Chapter8. Red Haze by the Reed-bed 01.

Hiding behind a cover of lotus leaves and their fluttering flowers, and with her head peeking through the stalks of water-side reeds, sat Wei Zhiruo on her small canoe. At this moment her eyebrows were scrunched up in deep scrutiny, her eyes were filled with an impervious sort of an intrigued look.

The boat's heavy, wooden oars lay forgotten besides her feet, the only other object on that decrepit looking boat, while Wei Zhiruo sat observing a weeping beauty, who lay kneeling betwixt a patch of grass growing by the shore.

"Why is she crying like that?" A thought which had perplexed her for too long, was uttered askance. She asked but no one replied.

"...She is wet as well. Look at that place. Isn't that a pair of shoes floating over there? If I am not wrong..." Quite some distance away from herself and the shore, there were a pair of white, embroidered woman shoes floating over the pond surface. "...That splashing sound was her being thrown into the water, wasn’t it?"

Wei Zhiruo muttered mostly to herself. She observed, thought and tried to hold on to a conversation —any dry stuff that could just come out of her already scattered mind rolled off her lips. Lips which had grown increasingly dry and chapped.

As for the beauty— she wailed, lamenting by the shore. It was a tragic sight to begin with and easily allowed Wei Zhiruo to imagine all sorts of intrigue and drama that might have fueled the current scenario.

Looking over, Wei Zhiruo thought that the beauty's soaking and dripping hair and even her clothes — if it was any colder, they might have been covered by a layer of frost by now. But that girl kept crying, and crying silently, as if she couldn't feel the cold. Or those growing chills in the air as morning approached closer and was just around the corner was just Wei Zhiruo's own figment of imagination. The girl's skin though was turning blue.

Occasionally, the beauty would mutter something to herself, while the rest of the time she was quite busy wiping away her tears.

'Heaven's daughter...a shell?' None of the muttered sentences made sense to Wei Zhiruo.

Tears kept falling, streaming down the beauty's fair cheeks down onto the ground hastily losing their traces therein. She did whimper a few times, but then suddenly broke out in an unexpected sort of laughter. Its echo haunted the night; as did the tear drops that seemed to penetrate the fabrics of her reality, and fall piercingly over some silent, still waters.

Its penetrating force recalled some not so fond memories in Wei Zhiruo's mind which she barely shrugged off.

'She doesn't look right. Has she gone insane? But not quite like it either— however, there is a little bit of glaring madness in there as well. Peculiar…'

Wei Zhiruo pried several emotions flashing over her features, yet still couldn't make up her mind what to do next. She felt it would be too unfeeling of her to just ignore this scene and be on her way.

But coming out had its own risks. Finally, after pondering on its pros and cons, Wei Zhiruo decided on not going out. After all, there was always a glaring probability that the girl might have known the original owner.

This wasn't some wild place; that girl looked like a demure, weak resident of this manor who had been clearly nurtured in comfort and peace all her life.

What if that girl asked her what she was doing here instead? Should she tell her the truth —that she was out hunting for something invisible to most human eyes? Or that she entered and lost herself in a strange space, getting out of where it almost took her half the night? Who will look insane then?

"Never mind." Wei Zhiruo looked away decisively. "Marr? Can you hear me now?"

For the umpteenth time the same question reconciled with the breaking fabric of the night, and like several previous prodding's, this one too was soon lost, unheeded.

Wei Zhiruo frowned and then narrowed her eyes, stopping her palms from clenching into a fist due to a gut wrenching worry. Instead, she heaved in a mouthful of cold air, then released a deep sigh.

"It's Cold." Wei Zhiruo muttered. "It's getting colder...Marr. Hurry up, answer me. "

No matter what, she thought, eventually all things will fall in their rightful places. She just had to wait. If he is not responding to her now, she will wait for him to come back to her. Will she be disappointed in her wait? There was a chance of that...but she felt she wouldn't be.

"Yuemarr…?" She called again.

It was getting colder. Staying out like this any longer would be extremely taxing on her body. If she caught a cold, she would be bed-ridden for most of the week. Heavily malnourished, her body was suffering down to her bones — it was stunted and rigged with dark traces that looked like some kind of poisonous residue and hidden diseases of so many kinds that she had lost count just marking them out. All she surmised in the end, was that she would need to nurture the body for at least a year before it could even reach the level of a normally functioning human being!

And this was nothing in front of the wounds left in her soul. Travelling down here was definitely not like falling asleep in that accursed pond and then waking up here, today—no; it was more like she had pierced through a membrane that sucked away all her powers and strength and left her like a husk of her previous self.

It was so bad that Wei Zhiruo didn't even want to see what was wrong inside her Inner self! She was using her Spiritual Senses, and still could use it flexibly to reach a considerable distance, and this just became another of her excuses to not peer deeply inside her soul.

Now that she started thinking about healing, she found that it was going to be a very, very long and tedious project, and would definitely need some precious herbs and tonics to support it. Precious medicines needed money and this identity was so sensitive that to go out earning any amount was tantamount to revealing her strangeness to everyone. What else could she do in such circumstances? Actually, the solution wasn’t that hard to achieve - she just needed to merge with her bloodline completely…

She just needed to wait a couple more weeks till the process was done. After that, she could just nurture the vitality as she found it appropriate to do so.

"... you must be weak and tired right? But wait...if the bloodline's already merging, wouldn't that mean you too have started assimilating with this body? Don't tell me you are busy merging right now?! If you are not — then don't start, okay? It's hardly safe right here. At least wait for me to go back to my chamber. I think those mortal medicinal herbs can help us gain some strength. Since this world has humans, there must be some sort of similarity in the nature of herbs..." Wei Zhiruo said. "We can search for those…"

She thought deeply, as many names started running through her mind. Angelica, wolfsbane, Talons of the Red Rosefinch, and Aster starwood, Auburn Dust leaf and a pinch of coral residue...and this just made a small pot of 'healing' or rather, energy boosting potion...did any of the Runes support internal healing?

But even after waiting for a long while, when she didn't hear any reply –all those herb names, Runes and past annotations got jumbled up in a mix of fear and apprehension. She panicked.

Wei Zhiruo rubbed her shoulders with her palms to escape the cold. Her heart, though, was growing colder by the minute. Apprehension, fear of losing something after gaining it, and that deeply entrenched familiar fear of finding that she had just been imagining things in her head —dreams and nightmares, reality with no boundaries and senses that lied...she could hardly take out her mind from all that! She just somehow sat still, rubbing the bumpy surface of the wooden canoe, obsessively tracing, retracing its rough texture. It felt wet and sticky, and felt obnoxiously irksome.

"A'Marr…? Cannot you say a word...to me?"

Chilling breeze seemed to be sneaking up closer to her, rubbing their hands over her shoulder and wet and naked feet to make her feel their presence all the more. She felt the numbness of the cold already making her muscles stiff, and hard.

A cloud of fog had imperceptibly flown closer to her and built this towering maze of views: some peeking bushes of wild reed peeking down closer at hand here and trees cowering down at the shore over there, a vast carpet of rippling black waters underneath and a wide expanse of blue-black sky hanging overhead. Nearly everything was still, and frozen. A creeping stillness reigned, as fog stole closer and closer rolling down like a tumbling river of smoke.

And that beauty...she was sucked into the background of heavy noises, a scene being enacted from a play, running in the theater with no sound or movement —just a cold glimpse of an alternative reality. If reality was somewhere near in her clutches...which Wei Zhiruo doubted.

Growing colder and colder, Wei Zhiruo looked up into the clouding sky and looked at it as if seeing it for the first time.

"Who would've thought that just a while ago it was a clear night?" She mumbled distractedly, whispering under her breath. "Will it be clear tomorrow?" Or will the rain once again submerge her melancholic, hazy mind in its retelling of poignant tragedies?

"Maybe...maybe not." She was betting that it would be a clear, warm day full of sunlight and warmth, and fresh breeze, and the smell of popping flowers and drooping vine-blooms.

Why?

Because Marr was not a figment of her imagination, Wei Zhiruo urged. He was here and when he was close, how could that day be a gloomy day? After all, he was her companion, her Blood-seed that talked and thought and accompanied her like…forever. How could he…desert her like that? 'Let it be a warm, sunny day A'Marr. I am begging you,' she looked up and solemnly urged.

To Yuemarr, Wei Zhiruo knew her words would have reached him even if she just thought about it inside her head. But she wanted to hear his reply, his voice. Confirm that what was almost fantastical was definitely not a piece of her imagination - or a longing that had maddened her to her roots!

Her Blood-seed, the carrier of her bloodline and inheritance, was here —inside a new body, which was undoubtedly full of human blood. Amazing, wasn't it? It was almost a bizarre miracle.

Her human-self had somehow retained a bloodline, which was strictly passed down through a pure family line with no exceptions.

Marr and her had been together since birth. Although, she only knew of his existence only after she was four and nearing her own Awakening ceremony, but after that, they had never been separated.

At first, he was a tiny seed sleeping in her soul. He didn't know how to talk, and thus, would send her broken 'flashes' and snippets of images formed in her own Inner eyes or thoughts, to tell her what he wanted, what he liked or disliked. And when he could talk, her days were full of his random chatters.

What books he liked, and which tree smells best to him, and which birds and flowers she should look at once more, she knew it all. What kind of sky's blue he preferred the most, and which sunlit day he wanted to remain dozing in forever — he used to chatter all the time!

When they walked in the capital city Finsmeave, he would always bubble and chirp inside her, absorbing all he saw, memorizing whatever he could —he was the source of curiosity that had colored much of her own world. He used her senses to build his own land of imagination, felt what she felt, and rejoiced in them. Everything they did, had been done together.

It felt so empty, when she couldn't hear him talk like that. But it was okay now - at least he was still alive.

Wei Zhiruo shrugged away most of her morose thoughts and kept rubbing her palms together to generate some heat. She even rubbed her face a few times, but found that it was of little help. Her body was getting colder.

She didn't know why, but she didn't want to go away. She thought about calling a few more times.

"If it doesn't rain tomorrow —what do you think are the chances of me getting out of this manor? But first, it would be better to see what other places in this mansion look like —what do you say? And meet some people. I don’t know why I still have some of the ability of the original owner of this body, but language shouldn’t be an issue. When I was talking with that maid I clearly understood what she was telling me, and even knew how to talk back. No language barrier means...it's just a matter of increasing more knowledge about the 'common sense' related to this world. And reading—have I become an illiterate person? I don't know. What do you think? Should I go out? Will others recognize me, or find something strange about me if I do so?"

Wei Zhiruo could hardly predict other people's responses. What if there really was someone very close to Original soul? What will she do to explain her changes to such a person?

"If I didn't have some of the remnant memories from this body, I would have completely given up on continuing staying here," she said. The language, the expressions and mannerism – these are just the basic things to assimilate with the rest of the world. And to continue to fit in while using this identity — she needed to master all of them quickly. Thankfully she still had these and enough time to digest them without arousing any suspicion. But there was no certainty that she wouldn’t be discovered by anyone.

Especially when this identity was so... sensitive and mysterious.

A child of her age doesn't have a close maid to look after her, her courtyard looks dilapidated and almost half emptied out of its utilities; it wouldn't take a genius to guess that there was something wrong with her current identity. But what was it? Has her mother offended the family, or what else could a seven-year-old child do to earn such ostracization?...But there was something else that struck her mind while trying to think of reasons for her isolation. Her eyes.

Wei Zhiruo's brows scrunched together in a frown. 'Strange, isn't it? How come they are still so blue?'

All the people in Jinghai she saw today had brown, black eyes. But her body had blue ones —a blue which was almost Cerulean, hardly any different from her past self.

Did this symbolize anything? She had her past bloodline, and her eyes were blue too...but she was definitely a human!

Maybe the answer to all these doubts lies in the sealed memories? What was the seal for?

"Marr, at least tell me about this seal? It definitely is akin to an ‘Obliterate’ Rune I learnt. Why is that, when I think about it, my head starts hurting? Don't tell me it was used to lessen my guilt about overtaking this body –? Marr?" She prodded and prodded, till her ears were tired of hearing her own cracking voice.

When she was losing all hope —finally a thought mixed up with the huge river of her internal thoughts, slowly gained strength and became audible. She heard him, Yuemarr, growing increasingly louder.

[Can you be quiet for a minute? Let me concentrate in peace, will you?! Can't you guess that I might be busy doing something important? Why are you chattering so much for-? You can just meditate and see me for yourself here—why don't you just do that instead of asking me to talk to you? It takes so much energy to make myself heard in your endless junkyard of thoughts! Don't you have any idea about your maze of a mind?] An angry voice sounded inside her head.

'Finally, he talks.' Wei Zhiruo felt herself losing all her unsettled fear in an instant. Her body eased up, the taut lines on her forehead settled down on their own and then her anger started bubbling up. Her eyes narrowed down into a slit, and her fist clenched hard. She would have thrown a few fists at someone's head right away, if only he was right in front of her at this moment!

"Say it again?! Chattering endlessly, am I? I wouldn't have called you again and again like a senseless puppet if you replied to me even once! Otherwise how do you say, should I make it clear to myself that I am not just imagining things and talking alone to myself? Can't you just meow a meow, a little nyah would do to! Send me an image for god sake! Don’t tell me you are so busy that you cannot even spare a moment to reassure me —a person who thinks you are dead? At least let me know that I am not losing my head by imagining things. Can't you do even that?" Wei Zhiruo retorted angrily. She felt her nose burning with an astringence, as did her throat, blocked with hard to swallow feelings.

[You wouldn't have to feel this way if you had the courage to come inside and see me. You just had to meditate. Meditate, okay? I am in your body —not too far away is that?] A slightly defensive voice replied.

"Good! Now I am a coward too! I haven't even started on your behavior today. Whole day - Marr. You left me alone for such a long time – and all this while I thought you were dead! At least you could have said something to let me be reassured! Just a notice like, 'Ama, I am still weak, I cannot talk to you right now, so let's meet later' would have done. Is that hard? But you didn't even squeak! I checked my soul when I woke up this morning, you were nowhere Marr. What else would I have thought other than that you died and left me alone? Tell me, what should I make out of this behavior?" Wei Zhiruo felt suffocated at this kind of first meeting. She didn't want to be so emotionally charged and out of control, but every word just stumbled out of her heart on its own.

But Marr didn't seem to be aware of her overwhelmed state. Or even if he was, he clearly refrained from making them apparent. As usual, he retorted, saying —[That I might be in a dormant state–? Did that thought ever cross your mind? But let's not argue right now — I told you I am busy! It's not an empty word. I am really, really busy right now! You are undergoing a late Awakening, for God's sake woman! Give us both some time to deal with this first, okay?]

Marr's words finally distracted Wei Zhiruo enough to bottle up her frustration.

"What do you mean? Second Awakening?" Wei Zhiruo sniffed and asked.

[Yes. Our second Awakening. Like the one you had in your previous life when you turned five? You will see soon– let me do my things. But also— I need you in here, meditate and see inside and sort out these red-roots of mine. Don't keep mopping up all the time! Get busy.]

Wei Zhiruo raised one of her eyebrows but didn't reply. She said —

"I still don't feel that kind of tumultuous change inside me. Yuemarr? What do you mean we are going through another Awakening?"

[It's in your inner body —! Like I said, meditate and see for yourself. I am not talking to you right now - you lose your mind once you get frustrated. Did you hear me say 'meditate' even once? I am busy Ama. I'll come to you when you are in the right state of mind.]

Wei Zhiruo, sighed. She knew she was in the wrong. So she brushed away the rest of her anger and finally stopped brooding and got to work.

She spread her Spiritual Consciousness and looked down at her widespread palms using her Inner eyes, peering past its outer flesh, looking through its tendons, its muscles and bones. All its joints were as clear as was the red flowing liquid in those, fine thread like blood-vessels— her human blood running in a human body.

She had learned what a healthy, fully functional human apparatus looked like. And her current body could hardly be called a healthy one. Dark elements were plaguing the blood vessels, as did some other sort of dark spots intermittently sticking to her spine. What they were she couldn't tell. But they felt pretty ominous.

Wei Zhiruo eyelashes fluttered, flapping in the white mist—just then, an owl hooted quite close by and flew over her head, hastily diving into the sea of fog. She looked up, breaking away from her trance, a little alarmed. Seeing that it was nothing but an owl lunging down on its prey, a wild mouse, she relaxed her stiffened nerves.

"There is no obvious modification in my biological systems — the heart, lungs and spleen, kidney and the guts, almost everything is working the best they can in my battered down condition. I am still, positively, a human. Even if it's a second Awakening, as you said, it can only be the first phase... I don't understand. Why now, Marr? Couldn't we have arranged for auxiliary herbs or other such things before plunging headfirst into this? This body cannot suffer the pain of a second Awakening right now."

[What do you think? Did I want this to happen to us? Of course not!] Marr couldn't help retorting defensively to this, sounding incensed. [You cannot blame me for something like this! No, no, no. You saw those Runes too, right –? Yes, it's because of them! I was in my half-awakened state when I just started absorbing them and kept doing that without considering my limits. I wasn't awake so don't judge me. I swallowed quite a large chunk of it in the end. And because of that I couldn't help pushing us to this... It was either the Awakening or us getting a life threatening shock from excessive absorption of energy! So I- I chose Awakening and here we are. I am not defending myself for this choice but I am having a hard time too- okay? So please, please help me sort this out, Ama! I am begging you, okay?] By the end he almost sounded like he was crying.

"You absorbed those Runes? Don't tell me you can do that? I always thought you just liked to absorb negative energy and those filthy miasma like stuff inside the Abyss — those dark elements. I don't know what to say… Marr, let's have a detailed conversation later – and you will tell me every other skill of yours that you've kept secret from me, alright? I know you think they are useless, but let's not be too sure okay?"

Wei Zhiruo knew that if he had this ability, and never discussed it, it could only mean that he thought it was useless. But now it sounds like his idea of what is useful and useless might not always align with hers... Since this was the first such case, any future loss could at least be averted by knowing his abilities in detail. She will have to have this talk.

She hastily stopped herself from sidetracking, and pierced her palms with her nails. In a few minutes her human blood had almost dyed her palm red. She was going to use her blood as a medium to write down very low level Runes.

[Actually, this is news to me too. I hardly knew I could do that before this, never felt the desire to swallow Runes...Believe me. Something seemed to have changed in my half awake state. But never mind this for now. First, help me sort out these roots– I can hardly see where I am going. I have infiltrated my roots all over your Inner body, and now it feels like a maze in here! It's just so overwhelming for me to do this all by myself. Even if it's the first phase, I am panicking with all the stuff lining up one after another! I feel like I am bursting out with energy and I cannot even halt this process!]

"I say, you deserve it! You could have given me a hint, or a sign but who told you to be a hero and decide things on your own?" Wei Zhiruo started drawing a Rune with her red palm, rubbing it against the rotten wood of the canoe. A circle, a few strokes to form a Rune of [Conceal]. At least this could give them some protection and privacy — even if they remained here in broad day-light, no one could find them behind this huge barrier.

[Tsk. It was too late when I woke up. By the time I understood what was happening it was too late.]

"How many Runes did you get? Did you make a copy of some of them and stored them away inside yourself? Don't tell me you did the thing you do with those books —copying a normal book is very different from trying to imbibe a magical Rune, you know that right? You wouldn't have done that to yourself...you did? Marr? You could have killed yourself by doing something like that! Rune's are made of the purest form of energy, and those inside that overlapping space —those were virgin Runes! They need to be mediated with other things like chains and links of comprehensive thought and understanding, even before one starts comprehending their essence! It's a tough task. What did you do?"

[I don't know —I cannot remember clearly what I did there. I cannot be sure of how many!]

She knew it. How could he have suddenly been pushed to this juncture if he hadn't done something irreversible? She rubbed her forehead and asked —

"Don't be playful Marr. Be factual. How many —you give me a number so I can prepare my mind. Are you going to explode?" Her mind was already exploding with worries.

[I don't know! Would you believe it when I tell you, that I unconsciously imprinted almost all —as in I locked their essence in my body somewhere—and did that for almost all of them too? And...I think I copied and impression of the rest which I couldn't imprint? I don't know how I am even alive right now. Sigh! Agh -! We should be dead but aren't and now all those Rune's are sealed in your body somewhere that I cannot reach and that place is completely foreign to me. The drop that imprinted everything is now sealed away in a certain mysterious part of your inner body, while taking along with itself that humongous Rune collection. I don't know whether to congratulate ourselves for this sheer stroke of luck or mourne that there is nothing else we can do now…! Anyways, now I cannot call it back myself or seal it up to alleviate our present situation. That's it. Now, I have told you the truth. D-Don't beat me to death.] Marr's frustrated voice almost felt like he was too numb to even cry anymore.

Taking a deep breath, Wei Zhiruo stifled the urge to pound someone's head flat and instead asked, "There is a place inside my body where you cannot reach with your roots? Why? Does it have something to do with the seal on my memory?"

[No, no —that's a completely different story. In short, that seal on your body is for your own good; it just lessens the weight of your soul. You might have obliterated all the memories of our coming here, but there was no other way. You were a mature soul and we had been sucked away inside not even a two months old human embryo! You can guess how much pressure we were under at that moment. We could have died that very instant, stifled inside the womb, but you just happened to remember that Rune called 'Obliterate’ also has a function to act on the soul and memories. It's just that it needed much energy to carve that Rune over your soul —how else do you think you lost every trace of your previous cultivation? Anyways, you pulled it efficiently enough to lessen some of the weight to not just end up bursting like a balloon! I don't know how many memories you permanently discarded or temporarily shelved but we went dormant ever since. You can examine things later when we are done here. But the place I mentioned, where my drop is sealed — it's somewhere inside your Inner body. Maybe your previously Awakened bloodkin body didn't have this, but this new human one does — strange right, I know. I can only feel where that blood drop is right now; neither can I reach it in there, nor can I call it out. ] Marr replied exasperatedly.

"Two months old -? An embryo in the womb — and not a human child? Are you sure Marr? Don't human souls inside the embryo only form after three months have passed? That means that there was no Original soul in this body? Was it just me all along? What kind of sick situation is this?" Wei Zhiruo said. "And I was almost beginning to feel like a thief for taking away someone else's life! Now I feel like an idiot for not guessing it all. I have such saturated blue eyes —humans usually don’t have such rich and deep eye colors!"

[You tend to overthink, I know. I know you were alone, I am sorry for waking up so late and making you feel so bad all this time. But I couldn't control myself! Ama, can you imagine — one moment I am in deep sleep and the next I have managed to put ourselves in such a fix. When I woke up, I was suddenly so full of energy that if I didn't vent, we would have exploded by now! I could only think of making myself grow faster, and faster and then I just pushed us to our Awakening instead! It's all my fault — as you said, if only I didn't think I could handle all this by myself or even alerted you a bit. Maybe we could have done something else? I feel bad just thinking about it right now.] From his self blaming soft voice, Wei Zhiruo could almost imagine his drooping cat ears and tails. She instantly softened and began to reassure him.

"As you said, you weren't even awake yet. You are not alone – to be blamed as such. It was my impulsive action too, okay? Without thinking of consequences, I started chasing that thing into the Rune Formation — it could have been something worse! What if it was a dead-end, a space fault instead? I didn't think of anything but just plunged headfirst into it. Doesn't that sound suicidal in the hindsight? Maybe it will all turn out for the best? At least now, we will not be human anymore after this Awakening."

[I hope so.]

While she was talking, she slammed the freshly drawn symbol with her palms. A yellow Rune shaped in the same way as the Character she had drawn with her blood, sprang up instantly.

It was circumscribed inside a little more elaborate concentric circle, with motifs of strange men and women, twisted into a symbolic stance of worshipping a sun, etched in its outer circle in pure golden lines.

Wei Zhiruo directed the Rune overhead, then loosened her control. She chanted a release-word under her breath and then a strong invisible wall formed linked to the Rune, like a bubble shaped golden dome, completely isolating the canoe and Wei Zhiruo sitting over it.

Only after she was sure that the wall was affixed and stable, did she sit down for meditation. With her two still bleeding palms connected together, her eyes closed and back straight as a pine tree — all her Spiritual Consciousness was concentrated in plunging deeper and deeper into her own self.