They had just reached the middle of the forest, the center where the demon had retreated, when the feeling and the high-pitched sound returned with tremendous force.
Liu Yan stumbled and covered his ears. His head ached as if it were about to burst, and inside him, a beast with teeth and claws raged, throwing itself against his insides.
"Tian Liu Yan!" Xinxins voice faded. He squeezed his eyes shut as the waves of miasma crashed over him.
He felt a gentle, warm breeze brush against his skin. When he opened his eyes again, a bright blue sky shone above him. Liu Yan blinked a few times before the light no longer blinded him. The air smelled clear and of spring flowers. White petals were blown across his field of vision.
"Your Highness!" He turned around. To his surprise, he recognized the palace. He shook off the feeling. Why was he surprised? This was his home; he lived here.
Tian Liu Yan Crown Prince and only son of the reigning Emperor Tian Teng Fei. A soft clinking sound caught his attention, but all he saw were a few dancers wrapped in sky-blue cloths.
Their movements were graceful, the music they danced to lively and full of energy. The women's faces were covered with silk cloths. The glances that met him, like heated rays, did not escape his notice.
"What are we celebrating today?" he asked the servant standing next to him, his head bowed. A smile flitted across his face.
"You are too modest, Your Highness," said the man. "It is your birthday we are celebrating," he explained.
Liu Yan paused for a moment. His birthday? Somehow, he didn't know how to behave. He stood on a covered platform, the dancers in front of him, guests sitting around him enjoying the banquet.
They listened to the music and toasted him. Everyone seemed happy. That he existed? He shook off the uneasy feeling. On a day like this, one should be happy, shouldn't one?
"Your father and mother are waiting for you in the courtyard," the servant remarked. Liu Yan nodded. He knew how to get to the courtyard. He dismissed the man with a nod and took his leave of his guests with a slight bow.
With every step he took, his robe billowed. It was magnificently designed, made of black and red silk. He frowned.
Weren't the colors of the imperial family white and sky blue? But he didn't mind; he liked the clothes and they fit him well. The fabric clung to his skin and was neither too heavy nor too thin.
When he reached the courtyard, he saw his father and mother sitting together over a picture, looking content and happy. When she noticed Liu Yan, she waved him over.
"My son, we have good news for you," laughed the emperor. He was a rough man, but still stern and intimidating to look at. He pointed to the picture.
"This is the daughter of the high-ranking scholar Tao," he said. Tian Liu Yan looked at the picture. It was a portrait of a young woman.
Her dark hair tied back in a ponytail, there was nothing unusual about her. She wasn't even wearing high-quality clothing in the picture. A daughter from a good family should wear her hair braided into elaborate plaits.
With jewelry befitting her status. Silk dresses in bright colors, and she should be graceful and beautiful. Something inside him told him that she would most likely speak like a streetwalker. And yet the sight of her warmed his heart. He ignored the many inconsistencies and smiled at his parents.
"If that is your wish," he agreed. His mother laughed and snuggled up to her husband.
"Anything to make you happy, my son. You are the pride of our country," she said gently.
Liu Yan smiled, feeling good, somehow balanced. He didn't know what it was, but being here right now felt right.
As he left, people bowed to him, greeting him with respect or praising his honesty and sincerity.
"Full marks in calligraphy, as expected of our prince," one of them exclaimed with a laugh. Liu Yan nodded to him.
The sun was high in the sky, a warm wind was still blowing, and petals floated in front of him as if even they were making way for him.
When he reached one of the remote gardens, he realized that he had approached the cold palace lost in thought. He took a deep breath in and out, something grabbed him, something gnawing.
He looked closely. Was something moving behind the broken windows? Impossible, the cold palace was uninhabited. In the terrible condition the building was in, no one could survive in it anyway. It was too hot in summer and too cold in winter.
No one would go there voluntarily, not even a servant would go there to feed a dog on command, and yet he thought he saw something shimmering: a reflection?
He shook his head. A light, high-pitched sound pierced his ear, but he shook it off quickly. What bothered him was the constant clinking, as if he were walking on broken glass.
"Your Highness?" Another voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked at the man. He was dressed all in black, wore a sword at his hip, and had his eyes downcast. Liu Yan looked him up and down.
"What?" he finally asked. The servant immediately knelt and bowed deeply. Liu Yan hesitated briefly. Had his voice been too harsh?
"My lord, everything is ready," he said quickly. Liu Yan was overcome by an uneasy feeling, similar to the euphoria one feels when doing something forbidden.
He narrowed his eyes and looked down at the man.
"Lead the way!" he ordered. The man bowed again, then stood up and led Tian Liu Yan through the courtyards and gardens until they reached a library. But this was far from the end.
Liu Yan followed him behind a wall curtain that revealed a tunnel winding deep underground. Torches lit the way until they entered a stone room.
A huge table in the middle was covered with parchments, candles, books, and chess pieces. Shelves stacked up to the ceiling and an arsenal of weapons hung on the wall. A dozen other figures dressed in black hoods saluted and bowed to him as he entered the room.
Liu Yan strode into the center as if by himself and looked at the countless, neatly arranged parchments. A smile flitted across his face and he raised his hand.
"Report!" he commanded. One of the men stepped forward.
"Everything is going according to plan. The demons are rising and attacking the sects.
The pill of corrupted blood is greatly increasing their power!" he reported. A second man stepped forward. "As you wished, the first daughter of the Zhao family has passed away after a long illness. It was an agonizing death that isolated the family from other members of the nobility. Many believed that the daughter's bad karma had fallen back on them.
The power of the Minister of War has been weakened."
"As you commanded, I took care of the second daughter. After her engagement to General Li Wangxi was finalized, I drugged her and took her to a brothel. She was... I mean, uh... she lost her purity and the wedding to the general was canceled. Li Wangxi himself is broken and will not be able to make objective decisions about the army. If we continue, it will soon be yours."
"Rumors have already been spread about Li Wangxi's incompetence and your strategic merits. The soldiers know that the battle at the Vermilion Gorge was won thanks to you, without a single loss on our side."
"Once your engagement is finalized, your father and mother will no longer be needed, and nothing will stand in your way of becoming emperor."
A cheer broke out as Liu Yan studied the papers. The lethargy had fallen away from him, and only now did he feel the blood pulsing in his veins and feel truly alive.
He took a deep breath and put aside the charade of playing the good-natured prince. "Good," he said with satisfaction, "very good." What good did it do him to be the pride of this country if his father persistently claimed the throne for himself?
How could Tian Liu Yan assert his rule as long as his father was still on the throne? He simply nodded in agreement and then dismissed the men before returning to the surface himself.
His ears picked up the high-pitched sound in the distance, and glass crunched under his soles, though it was nowhere to be seen. His heart beat rapidly, and wave after wave of nausea washed over him.
When he entered his chamber, a veiled concubine bowed before him and closed the door behind them. Liu Yan stopped and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, he grabbed the woman's throat with lightning speed. She screamed.
"Gotcha. Did you like my lust for power?" Liu Yan asked angrily, lifting the demoness with one hand. Normally, he wouldn't have been able to do this; his body would have been too weak. But in the illusion she had created for him, he was the most powerful.
"How did you...?" she gasped, her pretty face contorted with pain beneath the veil.
"Do you really think I would fall for so many lies at once?" he asked back, hurling her across the room.
Instead of the dull thud of tables and chairs being knocked over, there was the clatter of breaking glass. The structures of the mirror they were in took shape, but Liu Yan brushed the shards aside.
"First you give me the recognition and love I longed for from my parents, and as soon as you realize that's not enough, you give me an army of loyal men who fulfill my every wish?" he asked with a laugh, pulling her up from the floor again.
She hissed in pain as he tugged at her clothes, revealing her burns underneath. But he didn't even glance at her wounds.
"And do you seriously believe that of all the women in the world, I would marry this peasant woman Xinxin?" he asked amusedly.
Jingzi struggled under his grip. If she dissolved the sphere, she would be stronger than him, but then she would no longer be able to absorb his greed. However, if she stayed here any longer, he could seriously harm her.
She writhed, but he did not let her go. To her horror, she realized that she was powerless against him. Her spells and illusions had no effect on him.
"I admit, your concentrated miasma surprised me and threw me off course, but I've dealt with much more complex interwoven things," Liu Yan clarified, tightening his grip around her neck.
Jingzi choked and gasped for air. He lifted her higher and higher with one hand and choked her, his eyes taking on a feverish gleam. He clearly enjoyed the power he had over her. Liu Yan watched her desperate attempts to free herself, only to smile smugly at her.
"Maybe I should thank you? For the first time in my life, you gave me the strength to be stronger than everyone else. You took that risk all the time. Because to satisfy your own lust for power, you always gave your victims everything they wanted. If just one of those stupid, pathetic people had thought about it, they could have used that power against you," he said.
"Or maybe they didn't want that at all. I admit, for the moment and the feeling of being able to crush them all beneath me, I would have given a lot, but it is not and never will be real!"
Liu Yan pulled her closer to him and, to his surprise, the miasma flowed out of her body and directly into him.
He let her go and took a step back. But the iridescent black smoke flowed faster and faster from the cracked body of the writhing, pleading demon into him.
He felt a new, burning power flow through his veins. He felt his meridians open with a force that knocked him off his feet. Everything in his head spun as the miasma flooded his body, filling and consuming him.
"Give... her... back... to me!" Jingzi gasped, reaching out her hand toward him. Her pale skin flaked off like old paint and dissolved.
"My... power... give... it back," then she crumbled into dust and ashes.
"Liu Yan!" Xinxins voice rang in his ears as he sank to his knees and back into reality.
"Liu Yan, are you okay?" she cried in panic. He struggled to see anything, feeling the miasma raging inside him like a conflagration.
He opened his mouth but couldn't get a word out. His throat and tongue felt dry. Hands rested on his burning cheeks and he looked into Xinxin's worried, dark eyes.
"The demon, you..." She paused and looked up at the sky.
"We have to get out of here, quickly," she urged, dragging him with her.
Liu Yan could barely stand. With his last ounce of strength, he let her manoeuvre him into a hollow tree.
She quickly threw the overgrown weeds over the opening and they crouched in the tiny cave. Liu Yan's head rolled onto Xinxin's shoulder and she struggled to hold his trembling body.
"Someone's coming," she whispered.