Encounter

A son of the royal family had been murdered. A turmoil had begun.

Many members of the five royal families had gathered within the wide hall of the guang family.

The ones present were

The two princes of Qi clan of Air users, Qi ShuanFeng the clan representative with spiritual powers of the clan. The younger brother Qi JuanFeng, a royal without powers.

The princess of the water clan of Shanshui; Shui Tianshi, the clan representative with spiritual powers.

The royal siblings from the Floral clan Hua; Hua Xian the clan representative and her younger brother Hua tou. Both blessed with spiritual powers.

The King and Queen of Guang Empire of Lightning and their sons both blessed with spiritual powers. Guang Zhen being the eldest and the youngest Guang Yun.

The parents of the belated Prince Guang Ming, born to the powerless brother of King Guang Jiang. A royal family member without spiritual powers.

And lastly the representative of Huo clan of Fire, princess Huo Xiaoli was present and currently in question.

To kill a member of the royal family was a huge sin, no matter what reason. It didn't matter if they were chosen by gods or not to be blessed with spiritual powers. As long as they had royal blood in them, there was a chance for them to have a blessed child in their generation. Hence killing a possible parent or a grandparent of a blessed line was a sin.

Imprisonment was another thing but murder? Atrocious!

"Your Highness!" The mother of the belated prince pleaded infront of the King "Unfair, it is unfair to my son! I demand the representative of Huo clan to be treasoned for an atrocious act of murder!"

"Brother, I agree! My son's spirit cannot rest in peace until his murderer is punished!" The king's brother also pleaded. Both the parents wearing black robes with grief all over their faces but less than the anger they had within them.

"I object" The queen intervened "Did you forget that your son tried to murder my son?! What the princess of Huo clan did was to save my child and I see no wrong in self defense!" The queen was also somewhat burning with the thought of her son being almost killed at the hands of a child she hated.

" Ah Xiang, you have hated my son for so long! You must be glad he is dead! Now there's no one in the way of your sons! " The mothers ended up arguing, in fact they were also sisters from the floral clan Hua who married with the Guang brothers. Both being without powers themselves, always competed over their sons.

" How dare you! Ah Zhizi! You have always been insolent! You cannot compare my blessed sons with your powerless son!" The Queen countered.

The rest of the clan representatives remained silent, in mourning. Yet the mothers could argue all day.

"If my son was so powerless and your son is so blessed, he could've stopped him with those powers instead of getting him killed!" The mother of belated Guang Ming argued.

"How could he? Didn't you hear? He was stabbed by a demon and your son tried to snatch his spiritual powers! Such evil!" The Queen made a disgusted face.

"Stop both of you, it's insulting to the late child!" The King interrupted.

All this time he had been staring at the veiled representative, Princess Huo XiaoLi. Indeed it was hard for him to decide how to approach this issue when all Huo Xiaoli did was, save his son. However he was also intrigued by alot of other questions that bothered him. One of which was why she was there and where was her brother at this crucial time?

"Princess, If you don't mind I would like to hear things from your perspective" The king tried to remain neutral.

Huo Xiaoli stepped forward and lifted her black veil, pushing it backwards revealing her pale face with dark red lip color and a black cloth tied around her eyes.

This was the first time since her arrival in the palace that she had revealed her face. All eyes opened in astonishment. Let it be the royals or the guards present, everyone had a billion questions and only Prince Guang Zhen had the nerve to ask one

"What happened to your eyes?!"

The girl didn't reply but Guang Zhen already got his answer that it had everything to do with the death of Huoshe Matriarch 18 years ago.

"Is that why for 18 years, no representative showed up from Huoshe clan in any clan meeting?" Guang Zhen replied as if a huge mystery had been resolved for him. He was always a curious person.

"Both my brother and me were harmed during the incident 18 years ago" She assured his suspicions.

"So why does any of that matter?!" The mother of Guang Ming asked even though she herself was astonished.

"The reason I hurt the belated prince was because I couldn't see it was him. I only felt a dark energy that was about to harm a spiritual energy."

She responded and finally it came to the injured prince Guang Yun who had been silent all along, that the reason she didn't care about Guang Ming's wavering intentions was because she couldn't see them.

" What do you mean dark energy?! Are you saying my son is evil! How dare you?!" The mother protested as the father tried to console her.

"All she's saying is that Guang Ming let himself be vulnerable and thus got possessed by an evil spirit. Since she's visually impaired, she attacked based upon her spiritual intuition. She sensed Guang Yun's spiritual energy being attacked by the demon possessing Guang Ming and hence she acted on spot to save him" The clan representative Shui Tianshi of water clan spoke up as well.

"Does not matter if it was by will or by accident, the fact is, a royal blood was murdered and hence it will bring upon the wrath of the gods. We must commence a calming ceremony for his spirit. Otherwise he will turn into an evil spirit and destroy the families. Royal bloods who turn evil can be a hundred times worse than a demon" Qi Shuan Feng, the representative of Qi clan of Air also intervened.

The king agreed.

"Enough! I have spoken up against anything before but now I must! For all I see is everyone bickering about how the families can be put into danger or whether or not he was killed by accident, no one is actually mourning for that child. This I shall never tolerate, forgive me for my demeanor but I refuse to spend any moment longer in this palace"

The father of Guang Ming spoke up "Wife, you shall pack all our material belongings and once the funeral is held we shall depart"

"Brother you are mistaken, Guang Ming is dear to all of us, it is just that we want to put him to rest as the pure person he was" The king tried to settle his mourning brother but no avail. He and his wife turned and left the hall.

There was a brief silence. Guang Yun hadn't spoken a word since he came back. It was as if the memory of his cousin's last moments were tormenting him each second.

He was the second one who chose to leave after the pair had departed from the room.

The rest stayed to pay formal condolences before they returned to their chambers to prepare for the funeral.

Guang Zhen decided to go look for his wounded brother who had chosen to go off on his own in a secluded place within their garden.

"Yishi" He called out his brother's nickname as his brother turned to look at him. Even though his face appeared blank and emotionless as ever, there was something his Guang Zhen could see on it that no one else could've unless they had known him since birth like Guang Zhen.

"My dear brother" He addressed as he walked nearer to his wounded brother and slowly wrapped him into his arms "If you must mourn, it is okay that you fully express it instead of hiding in your emotions.. That would bring nothing but internal turmoil to you"

Guang Yun was unresponsive but he always respected his elder brother's advices and chose to place his arms around his brother's back as a reassurance as well.

"Brother, I am not sure.. Could Ah Ming really have killed me?" He pulled out some words that bothered him the most.

"If an evil spirit was involved, I wouldn't blame Ah Ming for it.. He was not spiritually blessed like us, he couldn't have stopped it. I believe he'd rather have preferred dying than murdering you and becoming a demon cultivator, you know how much he adored and followed you" Guang Zhen parted to reassure him, he clasped his brother's hands tightly as he spoke this.

"He was indeed fond of me and therefore it makes my heart bleed to think of the moment I lost him before me. If he had chosen to kill me for this mere power, I had gladly given him" Guang Yun spoke with regret.

"You're wrong my little brother, if he had killed you, then he could not have entered the heavens.. Dying by his hands, you could've harmed him more than save him. At least live your life on his behalf too and make sure you follow behind him after fulfilling what he couldn't in his life, otherwise his sacrifice would be meaningless" Guang Zhen said.

Guang Yun became silent and made a bow to his brother before turning away, returning back towards the palace.

"As expected of the future king of Guang Kingdom, you have your ways with words" A voice came from behind.

Guang Zhen smiled a little as if he had already known the presence of the person and who they were.

"As expected of the future king of Qi Empire, you remain well informed on the issues that are in the air, Qi ShuanFeng"

Guang Zhen turned towards the darkhaired man wearing the black robes of mourning with the red emblem of his kingdom imprinted upon it and a red band tied upon his forehead.

"Oh that's an exaggeration, I'm no where near Guang Zhen when it comes to being well informed"

Qi Shuan Feng responded.

Guang Zhen almost smirked "What brings you here your highness?"

"Can you drop the act?" Qi Shuan Feng responded with a frown.

"What seems to be the problem Xiao MeiFeng"

Guang Zhen replied and the frown on Qi Shuan Feng's forehead became more visible.

"You damn!" Shuan Feng almost got agitated and clenched his fists "stop with that nickname already! I am not a woman! Stop insulting me!"

"Insult? I'd never refer to someone as a woman to insult them, that would be more of a praise" Guang Zhen took a sigh

"And if I did want to insult you there's better words for that, the only reason I refer to your highness as Meifeng is because..... "

" Enough! Say no more! It is useless to even try to put some sense into you!" saying this Shuan Feng turned away and walked off so abruptly that his robe, hair and the ends of his head band all fluttered with his movements as if the wind danced everytime he moved through it.

Guang Zhen smiled and mumbled to himself

" How are you not *Meifeng?"

(*beautiful wind normally a nickname/name for women)

He chuckled a bit but then realized he never got to know what Shuan Feng actually came for and let out a sigh. That man moves with the wind anyway, there's no way he could've caught up so he decided to attend to other matters.

One of which would be to pay a visit to Lady XiaoLi after he had attended his Uncle and Aunt.

On the other side Lady Shui Tianshi had decided to pay Huo XiaoLi a visit.

She knocked at her door to which Huo Xiaoli invited her in. The lady seemed to be quite sympathetic for ever since she learned about Huo Xiaoli's inability to see, she couldn't help but want to extend her hand to the other princess and Huo Xiaoli welcomed it but with caution.

"They have decided that I should perform the purification ceremony since I'm not related to the Guangs, there might not be any accidents due to spiritual grudges" Lady Tianshi told Xiaoli "It is better that you stay out of the palace during this ceremony"

Huo XiaoLi listened but gave no responses. There was no problem in staying out of the palace. It sounded good to her. As the siblings had been confined in for too long. Moreover XiaoLi was exhausted, she was more than willing to let Huo Yi take over and roam free as she knew her brother was more of an enjoyment demanding person than her.

Therefore she put together some of her belongings, the issue with the demon village had not been resolved yet. So she decided to go back to the village and stay there for some while until the funeral and purification is done.

She got her followers to prepare her horse and told them to stay put. They were reluctant at first as it was too risky to let the representative of clan wander on their own but they were bound to orders too.

The very next day she set off, she sat onto her new horse that seemed as if it had promised life and death with her ever since the incident back at the palace and let it run through the wind.

Slowly and little by little her body began to change as the horse galloped through the woods. The chest sinked in and her body grew in size, the face shape became manlier and the hands and arms became bigger and stronger.

HuoYi had awakened.

He felt the wind slip over his face as the horse galloped, he loved the sound of autumn leaves being crushed under its feet. He lifted his blindfold only slightly and let his scarlet eyes witness the beauty of the woods.

He stopped the horse and got off to smell flowers and to touch the trees.

It was as if he was a child.

He stopped by a stream and took off his boots to dip his feet in water. He splashed it around cheerfully.

At around the time of sunset he reached the village and started to look for an Inn to stay in but seemed like all the places were closed and locked in by that time.

It was strange that they were locked down this early but even stranger that no one was out there on the streets. He knocked a few door but nobody opened.

Finally he arrived at an Inn that appeared old and ragged but he decided to give it a shot.

An old woman stood by the counter with her head bent as she kept on writing something madly.

"Lady, is there a free room that I can accommodate in?" He asked.

She was unresponsive at first but then turned and slowly walked somewhere and Huo Yi decided to follow the woman.

She led him to a room at the end of a row of rooms and opened the door for him. It was a dirty room. Huo Yi smiled instead and bowed his head gracefully making an entrance walking her leave slowly.

A wide grin appeared on his face as he twisted his head backwards

"You think I don't feel you?" he chuckled creepily which made a shadow hidden in the corner of the room attack at him.

Without withdrawing his weapon he grasped at the shadow with his barehands and squished it as it dispersed into a million pieces.

"ARE YOU OKAY MISTER?"

A voice called out and HuoYi quickly fixed his blindfold and facial expressions to turn back at the familiar voice.

He recognized that spiritual energy rightaway but a moment of confusion overtook him.

The man at the door also appeared puzzled for a moment before he mumbled again.

"Huo Yi?"

"Guang Yun"