Phoenix Rise: XieRong

Chapter 40 - The Duchess in the Shadows

In the blink of an eye three months had passed.

Today XieRong, her elder brother, and her shadow guards would be leaving using the teleportation array. The rest of their family had already left for the capital a month ago leaving XieRong and her elder brother to practice for the competition.

During the course of the three month period XieRong had mastered her qingong and the death strike, but had been warned by the old man not to use it in front of people as many they would then covet the lost technique and it would put her in danger. XieRong had also perfected using a dagger under the supervision of her uncle and brother. The latter had also taught her how to use a bow which she was still in the process of perfecting, as she found that she was not very good at handling it. Her shadow guards had also significantly improved under their brutal training. Some of them had already bonded to divine level weapons from her uncles armory and could use them well.

Plus, she had made sure to buy all of them a spatial ring. Her uncle had felt a little offended that she had bought them with her own money, feeling that she did not trust him enough to depend on him for such trivial things and that she still thought of him as an outsider. XieRong apologised thinking back to when she had offended FeiHong in a similar manner and asked her pocket money be raised to show that she did depend on him. She also pointed out that if she did not trust him, she would not train or let her shadow guards be trained under him which pleased him quite a bit.

-WeiSheng.-

-Here, master.-

-GuoTin, GuoZhi and LiWei will remain and continue to train. You, XiaoFan, XiaoDan and QiaoHui will accompany me, understood?-

-Yes, master. This servant will relay your words.-

Saying so, he disappeared before she could chastise him. XieRong sighed, how many times did she have to tell him not to be so formal with her?

"Elder brother, you know I can sense you, why do you still hide?"

"Younger sister, you can at least pretend not to notice to humour this elder brother of yours."

Guo Qiang was always impressed by his sister’s immense improvement over the months. He knew that she and FeiHong were more powerful than what they had told all of them but made no comment on it. His new cousins were tight lipped about matters they did not want to expose and he had no means of forcing anything out of them. Besides, as long as their secrets did not harm any of them in anyway, he had no reason to pry either.

"Let’s leave elder brother, or we will lose before we even get there."

XieRong was excited to use the teleportation array. She knew that arrays were used to set up barriers but it was the first time she had heard that arrays could be used to transport people from one place to another place.

The two lower floors of the spirit tower was where cultivators and nobles could use the teleportation array to travel to different locations while the third one was used to check a noble’s spirit roots and mind strength.

XieRong was very disappointed when she arrived in a similar room at the capital. It was just having her entire body pulled somewhere rather than just her conscious. She had imagined it to be more thrilling.

XieRong left earlier than her brother making her way to the palace.

-FeiHong, Jie just arrived in the capital.-

-We are on our way to the palace as well.-

-Then I will meet you all at the entrance.-

It was ceremonial for the general families to first go greet the emperor in the palace before they all left for the duelists’ ring themselves.

While on her way, XieRong saw that flocks of people were headed towards the duelists’ ring. Her uncle had said that the one in the capital was much larger and grander than that of Qianhe’s, built to fit more than three fourth of the capital’s population.

The palace was just as huge and daunting as it had been in FeiHong’s memories. Actually, it was even more overbearing as she was only seven years old, unlike the twenty four year old FeiHong she had been in those memories. It was a beautiful web filled with, butterflies each more beautiful than the other, not realising that the only powerful creature there was the spider that lay waiting to tear their beautiful wings off and trap them there until their deaths.

XieRong found her family waiting for her at the entrance. She greeted all of them. When she went to her sister, FeiHong was staring at the palace with a cold, dead look in her eyes. XieRong could feel the waves of melancholy, pain and deep loathing through their bond.

-FeiHong, this place was your cage in the past. It isn’t now and it won’t be in the future unless you let it be.-

-Jie, this place wasn’t just my cage, it was my golden cage. So magnificent to look at, but its floors and walls covered in blood.-

-Don’t you think that applies to people as well? Fa MeiLien is beautiful, the second prince is handsome but both their hearts are blacker than charcoal and their hands already covered in the blood of so many.-

-Jie, the hands of those who l.u.s.t for power are always covered in blood.-

XieRong, whose arm was around FeiHong’s shoulders, saw her sister look at her own hands as though they were dirty.

-My hands were too. I may call Fa MeiLien a lot of things, but I wasn’t very much different from her. I didn’t refuse my marriage with the fourth prince because like her, I wanted power and attention. I helped the fourth prince win the struggle for power because I wanted to sit on that phoenix throne.-

-FeiHong, what you wanted is not what you want now. You may have done a lot of wrongs in the past but you have been given the chance to make up for them. I know you will make the right choices this time, and if you don’t, you will have me to correct you.-

XieRong looked around inside the palace as they were all led to the banquet hall. It was indeed beautiful and luxurious, lined with tapestries and paintings, decorated with expensive vases and treasures that were placed in the open for all to admire.

-Jie, that woman is the Duchess Fang of East. She advised me in my past life but I was foolish to not heed it.-

XieRong looked at the woman who was hunched over in the shadows of a remote corridor, struggling to get up, leaning on the wall for support. She wore a simple green dress and barely any jewellery decorated her. There were no maids near her either, hardly a sight for a duchess.

-Let’s help her then.-

The two sisters made their way to the duchess and helped her up.

"Who are you two?" She asked, her hands slightly trembling as she grasped their hands for support.

"The second young miss of the Guo family, Guo XieRong, greets the Duchess Fang."

"The third young miss of the Guo family, Guo FeiHong, greets the Duchess Fang."

"I see you know who I am."

The woman straightened her shoulders despite her weak disposition, a dignified air around her, but to XieRong, she seemed like a old, dying tiger brandishing its blunt claws.

XieRong had secretly taken the duchess’ pulse as she had helped her up.

"Have you come to curry favour with this lady?"

"No, duchess, this lady and her elder sister sincerely wanted to help."

The duchess’ eyes narrowed but she didn’t say anything.

"Duchess Fang, are you aware that you have been poisoned?" XieRong whispered.

The duchess jerked her head and looked left and right, as though she were worried someone might hear.

"Duchess Fang I wouldn’t have asked you if I felt any presences near by that could possibly hear what I’m saying," XieRong said in a hushed tone.

The duchess hunched forward again as though she were in terrible pain.

"Duchess, if this poison is not cured soon, I’m afraid the duchess may not last until winter."

"Silly girl. Do you think this lady is not aware of the fact?"

"If the duchess is aware of the fact then why not get a cure? The duchess is a duchess after all."

-Jie, it was the empress who poisoned her and wants to eliminate her. Getting a cure will not be that easy.-

"Haah. Silly child, do you think this lady has not tried. The imperial physician says it’s incurable."

"The empress could have bribed him, but the duchess already knows this, doesn’t she?"

The duchess looked up at XieRong with panic in her eyes.

"How do-"

"Why doesn’t the duchess get cured elsewhere?"

The duchess sighed.

"The empress is not a fool to poison this one with something that can be cured anywhere. Even if this lady could be cured, the empress does not allow this lady to leave and this one is tired of fighting her. I just want to follow my husband to the heavens now that my sons have all been accepted into good cultivation sects."

XieRong lost her politeness.

"So you are giving up? Letting the empress do as she pleases without even trying your best to live for the sons you will leave behind? Do you think your sons will not mourn your death?"

"How dare-"

XieRong saw a part of her mother in the duchess. The part she hated. The part that gave up, the part that lost belief in herself, the part that thought that dying would solve everything.

"You’re pathetic," FeiHong interrupted the duchess.

"You have given up on yourself. Do you think the empress will stop at killing you? Do you think she will spare your sons because you have died? Do you think the husband you are so desperately trying to follow will want to look at you this way?"

The duchess was left speechless.

No one had ever dared to speak to her this way, let alone two little girls. It was known throughout the continents that she had raised her younger brother, the current emperor, like a son when their mother had passed when she was ten, the emperor five and their youngest sister three. When the emperor had finally taken the throne fifteen years later, he still loved his elder sister dearly. When her husband died, it was her brother, who despite strong opposition, had passed a decree that a lady may inherit the title, land and property in the absence of a direct, blood related male heir, just so she could continue living as the duchess. Yet, here she stood, being scolded by two girls several decades her junior.

"Duchess, you remind me of my mother: a strong woman who gave up on herself in the end. She thought she would be so consumed in her revenge and would use us to accomplish her goal. She sacrificed her life so that we could live our own," XieRong said, helping the duchess up once more.

"Isn’t that an admirable thing? You say it as though it was a foolish thing to do."

"It was a foolish thing to do. If my mother had believed in her love for us then she wouldn’t have used us as her pawns in her revenge," FeiHong said, helping the duchess from the other side.

"Duchess, we can get you out of here and even possibily cure you, but it will be pointless if you don’t have the will to help yourself first."

XieRong secretly inserted one of her silver needles in to the duchess’s arm, telling Feng to slow the poison. The godly needles were able to produce all kinds of poisons and antidotes at XieRong’s command, however the poisons and antidotes could only be used on people other than herself and she had to know which antidote or poison she wanted.

Since XieRong did not know what the duchess was poisoned with, her safest and best bet was to strengthen the duchess’ body to slow the effects of the poison. The duchess’ spiritual energy was flowing feebly and in a haphazard way, so there were only a few things that could strengthen the duchess without actually affecting the flow of the duchess’ spiritual energy.

With the duchess lost deep in her thoughts, XieRong and FeiHong escorted the duchess to the banquet hall.