "If he walks scott free after all he's done....nobody will respect us anymore!" Another said. "Let's see if he takes after his father."

The matter was even being used to deternime his position as leader of his family and the orgaization. To be honest he did not want it. His uncles did and his Aunts. His family did. Nobody cared about what he wanted. Even Xuan yu did not care about what he wanted. If he did he would not have put him in a situatuion where he had to point a gun at him. 

His third Aunt Ling ling had warned him about this. She told him that his responsibilities were going to increase after his father's death. Most of the time he would be forced to do things he did not want to. He could see it now. It had already come to this but the poor boy still had hope. He only needed to hear those five words. 'I did not do it.' Then he would protect him with his life. His family's reputation. He would not even care about the evidence. He knew he would believe everything without a doubt.

He was a planner so he had already planned what he was going to say. , He would ask him why he killed his father after every thing they had given him, he would ask him who he was working with, he would ask why he ran, why he left him alone in so much pain. He would ask how he planned to kill the council of six, when he started planning it. When he decided to betray his family. It was as simple as that, right? Well...no.

"Why...." The moment he opened his mouth his voice broke off. His emotions had betrayed him once again and he felt fresh tears gush down his cheeks. Xuan yu's heart broke once again into a million more oieces. Yujing was not weak. Yet here he was, crying in front of an audience he would never dare to on normsl occassions. That was how badly he hurt him.

Xuan Yu: "Yujing...dont cry....i dont deserve your tears." He begged quietly, enough for only him and Yujing to hear. If he cried like that, he really did not know what he was going to do. He felt his own tears sting his eyes. These words however hurt Yujing even more. He was not denying it? He really did it. He felt a wave of dizziness attack him and it brought him down to his knees , so that he was the same level as him. Xuan yu moved to hold him up but stopped himself and let him crash on to him, causing him to stumble back slightly. The position of the gun's nuzzle shifted to his chest. He could feel its coldness. 

Xuan yu: "Did you really do it....?You didnt...right?" His voice was horse and occasionally, he chocked on his words, mixed with tears. He was practically begging now.Xuan yu knw what he wanted him to say. He would have loved to say it but he couldnt. The audience that was expecting a blood bath now had mixed feelings seeing this unexpected kind of emotions unravelling before their eyes. Some showed amusement, some disgust. Others loved every bit of the drama. This would not end well. He had thought.

Xuan yu" "Get up...raise your head." He ordered firmly, painfully and forcibly yanking him up. " It has already happened...what are you going to do about it?" He retorted coldly.

And Xuan yu knew them too well. He knew the moment Yujing sided with him, they would all use that as an excuse to turn against him. They were already thinking it anyway. He could also very easily make Yujing take his side. but he did not need that kind of pressure when he was grieving his father as well. He needed to rile him up. To bring out his rage. So he went on.

Xuan yu: You should have figured it out long ago...How do you even call yourself a Zhi?" 

Yujing: "Dont say words you do not mean.." he spoke against gritted teeth. Visibly angry and hurt

Actually, Yujing was not entirely ignorant as Xuan yu had claimed. He did notice something. He noticed tthat Xuan yu was holding back. That he was trying to upset him. He roughly guessed his reasons were due to the reactions from the crowd. That was so typical of him. Pleasing people was something he never liked to do anyway so they could think whatever they wanted to. All he wanted was the truth and the person who swore never to lie to him was the one who was withholding it from him. It hurt more than other people's perception of him.

Xuan yu: "(Sigh) This is out of my control Yujing. Even you cant control it. Nobody can. So let it go." As if it was easy. But Xuan yu really did not lie. In fact till that day he had never lied to him. He really did not know what had happened. He wanted to say he did not do it but what if he did? He had not lied to Yujing before, he would not start now. 

The audience was also not having it. All these tears and dramatics became too much for these heartless souls and they got heated up. Especially when their plot had crumbled before their eyes. There was still no dead body. They could not take it.

"Huh? What's going on. Why are you sympathizing with a traitor?" "He is so weak, we can not tolerate such weakness here!" The larger families sat calmly and sophisicated as they did, with the most ugliest of hearts among all of them and shook their heads with dissapointment. One of them had failed them. "Lets shoot him down!" "Yes, what a waste of time!" They said this and Yujing unconsiously moved his body in front of Xuan as a shield, even surprising himself. His men, on his second uncle's orders dragged him back. He resisted obviously, suddenly alarmed that they were going to really kill him now. Xuan yu also knew but he stayed calm. Masybe to calm the other person who was struggling in front of him. It did not really help much but it was the least that he could do. 

In the midst of the struggle, two gunshots went off almost at the same time. Loud and deafening. They were clearly two because one rang half a second after the other, almost sounding as one. Yujing froze. The men also stopped pulling. Everybody halted their movements. Visibly surprised. Yujng had felt his fingers accidentally press the trigger. No! His mind immediately began to panic. His head snapped from the trigger towards where Xuan yu was. He had been right at the edge of the cliff and now Yujing watched in horror as he fell backwards, right off the cliff. He went to reach out but Xuan yu didnt. He willingly fell all this while smiling at him reassuringly. 

He felt his breath being held back by something. His heart was racing. He's dead. His mind screamed those words at him on and on and on. A blood curling scream. his head spun and his eyes became blurred. A sharp stabbing pain coursed through his body and his own tears choked him. His ears rang with a terrible shrill cry. He heard people call out to him like he was under water and they were above him. He fell. You shot him. They kept singing. A force kept on pulling him even further below, deep into darkness. Then everythung stopped. 

*****************

It was a week and a half after the incident and he hadwoken up in a hospital ward. It was so bright and annoying. He hated everything about it. Even though he came out of unconsiousness a couple of days ago, they still did not dare to discharge him. He had grieved to the point of passing out and to top it all of he had starved himself for four days straight. His body refused to go on. That was okay. He did not want to go on either. He was in the VIP ward so it was occasionally quiet. Apart from Gwen constantly nugging him to eat to Liang suddenly bursting into tears like a grieving old woman who lost a son. Rei was even tired of him.

Rei: "What do you keep crying here for! Has anybody died?!" he once snapped angrily.

Liang: "Young master must be feeling so much pain, if only i could bare it for his sake! Oh how sad!" He had cried out dramatically.

Rei: "Okay so its pain you want?! Wait right there ill show you pain." He said as he got up from his chair cracking his knuckles with a deadly look on his face. Liang had scurried away from the room in fear.

Moments like these had made Yujing slightly chuckle but most of the time he was lost in depression. He couldnt even be at his father's funeral. Auntie Long always had a worried look on her face when she looked at him. She sighed more often now. She once even broke down at his bedside, begging him to come back like he had left. Yujing wanted to confort her but his pain was also too much, so he had cried with her instead. He knew that Gwen was having the hardest time. She lost her mother when she could not even walk, her father when she was so dependent on him and now it felt like she was loosing her brother too. He could tell her to hang in there, that everything was going to be alright, that he was going to be alright but it was a lie. He was not alright.

Gwen had coped surprisingly well. She did cry alot and threw tantrums like she normally did. But her grief was not as bad as her brothers. She was only ten but even she was forced to mature over that short period of time. She began to make appearances for her family in her brother's stead. As auntie Long said, she was now growing into a Zhi woman. During the burial, she stood there alone , receiving the guests. People had praised her for being so responsible when she was so small but did not also fail to criticize her brother for lacking responsibility. This had annoyed her and she had gone straight to the person that said that asked him to watch his tounge or she'll make her men shove it up his ass. Everybody was clearly taken aback by this. When Auntie Long was narrating that incident to Yujing at the hospital she was laughing so hard that tears came out of her eyes

Auntie Long: "Can you even imagine?! She was so tiny and the man was as big as a giant but he looked like he was about to piss on himself haha" 

Yujing: "I really worried about her for nothing. She's more scary than me." He was proud. But at the end of the day she was still Yujing's baby sister and everyday she would whine in his ears until they almost bled. For her sake, Yujing tried to pull himself together. He started to eat. He started to listen to the doctors. In two weeks he was back in the Manor but still unable to go outside. In those two weeks, alot had happened in the organization and that is what brought his uncle to the housejust a day after he was discharged.

In the study, people could hear them arguing. 

Uncle Zhi Meng: "Why cant you attend the meeting? You are your father's heir, it is only natural that you take over!"

Yujing: "Who would want a seventeen year old to lead them? You just want my appearance there to maintain your relevance." His uncle was slightly taken aback by this. He had already figured it out.

Uncle Zhi Meng: "So what if i do? I am your guardian and children should listen to their elders!" 

Yujing was already so used to these power struggles. He had been around his father and Xuan yu for the longest time and they were the biggest bosses in this game. They had taught him everything he knew. One would think Xuan yu was old as the other oldies at the top of the organization but he was only three years older than Yujing. Now he should have been exactly twenty years old. The 'should' reminded Yujing that he was not there anymore and the reason why was even more hearbreaking. The pain started to tug at his heart once again. Xuan yu had risen to glory at only fourteen. To be fair, his iq was 194. Among the smartest people on earth. It was only natural that he was exceptional at a young age. But exceptional was an understatement. Anyone who had him had won and his father had taken him in at the age of ten. He was a computer genius.. He treated computer codes as humans would treat words. Natural. And his tactics were unbreachable. One of the main reasons why Zhi remained untouched up to this day. He learnt things by watching once. And could memorize words in a page exactly as they were just by going over them once. He was also known as a human calculator. He calculated numbers in his head, really lage numbers and very accurately.

He was rumoured to have learnt martial arts by watching a martial arts master practice for months. He was the master of the silent feet, a deadly assassin organization that was enough to make one's hair stand. Even till date they still had that effect, Weeks after, he challenged him to a bet. The bet was simple, if he lost, he would withdraw the protection of the silent feet from the Wang family and dedicate their entire lives to protecting the Zhis. The skilled master first really hated the Zhis. Their way of flaunting their wealth and dominace got on his nerves so even if they were the last family on earth he could serve, he would rather die. Secondly, he would never skip an opportunity to embarrass anyone accossiated with the Zhis so even that fifteen year old boy challenging him to a duel was no exception. He would tear his limbs and send them in a box to Master Zhi Feng as a gift. The thought made him chuckle with delight. 

In those days, The wang had declared terror in the whole nation, with the protection of the silent feet. They had declared a crackdown on great families that had insisted on staying independently. They wanted all the Golden families to exist under them. The golden families was a name given to the wealthiest families in China. The Bronze Orchid was the main target. Dominating almost all trade sectors even internationally, they were subject to envy and jealousy. So they were hit first. And men from the five main families had lost their lives in great numbers. When such battles started, the authorities kept their distance. The kings of the jungle were fighting, they had no business getting involved. Sub families had bowed down to pressure and had withdrawn but the five stayed unshaken, one would really have thought that the Bronze Orchid would fall at that time. But Xuan yu was one of a kind. When Master Zhi Feng was hit to the ground, he sent his best soilder.

He was known as Old Snow, the master of the silent feet. Deadly and swift. If he declared war on a whole province, a deadly massacare was emminent. The deadly feet came and went like wind, leaving dead bodies and blood all over but surprisingly, people would not even hear them scream, just silence, followed by gore scenes and limbs spewed all over. All these done under minutes and under unbreachable protection. Like ghosts. As he stared at Xuan yu, a fifteen year old boy, too pretty to even throw a punch challenging him, he had burst out laughing. He had really laughed, He felt a bit disaapointed that he would have to destroy such a face. It would be such a shame but he had brought it upon himself. As he wouldnt loose, he didnt even demand for anything if he won. He was definately going to win. It was an insignificant fight that will be done in seconds. He was really wrong. 

That day, he had never been more surprised. He had never seen anyone use his own techniques to beat him. And it was not a deadly fight that lasted hours, just minutes. He aimed at his weak points and took him down in minutes. All his skills were useless against this boy and all through he only moved swiftly and did not break a sweat, nor did he loose that arrogant smirk on his face. After the duel he did not go unwilligly over to the Zhi's, he had bowed with great respect towards the boy and had declared his loyaly with all the sincerity he could master. It was an honor to serve this renowned grand master. People had underestimated Xuan yu. He kept on insisting that the only battle to be won was at the top, they did not understand it but after he single handedly disarmed the silent feet, they finally understood. As for the Wang, well that was the end of them.