Wen Chao lay awake in his bed, on the edge and hypersensitive to every little sound. These days he felt like someone was watching him, he would hear things in the middle of the night, and sometimes he swore that there was someone behind him.

He tried to convince himself that he was just being ridiculous, and that it was just the wind or a trick of the light. But it didn't seem to work, no matter what he tried the feeling just wouldn't go away.

And to make matters even worse, he just received word that a mystery person had sieged a supervisory office and brutally killed everyone inside it. After hearing that,he had practically gone mad with fear.

The whole time, the damning words of Yuzhao Long rang out in his head.

"With the heavens and everyone here as my witness, I Qian TaiFeng, curse you. Even if I die, ill surely become a vengeful ghost and haunt the Wen Sect till the end of time!"

But it didn't matter how strong she was, she was dead! 

Right, she was dead. He killed her himself, she was long gone and her curse was just a bunch of nonsense!

Even if she was a ghost, she was stuck in the Burial Mounds anyway. And the supervisory office was just a coincidence, nothing more.

I mean, it's not like people can actually come back from the dead.

Right?

But either way, he was paranoid about it. Regardless of whether or not the ghost of Qian TaiFeng had come back to haunt him, he was sure that something, or even more than one thing, was watching him. And not knowing what was killing him.

And funnily enough, he was right.

Something was lurking in the shadows that night.

On opposite sides of the woods, two forces lay in wait, one seeking revenge, the other, seeking justice.

The air was unusually warm for this time of year, which made everyone even more on edge. The trees gently swayed in the breeze, as three figures moved in from the west.

Meanwhile, an individual, clad in black, moved toward the location from the east at insane quickness.

The moon was high, and the stakes were higher.

As the folds of numerous colored robes brushed against the forest floor, a certain person had already jumped the fence to the building where the Wens resided.

As Jiang Cheng, Wangji, and Wuxian closed in on the location, the unmistakable screams of humans filled their ears.

Running as fast as they could, they reached the office, only to find that the screams had subsided.

All of them had the same thought.

'They're dead already.'

It was fast, so fast that if you blinked you just might miss it.

It was terrifying to know that there was a person capable of such speeds.

Steeling their nerves, they pushed open the doors to the familiar sight of scattered corpses frozen in fear.

Not wanting to alert anyone else they made there up to the roof as stealthily as they could. Huddling around a spot on the roof, they gently lifted the roof tiles.

Peering inside, they caught a glimpse of a cowering Wen Chao being guarded by someone who Wangji recognized as the Core-melting Hand.

Clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white, Jiang Cheng was ready to burst in, right there and then.
But he was held back by the other two.

"The other person is still here," Wuxian whispered to him.

And right on cue, they all could hear the careful and calculated steps making their way up the stairs.

They weren't in any sort of rush, Wangji could tell. In fact, it sounded like they were deliberately going slower as if to taunt Wen Chao, which Jiang Cheng didn't mind at all.

All the while, they could hear Wen Chao repeating the same thing over and over again.

"She's coming. She's coming."

She? So it was a woman who had caused all of this?

Holding their breaths, they all clenched when they heard the sound of someone whistling a tune with a sweet melody, but in this situation, it only sounded haunting and eerie.

To Wangji it sounded familiar.
But to Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, it was a song they knew like the back of their hands, a song that they had heard being played over and over again.

A song that only one person would know.

As the steps stopped and the whistling ceased, it was like everything froze.

But time soon restarted, as they all heard two polite-sounding knocks on the closed door.

As the door opened, an unmistakable, blood-covered, slender hand snaked its way over the framework of the door.

Wuxian's and Jiang Cheng's hearts were in their stomachs, they couldn't even breathe.

Was it possible? Or was the light just playing tricks on them? 

"Long time no see, Second Young Master Wen." A voice rang out.

Slowly stepping into the light, Qian TaiFeng, the woman whom everybody thought was dead, stood in front of Wen Chao.

Her black, baggy robes were stained with blood on the hems, along with her face.

Teary-eyed and unbelieving, Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying stared at their big sister with heavy hearts.

She was a lot thinner than they remembered, and her hair had grown as well.

But it just didn't seem like her.

The light was gone from her eyes, and her face looked like she hadn't smiled in a while.

They were snapped out of their reverie by TaiFeng's voice, which didn't sound the same. It was less compassionate and heartfelt, more taunting, almost cruel sounding.

"Wen Zhuliu, how much longer are you going to keep protecting him?" She wistfully sighed, examining the blood on her hand, which now had pointed claw-like nails, like that of vampires. They were thin, too thin. Much more slender than they remembered.

"I think you're smart enough to know that it's no use." She said, with eyes that looked right through him.

Were her eyes always so cold?

She looked beautiful, like she always did, but also frightening. Not as innocent as she once was, that was for sure. A bit more mature, but also hardened. Like she had gotten used to taking lives. It scared them both just how much she had changed.

But in the end, did it matter?

She was alive, no matter what she looked like now, she was their sister and nothing would change that.

"I have a debt to repay. I shall serve my master dutifully. " He simply spoke.

"Such a loyal dog." She smirked.

"I'll give you a choice. You can either move out of my way and I'll kill you quickly. Or you can choose to obey your owner, and end up wishing you were dead."

Not replying, he stood his ground,  unsheathing his sword.

"Very well," she said, slowly stepping forward, her hair sweeping the floor as she edged near. "Don't say I didn't give you a chance."

Before anything could happen, Jiang Cheng finally snapped. Crashing down from the roof, he swung his sword swiftly over Wen Zhuliu's back.

He fell to the floor like a puppet whose strings were abruptly cut. As he lay lifeless on the floor, Wen Chao backed into a corner, quivering in fear.

Not really sure how to react, TaiFeng did her best to act normal.

Almost every day she thought of them, but now that they were right there in front of her she didn't know what to do.

In all honesty, she knew they were up there the whole time.

Not because that's how it played out in the drama.

She could hear their nervous heartbeats, thumping in her ears.
But she let her emotions get the better of her. It was like she didn't even care what they saw her do.

 She was just in a blind daze and ignored everything.

But seeing their faces made her snap right out of it.

Letting her power die down, she could see the relief and disbelief on their faces. It made her heart crumble into tiny pieces when they looked at her like that.

Like she was somebody else. Like she was some sort of cold-blooded killer.

Like she wasn't their sister.

Lips trembling, she managed to get some words out.

"I.. missed you all." She said, her eyes slightly glossed over.

Not saying an utterance, both Wuxian and Jiang engulfed her in a bone-crushing hug that made her wince a little.

Patting both their backs with her clean hand, she just stood there and let the quietness speak.

"They said you were dead," Wuxian whispered.

'Ah. No wonder they're like this. They thought I was dead... I was dead.'

"Oh, that's what happened." She said sadly, but her eyes had no tears.

'Is that why they're both wearing white hemp? For me?'

"Did you put an end to those men? " Wangji asked, spoiling the moment.

Breaking away from the hug, her little brothers looked at her with eyes loaded and overfilled with doubt and uncertainty.

"So what if I did?" She said, brushing her blood-covered hand on her robes.

Shrinking at her unusual callousness, they took a moment to let the realities sink in.

TaiFeng did that... Qian TaiFeng, one of the kindest people to ever exist, had done such a thing.

They all had blood on their hands from this terrible war and they had all killed at least one Wen. Frankly, who hadn't?

This was different. It didn't seem like her. They knew that she could easily kill someone if she really wanted to... but in such a way?

"Er-Jie, how..." Wuxian whispered, not sure how to word this.

"They Qi Deviated. How did you make them do that?"

"I just gave them a little spiritual energy. They couldn't handle it, so they died." She honestly replied, going over to the table and sitting down. One leg cocked up in relaxation like she hadn't just butchered thirty people.

"W-what? You transferred spiritual energy, and they died?" Jiang Cheng contested.

The puzzle pieces started to lock in to place in Wangji's head. The victim's abdomens looked like they burst open, right where the golden core is.
They didn't Qi Deviate. They were pumped full of so much spiritual energy that their golden cores exploded.

Even though Wangji had worked it out, and he knew that Wuxian did too, it wasn't his place to say.

Only she should tell them this sort of thing. He was sure she had a reason for being so ambiguous.

After all, who wants to go into details about people they've killed?

"Pretty much." She whispered, looking down at her bloody hand with an emotion that they couldn't quite determine.

"Precisely where have you been these last four months? " Jiang Cheng said.

'Four months, huh? It felt like a lot longer.'

"I've been... around." She answered, not making eye contact.

"I figured it was better if I pretented to be dead, at least until Wen Chao let his guard down.... Speaking of," she said, getting up to go over to the said man, who looked like he was going to pass out from pure hysteria.

"I haven't wrapped up what I came here for."

Going closer and closer, she lengthened her hand out towards his dantian.

But halted midway, retracting her hand.

'I may be a monster.' She thought, veering around to face the three of them.

'But they don't need to see the full extent of that. Nobody should.'

Getting up, she proceeded over to Wen Zhuliu's lifeless body and pried his sword out of his cold dead hands.

Trembling with wrath, she stepped forward.

He didn't deserve to have his throat slit! He deserved to feel the agonizing pain of having his golden core explode into a million pieces!

She wanted to rip him to shreds herself! For her, it wouldn't be enough to obliterate him a million times over.

All her pain and suffering were because of him and his brother. But despite her deep craving for vindication, she just couldn't do it.

They already suspected her of being a monster, she didn't want to show them just what she was capable of and remove all doubt.

She cared for them too much to show them this side of her. This atrocious, twisted monster that had been born from pain and suffering.

So, clenching her jaw and closing her eyes, she swung with all the force she had. And in an instant, cold steel met with Wen Chao's neck, sealing his fate, and letting him off easy.