The No-Good Seventh Miss Goes Traveling

Chapter 7: Suffocation

Shuang Xiang did, in fact, try to convince An Shu to let her carry some of the dishes, which the maidservant then eyed Shuang Xiang's soft hands...

Shuang Xiang instantly gave up after such obvious stab at her pride—she had forgotten how weak her new body is.

As An Shu is on her way taking the plates back to the kitchen (or wherever they need to be), Shuang Xiang closes the door to the room and makes her way to the bed. Sitting down on the flat mattress, she crosses her legs and takes a deep breath.

The room is warm and quiet, the early morning sun streaming light from the window, and Shuang Xiang can hear the chirping birds and the rustling leaves outside of her door. Satisfied with the peace in her surroundings, she makes herself comfortable and closes her eyes.

Then proceeds to stay in the same position for the next 45 minutes.

By the first fifteen minute mark, Shuang Xiang was fidgeting in place. In the second, she was already rocking from side to side in restlessness. By the time it neared 45 minutes, Shuang Xiang abandoned her original posture and laid down on her side, her arms crossed in an impatient matter.

She's really not made for meditation. Shuang Xiang is the type of person who has always been aware and hypersensitive to her surroundings. She never likes to contemplate too deeply because her head is not always a friendly place...

Just as she starts to contemplate whether it would be better to just give up or continue—suddenly, as if she has stepped into a sinkhole, her conscious falls. The waking world fades from her vision and she finds herself staring into the darkness. There is a sense of nothingness that is like the calm before the storm; Shuang Xiang then finds herself drowning.

She was thirteen years old when she was pushed into the pond. Panicking, she flailed around before surfacing, nearly breathing in water as she yelled for help.

"Ha! The good-for-nothing tripped! How could the waste now possibly participate in the festival looking like a wet rat!"

Cruel voices echoed in her head and tears came in floods as An Shu called for her in the background.

"Seventh Miss! Seventh Miss!" An Shu gathered her up into her arms. "Fourth Miss, Sixth Miss! How could you do such a disgraceful thing to your own younger sister?!"

"What accusations! Cheng Xiulan tripped on her own! It's not our fault that she is so clumsy!" The Sixth Miss, Cheng Yaling, sneered. "If Father wasn't so fond of you, even though you're just a lowly maidservant, and your pharmaceutical talent, I would have you whipped for insolence!"

The voices and the image of the pond fade, her elder sisters' cold and mocking faces the last thing she sees.

Everything was black once more, eerily so, more suffocating than the last—and then, a weak light shone against her eyes, momentarily blinding her before her vision becomes clear. The night is dark and the moon has hidden itself and all Shuang Xiang could see is the candle flickering in the open air and a face of a woman that is somehow familiar.

Shuang Xiang finds herself in the pavilion of the Summer Courtyard, newer and more colorful, but somehow colder.

It's snowing. And it's winter.

With no control over her actions, Shuang Xiang unwittingly focuses her attention on the woman. There is something wrong, something so terribly wrong with the image of this woman laying so lifelessly on the bed, so frighteningly still and quiet, that suddenly, she could not breathe. Staring at the corpse-like figure for who knows how long, Shuang Xiang's mouth chokes out a single word.