Nocte Yin: Anti-Villain, Anti-Hero and Anti-Everything Else

Chapter Twenty-Two

She felt waves rolling over her naked toes, a tender rush curling round her ankles and shifting the sand beneath her feet. There was a wind, a sweet wind, running fingers through her hair and sweeping the taste of salt onto her lips. There were birds sounding in the distance, and the hushes of grass weaving into each other. There was a blue, so pure in the sky and mirrored so deep in the waters that stole one’s breath away. There was a large ocean and a wide beachfront — a dazzling vision — when she finally opened her eyes to this new world.

It nearly made her gasp as a spray of salt and sea hit her open knees — the edge of her dress pulling back against her legs from the current. Vaguely, she was glad that her hair was tied back and not splayed all over her face, a small relief when a particular large wave hit her legs and made her dress sufficiently wet, soaking both her and the sand around her.

And she didn’t care as much as she thought she would.

Instead, she laughed and threw her hands above her head — the ocean water on her arms making her skin feel cool and free. She stood on her toes, as if she could fly, when the wind picked up and tossed her dress and hair affray; the waves washing over her feet like a rushing stream, calling to her, coaxing her to be pulled away and sink into this sun and sea and succulent, searing sanctuary.

And she wished, so much, that this moment of happiness, this moment of no worries, this moment of no thinking and no thoughts could last forever and ever and ever…

She set her hands back down to her side.

And ever…

She turned to look over her shoulder.

And ever.

She squinted in the fractured sun and the blurring sand, only now noticing the figures behind her. It was strange how they had escaped her observation earlier, seeing as they were neither hiding nor quiet. They were not even discreet, travelling with an entourage consisting of several guards and maids. There was a flash of a gold earring and a bracelet made of green jade — she thought that perhaps she may have known of the jade bangle.

She took a step back, her heels touching the ocean’s edge.

In fact, she thought that perhaps she may have known of this place — this beach — this island. It all seemed eerily familiar, a touch of shadow and shapes and grotesque architecture.

She blinked and the world jogged, like a roll of film skipping a frame, snapping together in a jostling displacement of characters. One moment the figures were at the grass line, and the next they were in front of her, a mere step away. If she reached out a hand, she could almost graze their shoulders.

“We are at a deciding locus,” one of the figures spoke — an aged male.

She withdrew her hand, blinking again. The world refocused; the characters became clear and colours individualized. Abiding by the grass line, before the green trickled to the yellow-brown of the sand, the guards and maids stood with their heads bowed in respect and silence. Among them were two notable forms she recognized: the squared shoulders of General Hao and the blonde chignon of Advisor Mŭ Dān, both dressed in muted colours and the modest trappings that belied their stations of the upper echelons.

“Please tell, Councillor,” the other figure entreated — a young woman.

Her gaze slid seamlessly back to the two before her, except that now they were no longer indiscernible or blotted; the woman’s voice ringing with familiarity. It took her a second, a slow and languid second, for her to identify the two forms in front of her: an elderly man whom she believed she’d seen before… and Měi Fèng.