Pain...
It's a four letter word concealing a million sentiments behind. Life... Hope... Love... Tear... Hate... All of these are four letter words. They share the deepest connection.
Life brings Hope.
Hope brings Love.
Love brings a Tear.
Tear brings Hate.
And eventually,
Hate brings Pain.
Each thing's culmination is the pain.
In the murky ambiance, her bare feet touched the hard-baked ground and a jumble of rocks prickled her skin. A vigorous pain shot up in the back of her head like fire when it came in contact with something hard. She turned her head slowly to see a tall figure camouflaged in smog with a metal pole in his hand. The wooden stick she held, fell down on the rocky ground making a small thud.
She raised her trembling hand to touch the back of her head. An incontrollable hiss escaped from her mouth. It made her dizzy. She was reeling but she strived to keep her ground. She felt a feeling of yearning in her heart.
"Why?" She heard her own hoarse voice stinging with a furious fire raging in her eyes. Her throat felt constricted. She felt bitter.
The man replied. "You're a monster." She could perceive loathness and hostility. Yet her heart screamed that the voice held a tinge of ache in it. Someone landed a power-packed punch straight to her abdomen. Blood spurted out of her mouth painting the ground red but she still didn't let her body fall.
She tried to lift her eyes to see the man's expression.
"You still have the guts to look at my man." A loud shriek made her ears ring and in the next second, someone grabbed her hairs and smashed her head against a huge boulder. The sudden attack caught her off guard. To top off her misery, she heard a gunshot. She felt something trickling down her body and lowered her face to see a hot trail of blood flowing out of her chest. Her knees buckled making her fall on her knees. To keep her body from falling further, she placed both her hands on the rocky ground.
Her breathing was getting shallow as she tried with all her might to raise her head. The man veiled in mist held the gun that shot the bullet that now was stuck in her chest.
The girl with a screeching voice picked up a metal pole, hitting her with full force. Each hit made her curl her body. She kept wincing in pain. She didn't know how long had passed when she heard the girl's screeching voice again. "What should we do with her body, Ge-Ge?"
"Leave it here. It'll be a treat for the animals." There were hoots of laughter around her as her body laid limp on the hard soiled ground. Gradually, the laughter got farther and farther away from her.
The agonizing pain was not because of her losing breaths rather it was the feeling of betrayal that she felt in her heart. "Being betrayed is one of the most valuable lesson life can teach you." An ancient voice rang in her mind making her feel melancholy.
Soon, her blurry vision turned into darkness as she felt herself falling into oblivion.
"Sir! Excuse me, Sir!" A feminine courteous voice was heard making a crease appeared between her brows. With a jolt, she opened her eyes and darted her eyes around.
Wearing her usual black jeans with a black shirt and an oversized grey hoodie, she was sitting in a first-class seat of the plane. Cold sweat was trickling down her face making her shiver. "Sir!" She heard the voice again making her turn her face to look at a young and pretty attendant standing beside her seat with an anxious look.
"Are you feeling okay, sir?" The attendant asked with politeness as she noticed the green eyes gazing at herself. Those eyes were akin to an enchantment that seemed to have trapped her soul.
That dark chocolate brown hair with a thick angular fringe haircut perfectly fell over her forehead. With thick brows, twinkling green eyes, a pointed nose, high cheekbones that had a hollow curve slanting upwards towards the ears, and a flawless golden brown skin; the person sitting before the flight attendant felt like a mirage to her. He had the most perfect facial features complimenting his tall figure.
After a moment of silence, the attendant heard a deep, hoarse voice, "With such a pretty young lady beside me, how can I not be fine?" The female attendant was already drowning in the handsomeness before her but now she blushed at the remark.
The attendant bit her bottom lip and said, "The plane is going to land. Please, fasten your seatbelt."
With her green eyes, she looked down to see the seatbelt and looked up at the attendant for a minute before a faint smile appeared on her face. "You see, pretty lady, due to sleep my muscles are a bit numb. Why don't you help me with the seatbelt?" Her charismatic voice made the attendant blush even deeper and she really believed that the handsome person before her was flirting with her.
In reality, the green-eyed person who was dressed as a man and even talked like one was, in fact, none other than Lord Alev Knight who happened to be a girl in disguise. And she was actually feeling a tremble in hands after that nightmare which she didn't want others to see. That's why she asked for help.
Even though it was a nightmare. She never called it a nightmare. For her, it was part of her reality. A reality that seemed far out of her reach. No matter how much courage she had to face the pain, her body still remembered every bit of pain.
The attendant happily helped her with the seatbelt and turned to leave with reluctance.
After the plane landed, she was greeted by her assistant at the security check, "Master!" He bowed respectfully. "I've arranged everything for your stay."
"Wu Dishi," she called her assistant's name.
"At your service, Master," he answered.
"The rest of them are at the flight coming from Italy. Wait here for them. I'm going to the Imperial Grand Hotel, for now. Meet me there later on with everyone." Wu Dishi bowed in acknowledgment.
She dragged her feet out of the airport and hailed a cab for herself. In the cab, she rolled down the window pane to let the fresh air hit her face. She was feeling nauseous already but the smog-filled air made her stomach churn even worse than before.
She rolled the window pane back up and leaned into the seat. She wasn't scared of heights or anything for that matter. But still, plane rides were not her strong suit. They always left her nauseous.
After the cab dropped her at the hotel, she felt her headache intensifying for some reason. She shook her head and rubbed her thick brows repeatedly to get rid of her blurry vision.
At the reception of the hotel:
"Greetings Sir! Welcome to Imperial Grand Hotel. How may I help you?" The receptionist politely asked but the moment she looked at the face before her, she was lost for words.
The handsome word really was not enough to describe the green-eyed person standing before her.
"I have a reservation under Wu Dishi's name," she replied and it took the receptionist a moment to compose her emotions.
"Let me check, sir!" The receptionist coughed lightly and looked through the computer records. Her eyes widened after looking through the records. She stared for a moment and asked, "Sir, are you by any chance, Mr. Xie Rong?"
"Last time I checked, that's exactly my name." 'At least, one of the names.' But she left the last part unsaid. The receptionist gulped at this reply and frantically passed the room key card.
Xie Rong didn't think much about the receptionist's odd behavior and walked towards the elevator. While she was entering the elevator, another person walked out and Xie Rong bumped into him. She heard something dropping to the floor and shattering making her already aching head to ache even more.
She crouched down on the floor and tried to see what broke because of her dizziness. "Sh*t!" She couldn't help but curse when she saw what she had broken. She lifted her face to look at the man who was frozen still beside her staring intently at the antique Ming Dynasty Porcelain set which was broken into pieces now.
She had the urge to crack her own head against something. How can she make such a mistake right after coming to China?
The frozen man finally moved and looked at Xie Rong with blazing eyes, "Do you know what you just broke?" Obviously, the man thought Xie Rong was an ordinary person. Even though she was clad in a very stylish ensemble but it wasn't from a top-notch brand.
"I'll compensate you for it." Xie Rong said trying to evade getting into an argument. And since it was her mistake she had to compensate.
"How are you going to compensate for this? Do you even know how expensive this is?" The man roared in anger and contempt.
Xie Rong's dizziness was wearing her down. And she wasn't the kind of person who liked arguments. But the tone of the other person got on the wrong side of her nerve. She supported her body with the wall beside her and pointed her finger at the man, "You!"
But her sentence was cut short when she heard a mellow and compassionate voice from behind. "What's going on here?" The texture of the voice stunned her for a moment.