《Severing The Heavens》Chapter 5: Neat Trick
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Lin Xian didn’t have any cloth covering his upper body, so he easily discovered the crow tattoo imprinted on his chest.
But moments after he discovered the tattoo, he suddenly realized something. He felt panicked as he focused his sensation on his lower body which was covered by something like a quilt.
He felt something like fur covering his nether regions, reaching up to his knees. After realizing that he was wearing something, Lin Xian immediately felt relaxed, so he once again shifted his gaze towards the crow tattoo.
When Lin Xian once again looked at this crow tattoo. the astonishment he felt shot off the roof. All of his life, he never had any recollection that he had something imprinted or tattooed on his chest.
In his mind, the only question was, [Just what is happening?!]
Lin Xian tried to think again and again, however, he still failed to make out anything. He just couldn’t understand it… everything seemed real and imaginary at the same time.
While Lin Xian was still deep in thought, he suddenly felt something warm on top of his head. Stunned, Lin Xian raised his head up and saw Lu Zhen patting his head gently.
However, looking at Lu Zhen’s expression, Lin Xian could feel both anger and misery, and they struck him so hard that he was also feeling the same. Just by looking at Lu Zhen’s expression, he felt a seething rage burning inside his heart.
A gloomy atmosphere engulfed the room, and after a few moments of silence, Lu Zhen finally spoke, “Lin Xian, don’t worry, even if your tribe met its bitter end, you’re still here, alive. That just means that the gods have a plan for you. From now on, you’ll be part of my Yellowtail Tribe, alright? Those mongrels the Black Stone Tribe would never dare to attack our tribe, and I can assure your safety in our tribe. From now on, you can call me grandfather, alright?”
Lin Xian could only nod in silence, unable to utter even a single word out of his mouth. The seething rage inside his heart gradually vanished as he cleared his mind. Everything that happened were just so sudden and so out of his expectations. But although a lot of things were still unclear to him, by connecting the dots, he still had ideas about what was currently happening.
Thinking back to the girl from a while ago, Hanbei, he speculated that her parents were slaughtered by those ‘mongrels’ from that Black Stone Tribe. For that reason alone, Lu Zhen would definitely hate them to the bones.
And now that him, Lin Xian, a presumed survivor of one of those tribes that were slaughtered by that Black Stone Tribe, appeared before Lu Zhen, then Lu Zhen would definitely feel pity for him. These deep sentiment immediately lead him to accept Lin Xian wholeheartedly as a family member without even thinking twice.
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After thinking through, Lin Xian felt that his thoughts were possibly the most appropriate and most logical reason for what was currently happening. He knew that, as of this moment, there was probably some sort of a massive misunderstanding between what had truly happened to him and what Lu Zhen thought about what happened to him.
However, how else could he explain it?
Lin Xian himself didn’t know what lead to what. He had no idea why or how he ended up in this situation. Without any knowledge, he thought that, for the mean time, the misunderstanding must be a good will from the heavens.
Since Lu Zhen didn’t really ask him anything besides his name, the misunderstanding was already stapled. He could only accept it and move on. There were a lot of questions inside his mind, but brooding over it wouldn’t help him at all. He thought that it was for the better if he just follow the lead of Lu Zhen and go on from there.
“Lin Xian, you can go rest for now. At the side, there’s a toilet. Later on, I’ll have Hanbei bring you food, alright?” Lu Zhen said after a few minutes of silence.
Lin Xian nodded. Afterwards, Lu Zhen once again patted him on his head then walked out of the room.
As soon as Lu Zhen left the room, Lin Xian felt his body relax. The increase and decrease of his heart rate throughout their conversation had made him feel very tense, and it was only now that he felt he could finally ease up.
[Sigh… I’ve been asking what is happening ever since I woke up, but I am still yet to have a clue.]
Lin Xian felt exhausted. The events that occurred to him had given him a lot of shock and stress.
Waking up to a place he had no recollections of, seeing two people that seemed to be like those tribal or indigenous people, the realization that he could suddenly speak another language so naturally, the change of his voice, the discoveries he had about Lu Zhen and Hanbei, and of course, the crow tattoo on his chest...
Too much, there was just too much that happened in a span of a few minutes that Lin Xian felt a headache.
He lowered his head, once again looking at the crow tattoo imprinted on his chest. And then he sighed again. That same question was still lingering inside his mind, [What the hell is happening?]
Lin Xian closed his eyes as he tried to recall further back from the moment he woke up in this room. A world dyed in red, a strange snow white rabbit with horns…
[Eh? That day... was it yesterday?]
Suddenly, in Lin Xian’s mind, a very recent memory surfaced. He felt that this memory had just happened hours ago.
Lin Xian recalled that while he was walking his way home, his father suddenly appeared before him and carried him on his back... before flying off somewhere.
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Bewildered, Lin Xian once again recalled that scene and realized that it wasn’t just a product of his imagination; they were really flying.
That day, in the span of minutes, they arrived in the middle of a vast and boundless ocean. After arriving in that place, Lin Xian’s father gave him a silver ring, which then turned into an inconspicuous tattoo on his middle finger, then said some parting words before Lin Xian felt a pulling force before falling unconscious.
As he thought of this scene, Lin Xian immediately raised his right hand and looked at his middle finger. At its base, the same tattoo was still there.
[This is…]
Suddenly, the tattoo glistened, and in the next moment, the tattoo materialized into a silver ring, completely astonishing Lin Xian.
He carefully touched this silver ring with his left hand and attempted to pull it.
However, after using a bit of force, Lin Xian realized that the ring wasn’t just unremovable, it was, in fact, completely unmovable. It was as if it was a part of his skin, and if he did dare try to forcefully remove it, then his whole middle finger would be torn out of his hand.
Although he felt perplexed about why he couldn’t remove the ring, he just decided to let it be. Thinking too much about it was just a waste of time and energy.
Instead, he focused his mind on how the the tattoo materialized into a silver ring.
How did it happen? Was it what they call magic?
[If it can materialize, then can it turn back to a tattoo again?] When this thought appeared in his mind, the silver ring suddenly glistened, and in the next moment, it reverted back to a tattoo.
Shocked, Lin Xian thought of having it materialize once again. His expectations didn’t betray him, and the ring really did materialize. Repeating the process over and over again, he realized that, with just a thought, that silver ring could materialize and revert back to being a tattoo.
He thought that this trick was neat, but after a while, he realized, [What’s the point?]
If he was perhaps in a birthday party, playing as a clown, then children would probably love it. However, in his current situation, what’s the point of such a trick?
It didn’t bring him any answer to his questions, but rather, it just added to the now uncountable questions inside his mind.
Thinking up to this point, Lin Xian could only helplessly sigh. With a thought, the ring reverted back to a tattoo.
At this moment, he once again closed his eyes and cleared his mind. He threw all the unnecessary and unanswerable questions to the back of his mind and only kept those which he thought would be able to give him a hint about what was happening to him.
[Father was able to fly. That, in itself, was something impossible. Father also told me something about my true home, something about it calling for me. And this ring...] Lin Xian once again lifted his right hand and inspected his middle finger, [Ah! Father said that this ring will reveal bits of the truth to me… But how?]
“Close your eyes and concentrate your mind towards the ring. Afterwards, you would be able to see inside the ring. You’re its rightful owner, so it’s no question that you could see everything inside it.”
While his eyes were fixated on the tattoo of the silver ring, a soft yet indifferent voice suddenly rang inside his head. Astonished, he turned his head left and right, trying to search for the source of the voice. However, it was to no avail. No matter how hard he searched for it, he just couldn’t find it.
While searching for it, he suddenly realized that the voice was somewhat familiar, as though he had just heard it recently, “Ah! The rabbit!”
“My name is Rashueli, don’t call me ‘the rabbit’. Just do as I told you and keep in mind that you should never show this ring to anyone. You and I, and of course, your father, should be the only ones who know about this ring’s existence. You can talk to me through your mind, however, unless there is something urgent, please do not dare to bother me at all.”
After the rabbit, Rashueli, finished speaking, it didn’t speak again no matter how many Lin Xian called for it.
Seeing that it was futile, Lin Xian just sighed and tried to digest the words Rashueli spoke to him.
[Concentrate my mind towards the ring… Keep the ring a secret to everyone else…]
As these thoughts ran inside Lin Xian’s mind, he closed his eyes and directed his attention on his right hand, then on his middle finger.
Suddenly, in his mind, a thin reddish thread appeared.
This thin reddish thread seemed to be illusory and real at the same time. In his mind, he could visualize how this thin reddish thread was connecting two points in his body. One point was directly inside his head, while the other point was at the silver ring.
Lin Xian didn’t really have any concrete idea about what he was doing, but something like a reflex or a habit made him focus his attention to the thin reddish thread all the way to the silver ring.
Suddenly, he felt as though his mind was moving extremely fast, and in the next moment, he just found himself... inside a boundless space.
…………...
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