The remaining pages had been successfully consumed. It took me the better part of the day, the repulsive taste of the paper and ink making the already difficult task even more so, but ultimately it was done.
I lay sprawled on the ground, gagging up ink and bile, grimacing as the simple action irritated my sore throat. I should probably be safe for now. The experience itself was wholly unpleasant though, not one that I was tempted to repeat anytime soon.
Still, I got up and lit a candle to banish the creeping darkness. I doubted there was any work left for me to do and since I initially had until tomorrow to finish the texts, Uncle should have no real reason to punish me.
I let out a sigh of relief, finally relaxing, letting the tension drain out of my body after days of it winding me up, keeping me alert and on edge.
I had finally gotten a minute to relax, to do nothing, just take in the moment and unwind. I looked out of the window, admiring the autumn sun bleed into the lands, birds flitting by, my damned cousin still practicing for the tournament, scheduled for the day after and I was…bored.
After days of tension and constant work, the incessant strain my mind was under and all the excitement, now that I had nothing to do, I found myself so very bored. The silence in my head screamed louder than the noise.
I had earned my rest but it didn't feel like rest. The air sat heavy, uneasy, waiting.
The silence itched. My hands needed something, anything to do and as my eyes wandered towards the Sutra I realised that it was right there.
Despite the internal conflict, I picked it up yet again. I didn't open it, however, contending myself with just examining it from the outside. It was a brown leatherbound book with metal trims and large print on the front, simple yet almost tasteful at the same time.
As I turned it over again and again, examining it, my finger once again slipped, slicing itself on the hard steel edges, a small spray of blood covering the surface of the book.
"Damn." I swore as I tried to use my sleeve to rub the blood off, but before I could clean it…something happened.
The last time the book absorbed blood I had chalked it down to hallucinations or just me being mistaken in general, but this time, I saw it happen with my own eyes.
The tome pulsed as it started drinking up the blood, drop by drop. My jaw dropped, eyes bulging open. You'd think that being choked by my Uncle's astral hand would have prepared me for all the weirdness this world had to offer but this, this was an entirely new spectrum of strange.
A vampiric book.
"Brilliant."
What would happen if I fed it more blood, I wondered.
Yes the book was sacrilegious…but what would happen?
The curiosity was eating me alive, so I did the only thing a rational scholar would do. I dripped more blood on it.
I stared on in fascination as the tome kept on pulsating, drinking in blood. The pulses were rhythmical. They were in time with something, something familiar. Primal almost like… a heartbeat. Was the book alive? The sudden realization made my blood run cold.
I pulled my hand away, aiming to cease the constant drip of crimson liquid onto the leathery surface but the drops curved towards it. It was magnetic, drawing my blood towards it. What started as just a few drops was turning into a stream. It was pulling blood out of me; I couldn't stop it.
I could feel my heart pounding in my ears, my arms growing ever so heavy, the sound of the drops falling reverberating through my head. I could feel my life being drained out of me.
I cried, screamed, and begged it to stop. I flung it across the room, tried to stem the flow but the blood just kept going, bending and flying onto the open pages.
I didn't have enough blood, I was going to run dry, my fingers twitched, the room tilted, the candle light bending towards the page, the tome beating, like a papery heart, each 'thump' pulling crimson into it.
Stop… please stop.
I begged it…or I might have imagined that I did. The blood really didn't care. Neither did the book.
And then it stopped.
It left only a coppery scent, and my body sprawled on the floor.
I couldn't stand up. I didn't have the strength. Each breath was a challenge. Keeping my eyes open was a trial in itself.
As my consciousness faded, my mind slowly went blank. The last thing I saw before sleep claimed me was ash, or was it dust, rising up from the book, and coming towards me.
"CLANG CLANG CLANG."
I grimaced as the harsh bang of metal on metal roused me from my slumber. When I managed to finally open my eyes again the light felt different, sharper, louder, more piercing.
I smacked my lips, blinking the sleep away as I tried to peel myself off the floor.
My head spun and pounded with a vengeance, my entire body rebelling against me after the incident yesterday. I felt better than I was the night before but I was still so tired. Like something was missing from me.
I forced myself up to a sitting position and tried to focus my eyes on the person who had disturbed my sleep.
"What do you want Uncle, I'm sleeping." I said groggily…Wait a second, Uncle?
My eyes widened and my heart dropped to my feet as I realised who I was talking to.
"Ho? Looks like you've grown bold this past week."
I jumped to my feet, almost collapsing as pain raced up my nerves, sapping me of any energy remaining in my worn out frame, sending me to my knees.
"No Uncle, that is not what I meant."
"Really?"
"No I was just sleepy I didnt realise it was…"
"Silence."
I opened my mouth, closing it again, his words hitting harder than any slap as I backed up almost instinctively, my body moving before I could even realise what had happened.
"Not only are you disrespectful but you intend to answer back to me as well?" He asks dangerously, almost as if he were daring me to answer.
I wisely chose not to answer, remaining silent.
"Well? What do you have to say for yourself trash?"
"I'm sorry." I whispered.
"What? Speak up, I can't hear you."
Indignation washed over me as I suppressed a wince and clenched my jaw. It was just a mistake, I didn't mean to do it.
"I'm sorry," I said, louder this time, doing my best to suppress the crack in my voice.
My Uncle didn't miss it though, he just looked at me in disgust and spat at my feet.
"Pathetic." He said simply. "At the very least tell me that you completed your work. It's the only thing you're good for so you might as well do that right."
My heart jumped into my throat, the moment had finally come. Would he notice my deception, the changes I made?
"Yes Uncle, it's complete." I said as respectfully as I could, walking over to the desk to retrieve the sheaf right before he snatches the completed manuscript from my hand.
He flipped through it, his eyebrows raised in surprise, reading one page, then the other, engrossed by the text. He eventually tore his eyes away and fixed them onto mine.
"Nephew."
"Yes, Uncle?"
"This isn't a Martial Arts Technique."
"No Uncle, it's a Cultivation Art."
He took a deep breath out, his hands dropping to his sides, aura turning slightly dangerous.
"So far we're the only ones who know about this right?" he said, almost whispering, a dangerous glint flashing in his eyes, his lips curling up into a dangerous snarl.
Uneasy, I took a step back. "I believe so?"
"So if you were to disappear…I would be the only one who knew right?"
I stepped back a little bit more, the hard wall stopping my retreat as my Uncle came closer to the bars.
"Wait Uncle hear me out." I stammered.
"Hmmm? Keep talking dear Nephew." he growled, the solid steel door the only thing separating us.
"Sure I know about Cultivation art but if you think about it what can I even do with it. I can't cultivate and I can't leave this cell either. Who will I even tell?" I said while sizing the window up, wondering if I could possibly fit through.
"Dead men usually tell no tales."
"Uncle, please think it through."
"..."
"Please Uncle how will anyone ever find out, I can be so much more useful alive, I'll just stay here translating forever.
"Hmmph". That broke him out of his murderous stupor and you could almost see the gears turning in his head as the realization that I really was the only known translator in the city at the moment hit him. Losing me would be a headache.
"Fine." He forced out. "You can keep your worthless head on your shoulders."
My knees almost buckled in relief as my heart finally settled for a second. He went over the manuscript once more and then turned around to leave. Then he paused. Looked over to me.
"You forgot to give me the original copy."
"Apologies, Uncle here you go." I said, turning around to fetch it.
Wait.
The tome.
Where is it?
My heart leaped out of my chest, blood rushing to my ears.
It was gone.
I scrambled around my cell, flipping over the mattress, looking under the desk, shifting through the trash pile, trying desperately to ignore the sharp eyes burrowing into my back but I couldn't find it.
It was gone.
"Where is the tome Lei Ni." his voice frigid, not a single hint of mirth or amusement present.
"I…I…I don't know." I stammered out, "I swear it was here last night."
"So did the damn thing grow wings and fly out of your cell while you slept?"
"N-N-No."
"Then did you throw it or burn it hoping I wouldn't be able to use it?"
"N-No Uncle I would never dare."
"SO THEN WHERE IS IT." He roared.
I flinched, and tried to stammer out apologies, trying to explain that I didn't know, I hadn't done anything. All he did was raise his hand, cutting off my protests.
"You know what Nephew. I don't care where the tome went. All I know is that you're responsible, and now there must be consequences." He said, grabbing the steel bars, bending them, like they were straws, stepping through the gap he created.
I stared on in horror, my knees shaking almost inadvertently as he came closer to me, one step at a time, nothing in his eyes. Not a single emotion. Just cold, frigid, emptiness.
He said nothing.
He did nothing.
Just the mere presence of a Golden Core cultivator, one that didnt deign to reel his aura in crushed me, forced me to my knees.
I looked up, desperately searching for a hint of mercy in the black holes he had for eyes. I found none.
One second I was on my knees, the next I was lying on my back, feeling nothing for a second, my face numb.
And then it hit me like a train.
A burning sensation on the left side of my face taking over, running like liquid fire in my nerves. Pain crashing into me like rough waves on a shore as a coppery tang filled my mouth.
He had hit me.
But when?
I tried to move my face, to look at him but I couldn't, everything hurt too much. I slowly dragged myself onto all fours, trying to get up, only to catch the sight of a eunuch handing him a thin wooden rod. The same eunuch. Smirking at me.
I tried to open my mouth to let out a plea for mercy.
But I had no time.
Because it came.
A blow, long and thin, searing against my back. I screamed in anguish as he drew his rod back and hit me again, and again. Each blow drew a fresh scream from my lips. I begged for him to stop.
He didn't.
I don't know how long it went on for. It could have been minutes, hours, days, it mattered not. By the time he was done my back was a broken, torn up, bloody mess. I twitched on the ground, seizing in pain as he threw the rod next to me with a sneer under his nose, almost as if being so close to me repulsed him.
"You're lucky you still have some use Nephew."
I couldn't acknowledge him. I didn't have it in me.
He harrumphed and walked out of my cell, giving the eunuch instructions on how to prepare the clan compound for the tournament that was to happen later today, my plight already far removed from his mind.
It was like I wasn't even worth the effort it took him to remember me.
The last thing I could recall before everything faded to black yet again, were my wounds, pulsing unnaturally; a warmth filled them, spreading through my body as a rhythm beat through it.
It was oh so familiar.
Almost like…
And my world went blank.