1 001

...Pain

A split second felt like forever and Lan felt her limbs tearing apart, agonizing pain coursed through her whole body.

Her mind relaxed when the darkness engulfed her consciousness.

'So this is what dying feels like' she thought.

__

...Where...am I?

She felt no pain when she opened her eyes again. Remembering Wu Qing's

horrified face as he realised something was wrong she smirked, yet those memories only surfaced in her minds and then floated away.

She lifted her arm and looked at her slender fingers, her smooth skin shined under the dim lightning and the flawless white dress wasn't shredded and stained with blood anymore.

She scanned her surroundings, the square room had no doors or windows and the grey walls were the source of light. She moved her limbs, her eyes flashed with surprise when she discovered their agility but her face remained expressionless.

Lan moved in front of a wall and when she touched it, it vibrated under her hand and small waves slowly expanded along the wall as an image formed on it.

A skinny girl was crouching down as she protected her head, she was covered in wounds and was surrounded by a group of kids her age and older.

She was wearing a rough brown dress that was too big for her and dirt covered her little face.

"Your engagement with the prime minister's son has been cancelled, you dare be so arrogant now?" an smirk formed on the twelve years old boy's face as he sneered at her.

The kids became angrier when she didn't respond.

"You're only an adopted child so don't get ahead of yourself. Dare to covet sister Ming's position?! You're not even fit to be her servant!" A kick landed on her already injured arm and she whimpered, falling backwards, yet the fall didn't end as she expected, she kept tumbling backwards not finding anything to hold onto.

Through her bangs she realised the scenery had changed at some time and when the fall abruptly ended she found that everything around her had quietened down.

Just when the girl let out a breath of relief, the soft ground underneath her moved.

An abnormally large snake swished it's tail, making her fall off, then it's eyes locked on its prey, the two dark horns on it's head shined and it charged ferociously at the girl which had dared to disturb it's meal time, yet it's fangs had barely reached her when a blinding light emitted from the silver egg which it was still protecting with its tail.

The little girl only opened her eyes when the light dimmed and she gasped at the scene in front of her.

An area of about fifteen metres around the egg had been wiped out and only dried plants were left from the originally abundant vegetation.

Lan watched as the girl fell to her knees when she realized that she had just escaped a disaster. The grass right in front of her feet had disappeared along with the black horned snake.

The silence was broken only when the silver egg started cracking, soon a white paw emerged from inside the egg as a furry little fox struggled to crawl out of it. When it finally succeeded it shook its tails but fell clumsily to the side, not yet used to standing on it's little feet. It looked at its surroundings, blinking it's innocent eyes and when it noticed the girl kneeling some distance away from it, the fox squealed happily and stood up.

It's eyes were filled with longing as it staggered to her side. When it fell for the third time the girl finally woke up from her stupor, ignoring the wounds on her body she stoop up and carefully approached the baby fox, then she squatted next to it and petted it's little head.

When the girl remembered the youths who wanted to kill her her eyes watered. as soon as the prime minister's family decided to put an end to the engagement, her brothers and sisters had stopped acting cautious and had finally decided to take her life.

With little energy left in her the girl held the little fox in her arms and she sprinted toward a random direction.

She refused to leave such an innocent creature at the hands of her vicious family who was most likely going to make sure she was dead before going back home.