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2024-10-29 19:42:56Jiang Shui had noticed her unease when he had mentioned her criminal past and acted to quell get fears of imprisonment again. It seemed to have worked albeit marginally as the girl looked a bit less tense than before despite her eyes still flickering to the nearest exits from the room. Her body sunk back into the bed and she drew the blanket covering her up to just below her chin.
"Then again, I suppose it would be a bit difficult to maintain a low profile with hair like that." He offered her the steaming cup in his hands with a disarming smile. "Here, drink this. It'll help with your pain." Liling peered into the cup suspiciously, the black liquid swirling in a misty circle with a small amount of froth on the surface. It had a strong yet surprisingly pleasant scent. Logically she supposed accepting the drink would be a terrible idea, seeing as she knew next than nothing about the young man. But when she remembered the manner they had decimated her guards, Liling decided to take it anyway. If they intended to do her harm, there was nothing she could do to stop them. She took the cup with both hands and sipped slowly at first. For the second time that morning, Liling's eyes widened and she drank the rest of the liquid in a single gulp. Jiang smiled to himself. The tea always worked. "What's in this?" Liling asked a little breathlessly once she finally put the cup down. "No one really knows. You'll have to ask Gui about the recipe, though u doubt he'll tell you anything useful." Her slender eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Gui?" "Oh yeah, you haven't met the others yet. Hold on for a little while, I'll be right back." Liling watched the admittedly nice man leave the room, probably to inform the rest of his team of her awakening. Her lips stretched out in a small smile. He had been quite the funny fellow even though they had just met. She tried to move her hands and legs slowly before she realized that be tea really had helped to remove the pain and numbness in her limbs. Leaving the bed, she sidled over to the window and looked out at the scenic fields outside that stretched on as an extensive streak of yellow up to the treeline of a nearby forest. A few feet away from her window, a mature wisteria plant was in full bloom. The light from the sun filtered through its pink flowers to bathe the room partially in pale pink. Two blue songbirds twittered away on the branch nearest to the window. Liling felt a bit envious of the freedom the creatures possessed. She would give anything to have the power to go anywhere she liked and live her life the way she wanted. By her nature, Liling relished the concept of freedom from all forms of constraints. Even in her childhood it had been obvious that she did not take well to authoritarian figures. Having lost her parents when she had been nine years old, Liu Liling had spent the next half dozen years of her life in an orphanage run by two old matrons. Throughout her stay there, it had been one trouble after another due to her rebellious nature. By her fifteenth birthday, she had decided that she could not continue there. That had been the start of her life on the streets. She never regretted her decision once. The door creaked open and three men walked into the room. One of them she had already met earlier, but the others were new faces to her. The man on the right of Jiang Shui was tall and well built, with thick brown hair that went down the sides of his face to meet his similarly colored beard.His face seemed inherently cheerful with crinkles appearing at the edges of his eyes as he smiled at Liling. She did not fail to notice his calculative eyes watching her every move carefully yet without any ill intent. The other unknown person was a friendly looking man, whose lithe figure leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. A mane of dark brown hair reached down to the nape of his neck and his dark eyes squinted slightly when he grinned at her. Over all, they looked like a friendly bunch, none of them looking more than ten years older than her. That assumption had been made based on the more mature air that the big bearded man exuded. But Liling had seen enough 'friendly' people in the years she had spent on the less than pleasant side of society to be so easily lulled into a false sense of security. Despite their cordial appearance, she could see the telltale marks of experienced warriors in their strong muscles and the numerous little scars that littered their bodies. Even the way they stood in the room was not unlike a well seasoned fighter's stance, ready to go from relaxed to alert and primed for action in a heartbeat. There was no doubt about it. These men were dangerous. The realization only served to increase her inner anxiety. Now she could not even afford to make then angry or she would stand a good chance of losing her head before she could even get handed over to the Royal Guard. Jiang introduced the men to her one after the other. The big man's name was Gui Zhan while the other person, whose smile for some reason reminded her of the fox from her dream, was called Chulai Khan. They told her the story of her rescue and she listened with rapt attention to each part, hoping to catch anything that might help her figure out exactly why she had been taken in the first place. By the end of the narration and having learnt nothing, she elected to direct the question in her mind to someone who might answer it. "Hey Jiang, do you have any idea why I was taken in the first place? I mean they tracked me for over a month so there has to be a viable reason for that." Jiang hummed in a low tone as the two of them left the room. "I child tell you what I know but I'm afraid I don't have all the details. Our leader's the one who takes care of that information." "Leader? There's a fourth person in your group?" "Yes. He's the one who brought us all together after we lost everything to fight our common enemy." "Where is he then?" She asked. Jiang had a grin on his face as he stared out a nearby window. With a wave of his hand, he beckoned Liling to join him. "Out here, training."
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Every individual had something that they valued above all others. Sometimes it could be material, an item or a family heirloom. Or it could be a concept, a moral code to guide them by. For Liu Han, it was a promise. To him, once a promise was made, it was never to be broken no matter the cost. His very existence was based on a promise, the very first he had ever made back as a child when he had watched his father and mother die, alongside everyone he had ever loved in the ruins of their destroyed hometown. His parents had taught him never to make a promise that he could not keep. Once he made one, he ought to walk through fire and storm to fulfill it. Even his life now revolved around the conjoined pactpact he had with his 'brothers'. He regarded them so because they had all gone through the same ordeal he had, had suffered the same pain and had the same life goal. So he carried them along with him to face any and every obstacle in their path to avenging what they had lost. As far
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Without taking a moment to think her next actions through, Liling began to speedspeed-walk in an effort to get away from the man. The latter, suspecting foul play, called the two men with him and they pursued her. Liling increased her speed and began to push past people roughly, occasionally glancing over her shoulder to see the men still coming after her determinedly. Panic began to creep into her mind as she realized that she had stolen from the wrong people. If they caught her, there was a very good chance that they would turn her in to the local guards who would in turn hand her over to the Imperial Guard and that would mean either of two things: life imprisonment or execution. Neither of the two were exactly pleasant to her. The man Liling had pickpocketed kept his eyes trained on her rapidly retreating form, his face set in an angry scowl. He had not worked for long hours under his merciless boss only to have his pay stolen by a young thief. Still... the finesse and ease wit
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