The Eye of Betrayal

The sun burned mercilessly overhead, not a single cloud in the sky.
Every drop of water that fell was gone before it even touched the ground.

The cracked earth beneath me was baked into a brittle crust—dry as ash, breaking apart like old bread. In the distance, the thunder of hooves echoed. A brown stallion galloped wildly across the desert, dragging a bound figure behind it—hands and feet tied, dust swallowing the body whole.

A whistle cut through the wind. The horse stopped.
The dragged figure—me—finally sucked in a ragged breath and coughed until my chest nearly split apart.

A waterskin hit the ground beside me.

I scrambled toward it, tore the stopper off with my teeth, and gulped down a few mouthfuls.
The fire in my throat eased, but pain returned to every inch of my body—sharp, raw, searing.

From my torn sleeve, A-Bao crawled out—the tiny mouse with fur like dusk. It sniffed the waterskin and licked twice. I poured two drops into my palm and held it out. It drank, delicate as a whisper.

I tried to pour a little more, but it turned away, climbing onto my knee to lap at one of the open wounds there.

I smiled faintly. “It doesn’t hurt,” I lied.

If not for A-Bao, I wouldn’t have survived these past days.

When Gu Yi woke that day, he remembered nothing.
Not me. Not A-Bao.
He was Jin Xiu’s puppet—body, soul, and will.

If she told him to live, he lived.
If she told him to die, he would die.

But of course, Jin Xiu would never let him die.
She wanted Gu Yi to keep me alive—so he could torture me.

I thought she would drag me back to Yingzhong, to some dungeon of ten thousand torments.
Instead, she stayed here, on the edge of this border town.
A place where ten miles beyond the last house, the desert began—endless sand, searing days, and freezing nights.

Perfect for hiding a corpse.

She built a small house in the middle of the desert. She lived inside.
Gu Yi guarded the door.
And I… I was locked in the stables.

As for Jun Ye—he hid somewhere in the shadows.

Bai Xi’s voice whispered in my head:
“The Sky-Beast tribe has come. Are you still refusing to merge with me?”

She called them “the Sky-Beast,” but I knew she meant Jun Ye’s kind.

Long ago—seventy thousand years—those creatures had been divine beasts, wolves with saw-like fangs who served the Celestial Lord. But the War of the Gods wiped them out. The few survivors took human forms, mixing with mortals until, by Jun Ye’s generation, the bloodline had thinned into something barely magical—a mortal with nothing left but tricks of illusion.

Yet one thing remained: their bond.

Every Sky-Beast was born to serve one master.
And when that master died, the beast followed.

Jun Ye’s master was Jin Xiu.

Bai Xi never stopped pressing me to fuse with her.
She promised to leave me a corner of consciousness—a fragment that would still be me.

I refused.

I had lost enough.
If I died, at least my soul could wander, maybe be reborn.
If I fused with her, even that sliver of hope would vanish.

When Jin Xiu couldn’t sleep, she would wake in the middle of the night and whip me.

The whip was made of wet cowhide—soft, but lined with tiny, curved blades.
Each strike peeled skin from flesh.

When she tired, Gu Yi would silently hand her a towel.

Jin Xiu wiped her sweat and sneered. “Does it hurt you?”

She meant Gu Yi.

He nodded. “It hurts to see you so exhausted, Princess.”

She burst out laughing and tossed the whip into his hands.
“Then you do it.”

Gu Yi nodded again.

He whipped me. Hard.

The first strike tore open my shoulder. Blood spattered across the sand.
I gritted my teeth and refused to make a sound.

A-Bao squeaked madly inside my sleeve. I knew what it wanted—to attack, to bite—but Gu Yi was beyond reason.

When he finished, Jin Xiu approached with her lantern. “Does it hurt?”

I spat a mouthful of blood at her feet and smiled.

Gu Yi’s eyes darkened. Another lash cracked through the air, slicing my ear open.

A scream escaped before I could stop it.

“Does it hurt?” she asked again.

I trembled, silent.

“Not just your body,” she murmured. “Your heart hurts too, doesn’t it?”

I wrapped my arms around myself. Still, I said nothing.

At last, satisfied, Jin Xiu left.

Gu Yi remained—motionless, obedient as stone.

That night, I didn’t curse her.
I didn’t have the strength, or the will.

I dreamed instead—dreamed of the day the mountain bandits took me, and Gu Yi rode through the valley to save me.

He had found me so quickly that time.
He’d lifted me into his arms, set me on his horse.

“Where are we going?” I’d whispered, shy and trembling.

He’d smiled. “Didn’t I say? I’m going to marry you, Qiao Qiao. We’re getting married.”

And I’d wept with joy.

Then I woke up.

Gu Yi was dragging me across the sand like a sack of grain.
He tied the rope to the horse’s leg again.

I knew what was coming—the day’s “punishment.”

But my body was broken from the whipping. I could barely lift my head.

I looked at him, his face carved from ice, and whispered, “Gu Yi… you really don’t remember me at all, do you?”

His eyelids twitched, but he said nothing—just tightened the rope and slapped the horse’s flank.

Pain swallowed the world.

Days passed—half a month, perhaps—but it felt like centuries.
Jin Xiu had promised to make me wish for death.
And she had kept her word.

Until one day—

“Gu Yi,” she said sweetly, “there’s still something you haven’t brought me.”

He asked, “What is it, Princess?”

She smiled. “Her left eye.”

Gu Yi nodded. “Yes, Your Highness.”

Then she left.

He turned toward me, silver dagger in hand.
Each step he took left a deeper mark in the sand.

There was nowhere left to run—only the stone wall behind me.

“Gu Yi, please… you can’t do this.”

He said nothing.

“I’m Qiao Qiao! I’m Qiao Qiao… you said you’d never hurt me, you said you’d protect me forever—please, don’t take my eye, don’t take my eye!”

The dagger glinted, a silver flash turning crimson in my vision.

His hand closed around my throat—and twisted.

A-Bao leapt out, sinking its teeth into his finger.
Gu Yi flicked his hand, and the tiny body flew through the air, hitting the ground with a sickening crack.

Then—splatter.

The sound of blood meeting sand.

Red spilled across the golden dunes, painting a grotesque tapestry.

A single eyeball rolled twice before two elegant fingers picked it up, dusted it off, and dropped it into a pale lotus-colored pouch.

Under the burning sun, the wind screamed across the desert.
And that day, the man I had once loved drove a blade into my eye socket—and took my left eye.

Perhaps fearing I’d die too soon, they didn’t torture me the next day.

I lay in the stable, barely breathing, when someone came with food.
It was Jun Ye.

I snatched the bowl and devoured it in silence.

He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d have killed yourself by now.”

I ignored him, shoving rice into my mouth.

I had thought about dying.
But I wanted to live more.
I was Zhao Xiao’s wife—I should die in his arms, not out here alone.
I didn’t want to wander as a ghost.

Jun Ye smiled thinly. “Seeing you so lively is reassuring. Unlike some people—acting like the one being tortured is them.”

He kicked over my water pot and laughed. “Want to know who I mean?”

I looked up with my one remaining eye and spat rice in his face.

He wiped it off, still smiling. “Gu Yi, that coward—he’s dying.”

I kept eating.

“He vomited blood last night after taking your eye. He’s losing his mind. A mere mortal can’t fight illusion for long. If he keeps resisting it, he’ll die soon.”

What’s that to me? I didn’t say it aloud.

Since the moment he took my eye, there was nothing left between us.

Jun Ye lost interest and waved his sleeve, turning to leave.

The desert wind howled outside, dry as bone.
And I sat there, in the dark stable, clutching the empty bowl—
feeling nothing at all.