I'm really not the Saviour! (我唔係救主囖!) [danmei/BL xuanhuan]

44 - Your family gave you trust issues? Same.

A/N: Finally. A chapter. I don't think I can keep putting out chapters as frequently as I did in the past, but I'm committed to finishing this.

In the meantime, Eitsu's Nine Lives, which set in the same universe, is complete.

***

When Gou Dzing opened his eyes, the view that greeted him was a familiar one.

The dark, narrow beams of the ceiling were criss-crossed like the grid of the board that he and Cheng Baak-hap used to play a game on, when they were younger. Gou Dzing had never beaten his Junior Sister at Yik, whether he played with the white stones or the black.

He wondered whether she had ever played Yik with her younger brother.

Within half of the small squares formed by the beams, intricate dragons had been painted, coiled blue and green. The other squares contained small, luminescent pearls.

He was back in the palace of Ming Yuet. Slowly turning his head as slowly as his aching neck would allow, he found that he was alone in the bedroom that he had previously shared with Gaam Yuk Ying.

Gou Dzing closed his eyes again, probing at his meridians with his hei.

Most of the fourteen channels where his hei flowed seemed fine, except for his Triple Burner and Liver channels. He could feel constrictions in the former behind his left ear and either side of his neck, and in the latter around his lower back. Prodding them, both physically and with his internal energy, was unsurprisingly painful.

"Awake, Little Gou?"

The elegant Gong Ming Dzue entered the room, carrying a bowl of water. The hem of her long robes whispered silkily across the ground as she helped him to sit up and drink. Gou Dzing stared into the empty bowl as though divining.

"What are you thinking of, Little Gou?"

"Where... Where's Gaam Yuk Ying?"

"He's gone to find Old Man White."

"Ah... Is he going to bring Old- uh, Lord Bing here? Or he's sending a message-"

"He simply wanted to see his Master." She sat on the edge of the bed. "He told me, roughly, what happened."

"Master warned me." Gou Dzing laughed like someone had him by the throat. "They both warned me."

"Little Gou, do you know why cultivation is so hard?" the Loong Queen asked, unexpectedly. "Why is it that we don't see Third Daan-tin cultivators running around everywhere? Why so few people obtain even a Second Daan-tin awakening?"

"Because it takes time and effort, Your Majesty."

"And that's because?"

"... there's a lot to learn."

"That's right. And some of these lessons can't be learnt from books, or repetition, or meditation. Those all help, Little Gou. But in the end, you lack experience. You lack time.

"You've never been to war before. Nor has Little Chan or Little Cheng. You've never seen how families turn on each other, never seen a wife stab a husband to preserve her own life."

"Are you saying Yuk Ying has been to war?"

"You'll have to ask him that yourself." Her green-brown eyes watched him closely. "Are you afraid of him, Little Gou?"

"I..." He tasted blood again, and hurriedly threw himself over the other side of the bed, retching until his stomach was empty.

He felt a cool palm on his back, his meridians opening as though purifying water were running through them.