Blood Emperor's Lazy Doctor [Under Revision]

Chapter 10: A Web of Truths and Lies (II)

At that moment light crossed her young self's eyes. A bolt of lightning as thick as a mountain sped across the sky. The following crack of thunder had cut her mother's words off. Then like an overturned bucket, rain began pouring down from the clouds.

"Where the hell did this rain come from!?" Roared Mo Hong Bao rushing back with several pieces of wood. "Dear quickly close the window! Dammit, didn't Achak forecast a month free of rain?! That bastard deserves a beating when he gets back! Once again all our plans have become sugar dropped into water!"

"Calm down dear, yelling won't make the rain stop." Zen Yue scolded as she reached for the window, fiddling with the latch to unhook it. A preventive message to safeguard against unwanted caught fingers.

'These clouds,' Her young self looked up feeling amazed, her large eyes sparkling with curiosity. She swore they weren't there a moment ago. They appeared in the flash of that lightning bolt, as if some magic had willed them into existence!

Of course she knew now, that was no magic. It was an ominous warning that was unfortunately ignored.

Her wandering eyes lost sight of the sky. The window shut and locked, a magical force bound the curtains in front of her from opening, and to her dismay, blocking off her view.

Her young self deflated but then quickly perked up. She focused her attention on making a burrow in the remaining blankets, listening attentively to the outside activities.

Due to how well insulated the house was made, barely any sound was heard afterwards. The rain was soft. The voices of her parents were muffled. The following thunder sounded like soft knocks on the ground, just barely louder than the rain pelting the roof.

Hong Luo laid back down, waiting for her mother and father to come back inside. This time she was nowhere close to resting. Despite her fever she no longer wanted to sleep. She felt too excited! The magic of those clouds made her itching to understand.

'Please hurry Mommy, Daddy! Luo wants to know why the clouds did that! Get inside. Get inside. Get inside already!' Her young self was all types of impatient as she stirred back and forth under her mountain of blankets.

...

But to little Hong Luo's endless dismay–– to years of trauma that would plague her from one life to the next...

...her parents would never come back inside again.

She remembers when she was just about to push the blankets off her, an earthquake rocked the house and her young self fell with a bang from her bed. She tried to stand up but then the shelf across the room fell. The impact startled her into falling over herself. Her tiny body rolled across the floor, only stopping once she hit the cabinet next to the door, the one containing all the shoes and a few bags out for gathering.

She only yelped once throughout this ordeal. Even in pain her young self wouldn't willingly make a sound, her stubborn heart won over her body's instinctive response, which even now, some habits never change.

Once she stopped moving, she struggled to get off the ground, then leaned onto the cabinet for support. When her small hands went to open the door for her parents, to let them inside, to stare at them in grievance...

...it refused to budge.

Young Hong Luo's whole body felt cold as she looked up. The door that was so familiar, that she'd seen everyday, seemed different. It looked the same but for the first time it terrified her. Like a monster in the dark that finally opened its eyes, the door looked down on her as if it wished to eat her alive. If it weren't for her grip on the door handle she'd have fallen to her knees. Her young self had never felt so confused, so afraid.