Lightning ripped through the night sky, bringing with it the promise of an impending rainstorm. All over the village of Shèngsuo, farmers sat in their beds at home, hoping for the rain to fall and bring life to their crops in the field. The streets were mostly empty, the population of the village having retired for the night. Only a few night stalls are open and the traders hung hurricane lamps inside to shed light on their wares. A black wagon pulled by two horses rolled down a street, its wheels disturbing the silence of the night. As it passed, all the open stalls in its path quickly closed up as their owners recognized the wagon. It was over that had brought suffering on many of the traders in the village. When it went past them without stopping, many traders sighed in relief. It seemed that the heavens were lenient with them tonight despite what the weather might suggest. In front of the wagon, the rider gripped the reins tightly, his face set in a grimace. He was not suppo

In the building west of the compound, the two shadowy figures moved quickly from one torchlit passageway to another in search of their target. They were fast, so fast that even stationed guards saw them as little more than shadowed blurs caused by the flickering lights. They stopped a few meters away from where seven guards say on benches laughing and drinking together. Behind them was a small dark and dreary cell built into the wall. Its sole occupant was a girl that looked to be about nineteen years who lay horizontally on a small bed in the corner of the cell. She had pretty features with an oval face and almond-shaped eyes that reflected the light from the passage's torches brightly. Snow white hair fell in a straight curtain around her head, slightly dirtied by the less than pristine surroundings. Her nose was small and pointed in a manner that that fit well with her soft looking pink lips. But her facial disposition was quite different from the way she looked. The gir

Dreams were not unusual to her. In fact she was very familiar with them, considering the fact that she tended to have one nearly every night of the week. Sometimes they were strange and meaningless, other times just plain confusing. A few of them had actually helped her foresee some future events in the past but more often than not, she found it hard to decipher some meaning from her dreams. The last one had been a sort of premonition about her eventual capture by the people who had been hunting her for months now. Unfortunately she had chosen to ignore it, a terrible choice that had not failed to land her in captivity a few weeks ago. Since then she had decided to start paying a bit more attention to her dreams, just to be on the safe side. That was easier said than done with how much little sense her current dream was making. She had found herself lying on her back on the ground in the middle of a forest clearing. Looking around she found no sign of fauna despite the nature of

After rescuing their target from their enemy's stronghold, the team had escaped down to an obscure village to throw off any potential pursuers. The village was small and largely self sufficient but the locals were kind enough to have accepted them without asking too many questions. The local innkeeper and his wife had been more than happy to accommodate them in their establishment. Outside the inn, a grass field spread out behind for several dozen meters. No particularly useful crop had been cultivated there. The field's primary duty was the production of pasture for the livestock of the village, as well as hay and silage to be used when the need called for it. It was because for this reason that no one bothered the lone figure standing in the middle of the field. The young man had snow white hair that fell down his back in a neat ponytail, with two locks of hair deliberately left to frame his smooth face. Dressed in a loose red and brown outfit that looked a bit out of place

The change in the atmosphere was instant. A minute ago everywhere had been filled with a soft underlying calmness. But as soon as she made her declaration, a heavy tension settled between them. Liu Han's dark eyes stared heatedly down into her brown ones at her words which threatened to destroy everything he had worked for. Years. He had spent years pursuing the Lady of Death to avenge the crimes she had committed against his family. Not only him, but all four of them held deeply rooted grudges against the evil woman, and now they had come so close to fulfilling their lifelong desires. Only for the main factor in accomplishing their goals to turn out to be a young roguish girl who got into more trouble than she was worth. Thanks to her penchant for getting negatively involved with the law as well as her constant movement from one town to another, it had taken them several months of tracking before they effectually found her. The irony that they found her in the clutches of t