Chapter Three

5.1K 542 115
                                    


"The ten sons of the Jade Emperor were rogue and filled with disdain

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

"The ten sons of the Jade Emperor were rogue and filled with disdain. They climbed to the sky with their blazing chariots and raced to the other end. Beneath them, trees burned, humans were reduced to gleaming skeletons, and there was not a drop to drink. But their charade did not last long. HouYi lifted his gleaming bow and arrows and shot nine from the sky, sparing the youngest son who promised to never race again."

The Fall of the Suns—The Immortalist Lores


CHAPTER THREE

It had been two days since the High Immortal tore off Traveler Jin's face and knocked everyone out at the teahouse.

When I woke up, I was back at the inn. The teahouse closed shortly after, but news about the appearance of a High Immortal stayed dormant. There was no gossip nor was there even the slightest whisper about Traveler Jin's demise.

It was as though the event never happened.

Mama and Papa used to tell me stories about the High Immortals. They believed the High Immortals would one day return to earth and restore peace when they had recovered from the Heavenly War. I'd prayed to them every night. I'd prayed as my face was shoved into a pillow and the clothes torn off my body. I'd pleaded for their mercy, to save me from the Pavilion, but they never answered my prayers.

The High Immortals swore an oath to protect humans. They took out an entire army of High Demons, and they sacrificed their bodies to hold up the sky when it crumbled. However, no matter how hard I'd prayed, there were no flashes of light or the smell of burning leaves. As the years passed, my faith in them dwindled down to dying embers until finally, I turned away from the word of the divine.

"Why?" I whispered. "Why did you appear when someone took one of your stupid faces, but never when we begged you to?"

Tears blinded me. I had forced myself to smile, to act as if I had forgotten the past events. Facechanging provided relief; a route to escape the pain I had been swimming in for nine years. I had hidden behind the faces of the divine, danced to their history and tales, shut my past behind a door built on denial.

Now, that door was shattered.

I had prayed so hard; believed so much I cracked my heart into two. But they never came to my aid.

When Mr. Long took me in, I allowed myself to forget my disappointment in the High Immortals. Maybe they never even existed in the first place. They were just figments of imagination, created by monks with too much time on their hands.

But this—the evidence of the High Immortals in its pure, stark glory, brought out years of pent up pain. Hot tears spilled, dripping onto the back of my hands.

A Thousand Burning MasksWhere stories live. Discover now