Because It's You

2.16 || The Prodigal Young Master

Runexi's notes:

Rape is not okay. Whether it is done to a man or a woman, to anyone; rape is never okay!

The previous chapter has made dear readers uncomfortable, my apologies. It is not only for shock factor or making my character suffer.
I considered long and hard before including such details into a story, reminded by a confession from an acquaintance (now he's become an adult who unfortunately has been traumatized he has to take anti-depresaants) who had been molested by a family member.

Darkness and human filth aside, let's move on...

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The fire burnt for days. One look at the scorched land, people would immediately know the mountain would just be a waste land for years to come. Who would have guessed that the idyllic secluded mountain, which used to be the pilgrimage destination for a lot of devout Great Wei citizens, had been razed by such a ruthless natural disaster.

Wild animals' corpses, big and small, littered along the forest path. The tall, wheat-golden meadow had turned grey with ash that fell from the mountaintop, covered under a blanket of hot dust.

It was worse around the temple buildings located close to the top. Judging from the wretched condition of both buildings and land, the temple would no longer be able to reach the peak of the floating clouds.

Two figures floated across the ashen sky, towards the broken building materials and now-black, broken, rock gardens. Rather than damage by fire, the cuts on the remaining pillars, as well as plenty of weapons just strewn about, told another story to Cloud Peak temple's demise.

The man, garbed in a purple robe, still held the woman's hand in his palm. The woman, garbed fully in white, squeezed his hand in return. The both of them did not seem to be fazed by the dust, nor did their clean robes seem to be marred by the air thick with ash.

As they got closer to the main hall, there was a smell of something rusty and rotten. Soon, the source of the smell could be seen. Multiple sources in fact, in form of half-burnt bodies of the temple's monks.

Her heart was twisted in sadness, "Such ugliness... humans can be such foul creatures."

The man was silent. He knew that his wife was not talking about the monks' corpses being unsightly. She was referring to the mortal wounds that could be seen on those scorched bodies - ones that were most definitely not caused by forest fire. The multiple holes, as well as arrows still poking out of some of their bodies, told them that their deaths were man-inflicted.

"These souls will have better lives in their next reincarnation. And the perpetrator will receive his due just," the man said. This karmic rule was already known to the both of them. Normally, no matter how cruel one's death were, they would not have descended to visit.

However, there was one special soul here.

The charred hall's door was still closed, yet the two people waltzed through it as though their bodies were not corporeal. In fact, they were not mortals. Inside the hall, it was relatively cleaner than the outside. However, bodies of monks, old and young, still littered every corner of the hall. Some of them sported cut wounds as well, but the cause of their deaths were mainly asphyxiation from smoke inhalation. In such an enclosed place, where the door had been barred from the outside, they could only die such a painful, slow death.

The golden Buddha still smiled his benign smile. In front of the Buddha, several monks were sitting cross-legged. The oldest one had died, there was no doubt about it, but there was another younger monk sitting in front of him. The sitting corpse of the young man looked as though he was trying to protect the older man from his impending death. There was an arrow lodged in his chest, what must have been his attempt to block an attack for the elderly monk.