Crossing the Threshold
Crossing the Threshold
There was nothing in particular wrong with the woman, in fact, she was beautiful and seemed warm and welcoming, soothing almost. Not only that, Lei Xing felt a strange sense of familiarity, not just with her, but with this entire place. It made her uncomfortable, but despite this, she also felt a sense of excitement that propelled her to go closer. The fact that the woman knew her name or the fact that she had somehow found her way here to this pavilion through the many paths sprawled in this palace, it all strangely felt normal, as it should be.
"Were you trying to lure me here with that thing?" Lei Xing asked, crossing her arms and looking off to the side at the buildings on the other side of the lake.
The young woman took no offense to Lei Xing's standoffish manner and simply sat down on a set of plush pillows, with a little wave from her hand, the orb floated to the side and stood still.
Lei Xing frowned when she saw this, "Were you trying to lure me here?" She asked as she eyed the orb.
"It was there to protect you, there is a lot of dark energy here, many lost souls trapped here. Your existence is a very unique and attractive prospect for them."
"And you? Are you a lost soul?" Lei Xing absentmindedly asked as she blinked and narrowed her eyes into the distance, she thought she had just seen something.
"Do you feel lost?" The young woman returned the question, crossing her legs and leaning back in her chair. Lei Xing ignored the question as her eyes seem transfixed on something in the distance, "Xing er'..." She called when Lei Xing failed to respond.
Lei Xing whipped her head to her with a frown, "What is this place?" She asked with a frown as her eyes became transfixed on another area.
"Come sit, then we'll talk-"
"This can't be real..." Lei Xing said as she suddenly stopped in her tracks and her eyes fixed on a distant hallway on the other side of the lake. She stood transfixed, and it was as if she were teleported to the hallway itself as she watched a young girl storm past her with a young boy trailing after her.
She watched as the boy grabbed the girl's hand, stopping her. What was stranger was that as she watched them converse, she seemed to know what they were going to say before they said it, so much so that she could mouth the words along with them.
...'With you being so weak, it's hard for this master to leave you alone by yourself...This way, if you're ever in trouble, I will know to come rescue you-' ...
"You remember?" The young woman asked with raised eyebrows when she heard Lei Xing mutter those words, this pulled Lei Xing's mind back to the pavilion, but she did not have the presence of mind to respond as she almost jumped out of her skin when she saw a duplicate of the young woman dressed differently sitting on the railing, leaning against one of the pillars with her legs stretched out talking to a man dressed in red and gold standing in front of her.
Lei Xing stared wide-eyed as the man then leaned down to kiss her. Before Lei Xing could wrap her mind around that scene, it quickly dissipated and was replaced with another scene of the young girl playing with a baby on the floor of the pavilion with the young boy standing next to her folding his arms with a frown as he said, Who knows where he went to steal a baby from now?'
Lei Xing quickly lowered her eyes to the ground, wide-eyed, but the conversation still came into her ears, painting a clear picture in her mind. Even without the specifics being mentioned, she knew they were referring to Doctor Lou and his daughter, Xiao Ying.
More and more conversations flooded, it seemed now that she was not looking at a specific location, the sounds were battling to craft their own tale in her mind, becoming increasingly chaotic. Lei Xing frowned and held her head, she could hear the voice of the young woman somewhere in the chorus of voices and images.
Unable to bear it any longer, Lei Xing turned back to the path she had come to escape. She had barely taken three steps when she suddenly felt herself pulled back by a strong force. She found herself on the chair, she instantly panicked and was about to spring up, when the young woman's face suddenly obscured her view, and it all suddenly stopped, everything went quiet.
"Better?"
Lei Xing just stared up at the young woman's face, wide-eyed. "Xing er'?" the young woman called again, and Lei Xing finally realized she was talking to her, "En?" Was the only response she could manage.
"Better?" The young woman repeated the question. Lei Xing blinked at her a few times, it was only then that she realized the young woman had two fingers at her right temple. Lei Xing looked down and quickly jerked her head away, "En."
The young woman straightened up with a sigh, "I'm sorry, I didn't anticipate you being accosted with memories. I only thought it would be more comfortable in a familiar setting."
It was only then that Lei Xing realized that the scenery had changed, the mountain peaks, the grand palace, the lake, and its pavilion were gone, and in its place was just a flat flowery landscape.
"I took this from your memories." The young woman informed to clear up Lei Xing's confusion.
"Memories?… Were they your memories?" Lei Xing tentatively asked as the woman resumed her seat. The coffee table and the accent chairs, and of course, the strange floating orb were the only things that followed from the previous scenery.
"Yes."
"And that place?" Lei Xing asked as she tried to calm herself, the woman may have calmed her mind, but Lei Xing's heart was still agitated.
"It's a place with mixed feelings, Both love and hate... But no matter how much we despise it, it is still the only place that's ever really felt like home." She said with a wry smile, "Not for you anymore though. You've lived a good life, I am proud of the person you have become." She praised.
Lei Xing lowered her head, feeling uncomfortable again, "And you? What sort of life have you lived?"
The young woman seemed amused, she lightly chuckled and said, "Not much of a life considering I've been trapped here all this time. Although I can't say I would have done anything too different if I were elsewhere." She added with a slight shrug.
"Did the old man trap you here?" Lei Xing asked with knit eyebrows.
The young woman lightly scoffed, "This is not a place Old Lou can mess around in."
"So you didn't have him bring me here?" Lei Xing tentatively asked, looking up with a slightly aggrieved expression.
"No, I had no plans to interfere with your life. I wasn't even aware of your existence until recently. I had long since resigned myself to spending eternity here, that was until I felt your presence at your death, coming here to me. It was when this appeared." She nodded towards the floating orb, "A way out. With nothing else to do, I was content to watch you live to pass time while I waited. I figured you would find your way here eventually, although I didn't expect it to be so soon. I thought you would only come at the moment of your death, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover you had come here ahead of schedule. Although I haven't figured out why, you are clearly not tired of living or dead."
"So you have nothing to do with the old man?" Lei Xing frowned, "I saw him in that place, your memories." She looked at the young woman accusingly.
"That's to be expected, he's our self-appointed godfather. But, I have nothing to do with his interference in your life, I have not been in contact with him. Not that we can trust him to help us get out of here, things ended on a bit of a complicated note with him. If anything, his interference prevented you from coming to me, and therefore, prevented us from being free. I don't know where his priorities lie, but it's certainly not with us, it's never been."
Lei Xing was quiet for a long while, and the young woman patiently waited, "How long have you been here?" Lei Xing finally spoke up again.
"I don't know... but what does it matter? I found a place like this to be quite liberating... all things seem to fall away here, nothing matters."
Lei Xing shifted in her seat, "What about Xiao Ying?"
"What of her?" The young woman asked, visibly confused by this line of questioning.
"What is she to you?"
The young woman scoffed in amusement, "Aren't there more important questions to ask?"
"Just answer the question." Lei Xing bit out.
The young woman raised an eyebrow and then lightly chuckled, "Alright, she's Old Lou's daughter, we naturally spent a lot of time together growing up, she's like a younger sister."
Lei Xing nodded and was quiet for a bit, then she tentatively asked, "Did you not miss your life at all?"
The young woman was silent for a while before she responded, "The life we lived wasn't ours, and we have never yearned for what is not ours."
"And your family?"
"What of them?" The young woman asked, knitting her brows, seemingly starting to get irritated.
Lei Xing knit her brows and asked in an uncharacteristically small voice, "Do they know you're here? Did they try-"
"We do not long for those who do not long for us." The young woman interrupted with a frown, "And even they knew, they would not care. We cannot count on ours to look after us."
Lei Xing frowned, "But -"
"That's enough." The young woman finally interrupted, "How much longer do you want to stall for?" She asked with a raised eyebrow, all traces of amusement gone from her face. It seems she was finally at her wit's end with the random questioning.
Lei Xing bit her inner lip with a frown, "I...I am just..." Even she herself had no excuse to give for her behavior. She was aware she was beating around the bush, but she could not bring herself to ask the real questions…possibly because she feared what would come after the confirmation was given. The thought of this made her both afraid and excited for what would come after.
"Xing er'..." The young woman spoke her name in a serious tone that made Lei Xing go rigid, "The power I have is borrowed, it is already dissipating. Once it's gone, we will be stuck here until your mortal body dies, and then maybe then we will have the power to get out of here on our own, that's a maybe. So unless you truly wish to seal our eternity here, you should ask the important questions, like who I am… but you already know the answer, don't you?"
Lei Xing's hands shook at her sides, she clenched them into fists as she forced her eyes up to meet the clear peach blossom-shaped eyes of the young woman. The eyes, they say, are the window to the soul - she had no idea who was responsible for this saying, but these words had always stuck with her, always.
Seeing that Lei Xing was finally looking at her, the young woman went on to ask, "Or will you deny me?"
Just as the young woman knew who Lei Xing was without an introduction, Lei Xing also knew this young woman in her heart as well, she had seen her many times, it was not someone she could forget, especially not faced with her reality. Lei Xing had known who she was the moment she had seen her. No, she had known who she was looking for the moment she had stepped into this palace surrounded by peach blossoms.
"Xing er'..."