Ip An’s pupils dilated as his brain studied that man’s arrogant smile filled with dirty yellow teeth. It was revolting. Suddenly, he lunged forward and bit down on his hands with all the force his jaw could muster. For a few moments, there was just silence as he gave no response or signs of pain.

“That isn’t going to work brat”, the thick-haired man arrogantly chuckled.

Realising that was useless, he retreated from the thick-haired man’s hand that now had faint teeth marks and his saliva on it. Then, he brought his free hand to the knife-wielding hand and passed it over. With the same fervour as his original strike, he struck toward the man’s hand hoping to severe or hurt him enough so that he would let go.

Unfortunately, yet again his hand was intercepted by the man’s other hand he now found himself at a stalemate with both his hands completely restricted. Then, his hand that held the knife was suddenly squeezed extremely tightly, causing Ip An to give a scream that echoed throughout the whole temple. The knife dropped to the ground and tears started to form in his eyes.

His breathing became uneven and rapid as realised he had lost his only weapon. He briefly lifted his head up and met eyes with his opponent. He could see the confidence, the playfulness and carefreeness mixed into just a single point. His heart slightly wavered at this.

However, that did not mean he had given up.

After, he began to pull and push, twist and turn. He wreathed as much as he could, attempting to break through his iron grip. But after almost a minute of this, he seemingly gave up, out of breath with sweat starting to form on his face.

“Is that all you got?” The thick-haired man raised an eyebrow in disappointment.

Little did he know, Ip An was just stalling for time as he wracked his brains for ways to escape with the medallion and letter. This gave him enough time to form some kind of plan. That’s when he grit his teeth and said words even he couldn’t believe he was saying while looking the thick-haired man in the eye, “Alright, I’ll give you both the medallion and the letter. Just let me go!”

The thick-haired’s jaw slightly dropped as he heard this. Just then, Uncle Huang’s voice came from behind.

“I think you misunderstand something brat”, Uncle Huang mocked with a devilish laugh, “Today, you’re not coming outside of this temple alive.”

His figure then came from the side of the thick-haired man with a smirk on his face and his hands behind his back. He then began to laugh, “I’m surprised though! I didn’t expect finding you to be this easy! I thought it would’ve taken us at least a couple more days to catch you but who would’ve expected you to be here in this abandoned temple on the side of this lonely road! I do find it funny that you went this down in order to shake us off your tail. Yet! This only brought you right to us. It seems I hold heaven’s favour today!”

The thick-haired man gave a small smirk hearing this. Although the thick-haired man and Uncle Huang had joyous expressions, Ip An was likewise plainly mortified. Was he going to die? No. He wouldn’t allow it. As he steeled his will like this, the rainbow seedling in his heart began to shine brighter, completely covering the black coloured flower in its powerful illumination.

Ip An asked with obvious desperation in his voice, “Why?”

Uncle Huang stopped his laughter and explained, “Why? Letting you escape would simply become an extremely troublesome matter! One must always pull a plant out by its roots or they will simply grow back!”

A tight squeezing sensation took hold over Ip An’s beating heart as he heard this.

“Since you’ve finished, allow this one to enlighten you of true strength!” The thick-haired man’s battle-crazed voice suddenly boomed as a powerful fist struck into Ip An’s stomach causing him to tumble to the ground several meters away.

The pain was immense, enough for Ip An to fall unconscious but he held on. He knew that if he were to give in and fall down, he would die. Stumbling to his feet he could only watch as the thick-haired man approached yet again with ready fists and a pair of bloodthirsty eyes. Behind him, he could see Uncle Huang pulling out the medallion and letter from his bag with greedy eyes and a joyful expression.

As the thick-haired man came close again he sent out another punch to his stomach. Ip An tried to dodge but that earlier punch caused his movements to become lazy and uncoordinated. This time, Ip An coughed up a considerable amount of blood as he was sent to the ground. He moaned in great pain, unable to orientate himself.

Right after being sent to the ground, another punch was sent into his stomach causing another cough of blood to spurt from his mouth. It felt like his consciousness was floating in and out of existence every second. Even Ip An couldn’t defend against this very well. After all, although he was quite a smart child with some wisdom. A child was a child! Their wills weren’t unbreakable.

Unexpectedly, during the next several seconds an additional punch did not come! Subconsciously, Ip An knew that if he were to get hit again another time then he would just have to accept his fate and wish for better luck in his next life. This was strange as Uncle Huang was had just talked about pulling plants out by their roots. Why hadn’t thick-haired finished him off yet?

Currently, his vision was incredibly blurry and he couldn’t make out anything except a couple of blurs! This made it impossible for him to discern what was occurring.

Just then, he heard the thick-haired man stutter with profound disbelief, ”W-W-Why?”

Ip An then heard the faint noise of something splattering onto the ground. The thick-haired man let out a low cough which caused another splatter. After, he heard Uncle Huang let out a chuckle, “Why? Hmph, this old man has been asked too many of these sort of questions in these past few days. But if you really want to know it’s simply because I want the medallion and the letter to myself. It would be too troublesome and less beneficial to share the spoils with another person.

Once upon a time, our bond used to be as strong as the connection between heaven earth and this sort of thing would’ve never happened. But, this is what becomes of people who have lost everything. They resort to petty things like betrayal. I am not afraid to admit I am one of these such people. But all I want to do for the rest of my life is to live in peace, doing what I want. All i need is to sell these two things to the right person and I’ll be able to live in relative prosperity for the rest of my meagre life. I can even give the leftovers to my nephew I dote on!”

This sudden revelation of what seemed like Uncle Huang’s betrayal struck like lightning. By this point, Ip An’s vision had recovered well enough to see the general outline of things and lifted his head up to see what was happening.

He could see two blurry figures just a couple meters away right next to eachother. Yet, Ip An could see that a sharp, metal knife was poking out of the front person’s stomach. He identified this to be the thick-haired man. One the ground below him was a large puddle of blood which was quickly expanding due to the blood pouring out his wound every second.

The thick-haired man coughed more blood as he suddenly revealed with bitterness and e , “I was planning to kill you after i finished off the kid. B-But...You betrayed me first.”

Uncle Huang chuckled nonsensically, “As expected! I should’ve known you were up to something this whole time. Yet it was me who ended up out on top at the end.”

Uncle Huang then pulled out the knife from the thick-haired man and sent him falling to the ground like a stiff tree. Silence hung in the air as the thick-haired man’s bleeding showed no sigsn of ending as the light left his eyes. Eventually, his body completely stopped moving.

Uncle Huang let out a regretful sigh, “I am truly sorry that this is the end result of our relationship. Who would’ve known that the legendary Yu Zheng would’ve met his end in such a way in an abandoned temple in the middle of nowehere?”

He gazed at Yu Zheng’s body for a strangely long time with affectionate eyes. After what seemed like several long minutes of silence he averted his gaze to Ip An who was now stumbling to his feet with slightly shaking legs and dry blood at the side of his cheeks.

Yu Zhneg let out a harrumph before walking with heavy steps and stopping just a couple meters away from Ip An who had just made it to his feet.

“Brat, Yu Zheng was merely playing around with you with his punches. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be alive right now. It seems like i’ll have to be the one who has to finish off the job”, Uncle Huang looked at Ip An with squinting eyes as he watched him desperately trying to gather himself.

“Though i do have to give you some considerable thanks. Me and that fox made meticulous efforts to ensure we had no weapons on beforehand in case one of us had tried to quickly finish off one of the other without their knowledge. Luckily, you had a knife on hand and that gave me the chance to finish that old fox off unknowingly! You saved me quite alot of effort. In another world i would’ve let you go but im afraid there are too many risks.

No matter what i do you will inevitably hold strong resentment for me and thus i cannot allow you to live. You could come take revenge on me or possibly go after my family in the far future! I am simply looking after my safety. Excuse this one’s following action!” Uncle Huang’s two-face attitude caused Ip An to seathe with rage.

Internally, he was screaming with all his strength to force his body to listen but no matter what he did it wouldn’t. However, a moment later just as he took a step back from Uncle Huang he sensed something overhead.

He looked up and saw a sharp, grey knife being plunged right towards his face. At this very instance, his life flashed through his eyes. Memories of talking with his grandfather, playing with his friends in the rain and becoming sick the next day. Coming with his grandfather late at night to witness one of Fifth-Step’s villages annual rituals to pray to a god he had forgotten the name of.

Rolling down a steep hill like a log with one of his friend’s which caused them both to hurt themselves. His grandfather’s old, wrinkly fingers showing him the correct stroke order to a particular character. The warm smiles of all his childhood friends, their funny jokes and all the places they went as a group.

The shine and warmth of the sun on his skin. The cold, dark atmosphere of the night as he walked amongst some tall grass all alone. The countless times he had gotten up early to see the sun rise and every time he had watched the sunset appreaciating all of its beautiful for all it was.

The moment’s he would sit alone, thinking and dreaming about the outside world was like. He wanted to see all of it. And in the final moment of that very instant he saw a flash of his grandfather’s lifeless face filled with paleness. His limp body being thrown into his grave on that small hill underneath the oak tree. That painful feeling of his tiny heart being twisted and squeezed of all it’s blood as he watched on.

His unwillingness to let his grandfather down and to make him proud. His aspirations. His dreams. His hope. Being brought to the brink of death. The struggle for his small life with all his strength. All of these factors caused a mysterious, profound transformation to suddenly occur deep inside him.