At fourteen, Liu revealed extraordinary talent with the sword.
It wasn't merely technique.
It was instinct.
Precise movement.Impeccable posture.A natural reading of the rhythm of combat.
The evaluators noticed.
The government did too.
She received a full scholarship to a high-level academy, funded directly by the State.
To her mother, it was a miracle.
Financial relief.Security.A promising future.
When Liu saw the light in her mother's eyes…
The expectation.
The pride.
She made a silent vow.
She would never disappoint anyone.
Never.
If before she carried layers…
Now she carried chains.
Her former teachers praised her.Neighbors whispered about her "bright destiny."Old classmates began calling her a "genius."
None of them knew her.
Yet all of them poured expectations onto her shoulders.
And the chains tightened.
Heavier around her wrists.
Denser against her back.
But Liu did not allow herself to break.
No matter what happened.
The routine at the new academy was brutal.
Training from six in the morning to six in the evening.Sunday was the only day without formal practice.
The rest was discipline.
Repetition.
Exhaustion.
The environment… was predictable.
Talented youths.
Full of ego.
Full of social inequalities poorly disguised by identical uniforms.
The instructors cultivated constant pressure.
Urgency.
Competition.
Failure was a sin.
On top of that, pro-government ideals were instilled with meticulous care.
Speeches about honor.
Sacrifice.
Duty.
In a society where reading had practically died, simple narratives worked far too well.
Liu listened.
Learned.
Did not question.
Good students do not question.
Even there, she made no friends.
Her reserved personality created distance.
Her delicate appearance clashed with her sharp talent.
And her flawless performance fed envy.
But there was no direct bullying.
No shoving.
No shouted insults.
It was worse.
It was silence.
They treated her as if she did not exist.
If anyone tried to approach her, they quickly became a target.
So no one tried.
And Liu spent her school years alone.
Always surrounded.
Always isolated.
Crushed beneath invisible expectations.
She was tired.
Sword training, once liberating…
Became obligation.
What once felt like a danceTurned into obsessive repetition.
She wielded the blade not for pleasure.
But to meet expectations.
To justify the investment.
To deserve her mother's pride.
To not fail.
Her art, once fluid like water, became rigid.
The peace within her movements vanished.
In its place emerged something sharp.
Cold.
Desperate.
Her steps remained soft.
Fast.
Precise.
But now there was lethal intent in every cut.
It was no longer expression.
It was survival.
And with every strike she delivered into empty air…
The invisible chains around her wrists seemed to rattle louder.
And in an environment like that…
Even what she loved began to disappear.
Liu stopped cooking.
It used to be a quiet hobby.She liked carefully slicing ingredients.Liked the warmth rising from the pot.Liked, most of all, the moment someone tasted it and smiled.
She loved being praised.
Not out of vanity.
But because, for a few seconds, she felt she had done something right.
Felt that she was enough.
That, too, was abandoned.
There was no time.
No energy.
No space for things that did not generate performance.
She had also been an avid reader.
For years, her only friends were books.
Stories embraced her when no one else did.
Characters spoke to her when the world ignored her.
But at the elite academy, reading began to feel… useless.
It did not improve her reaction time.Did not increase her strength.Did not refine her technique.
So she reduced it.
Then stopped entirely.
Training with the sword… that was the last refuge.
It had been liberating.
Each movement like breathing.
It was her private rain.
When she was little, she liked rain because she did not need to control it.She could simply feel.
But the sword was better.
The sword she controlled.
It was therapeutic.
Her way of escaping loneliness.
Yet even that was corrupted.
At the academy, every strike was evaluated.Every mistake recorded.Every victory compared.
The sword ceased to be freedom.
It became a metric.
An obligation.
Proof of worth.
The dance became execution.
Lightness became calculation.
And little by little, Liu realized she was losing more than time.
She was losing herself.
Lying became natural.
Fluid.
Automatic.
"How was your day?"
"It was great."
"Did you make friends?"
"Yes."
"Are you happy?"
"Very."
The answers came without hesitation.
She described classmates who did not exist.Conversations that never happened.Moments she never lived.
To make the lies convincing, she began observing the other girls.
She listened to locker room conversations.
Memorized names.
Events.
Small adolescent dramas.
Then she brought those stories home.
Retold them as if they were hers.
And she saw the relief in her mother's eyes.
Saw the weight lessen.
And that… justified everything.
If her mother could sleep peacefully, it was worth it.
If her mother believed her daughter was happy, it was worth it.
Even if it was a lie.
Even if, once she closed her bedroom door, the silence returned.
Even if the chains around her wrists tightened more each day.
Liu did not cry.
Did not complain.
Did not fail.