Dongling helped her get dressed and put on a cloak as they went out.
It's already late at night.
But after sleeping for a week, Huang Beiyue wanted fresh air.
Obviously, the two immediately were against that idea. She had just recently recovered but Huang Beiyue wants to breathe, they can only limit her time outside.
After all, Huang Beiyue really do look like she needs it.
Zhinglei carried the lantern as Dongling stuck close to Huang Beiyue in cade a sudden dizzy spell will hit the princess, she can catch her fast.
Huang Beiyue's lips quirked up with this.
She sat by the stool. She's not really hungry, not really. She can sustain herself longer.
Huang Beiyue looked at the sky.
"From now on, our future is limitless and with so many possibilities." she murmured and hummed a tune.
"What tone is that…. Princess?" Zhonglei asked
"Unravel." Huang Beiyue answered, Ye Lian has been humming this tune since earlier when Huang Beiyue got dressed by Dongling and now she can't get it out of her head, literally and figuratively.
"Sing the lyrics. You'll feel better and it will be rid of faster." Ye Lian the culprit why the tune is stuck, suggested.
Huang Beiyue thought about it for a bit. She haven't sang since arriving in this world. Maybe Unravel is a bit too much given the standard music but tis seems she kind of like singing it right now. The vibes she got fits well. She closed her eyes and sang the lyrics.
"Oh, can you tell me?Can you tell me…The way the story ends…" Huang Beiyue breathed out, she won't be following the same path as last time. It's already clear now, the moment she had arrived, the butterfly effect can casted the ripples and set in motion of a future that will never be the same. Her future has changed because of this, as did everyone else.
"A monster in my heart…A ghost inside my chest…" she smiled sardonically, in a sense, Huang Beiyue is a monster of her own right. Everyone is a monster, a good or bad kind but Huang Beiyue probably wouldn't find someone in her caliber.
"I'm broken down,The world around us surrounds my suffering." She remembered her past life as Huang Beiyue. All the neglect, suffering, mistreatment, abuse, humiliation, disgust, and disdain.
"You smile and laughed at me…But you don't see a thing!" she remembered those faces. The Xiao Family, the servants. Laughing at her plight, not knowing the monster they created. It was unleashed, in a sense, in the battlefield, as Uzumaki Akane. She used that as a fuel sometimes. She usually used it when she went on missions and all, it empowers her and also let her vent. And as Ye Lian, she had used it as a fuel to have the courage to squashed business opponents and political opponents of the Ye Family, like how she had wished to do so as Huang Beiyue when they pulled those shit up to her. Hating and using it as fuel, one will get tired with so much hate, anger, regret. It eventually….. it made her move on which is why, in this life, she only felt numb and distant to her memories. The one vivid enough is Dongling and Huang Huiwen, and now, Zhonglei.
"Damaged and broken as I am,I'm trying not to breath." Yeah, she is damaged and her sanity is really not the most stable, the Yamanaka said so, even the therapist in the third world said so but she's healing though there are some place she would slip every once in a while. The love, the joy, the happiness kept her anchored and her feet on the ground because to Huang Beiyue, she is scared what would happen if she did not have those anchors. If she did not have those, she would have gotten insane, like that lunatic Hanzo. However, in a sense, that damage brought up Akane and Lian in her life and accompany her in her journey. They are her most important anchor, otherwise, Huang Beiyue definitely wouldn't be able to calmly do this, she ma might even do something reckless and stupid.
"Unraveled I'm, not unraveled by the truth I finally see.(Freeze)" she remembered with enough clarity. She realized a lot of things as Huang Beiyue in her second life. Of how fucked up her first life is, and had also realized how fucked up her second life also is in her third life. A cycle, really.
"I'm breakable, unbreakable.I'm shakable, unshakable.Unraveling since I found you…" yeah, she had as Huang Beiyue, closed up like a clamp. So easy to break, so easy to bully, so easy… To clamp up, but when she reincarnated with her memories…
"And now I'm turning into dust in a world that's twisted!
Don't come searching when I go missing!
Close your eyes or just try to look away!" she remembered Dongling as well, on her lowest, Dongling was there. First to repay the kindness of Huang Huiwen and later, stayed out of loyalty despite what the fuckery and hardship they had to go through and endure.
"We lived in a world someone else imagined!
The ghost of what's left of me all but vanished!
Remember my heart, how bright I used shine!" she remembered alright. How naïve and foolish she once was. And it also made her remember her battle is not yet done, it's just beginning. Because she knew there is someone behind Concubine Xue, and that someone had another person behind the curtain of this play.
"Entangling of loneliness
The memories of innocence!
It's stinging me! It's breaking me!
The pain is spreading endlessly!" indeed, her memory as Huang Beiyue made her really… How it's so painful, both the happiness and the suffering.
"I cannot move, I close my eyes!
I try to breath, I realized…
I'm paralyzed, I'm paralyzed…" Huang Beiyue paused, indeed, she's paralyzed. And it's because of that bastard, her life was controlled… But no more, not this time!
"Unraveled the world!" she breathed out, almost screaming it out of conviction and promise, feeling surge of emotions in her chest. Determination, hatred, Resentment, and also motivation.
"I'm not what I was then…" that's right, I am no longer the weakling and helpless Huang Beiyue and yet I still am the same… but obviously life had made her what she is today, even if it tale several lifetimes to do so.
"Don't touch the infection…
Entwined, we will both die.
So stay away and stay alive." She glanced at the worried and awed Dongling and Zhonglei.
Huang Beiyue is not whom she was back then… She's… Tainted, in a sense. And these two… They will be tainted by her colors if they get too close… Beiyue doesn't… She wants to preserve that life in them. But at the same time, she want stop keep them so close and not let go. It's selfish, greedy, and horrible of her to even think of that yet she couldn't help it.
"I'm breakable, unbreakable.
I'm shakable, unshakable.
Unraveling since I found you…" she felt like all the ugly thoughts and emotions is being released in this world, ah, she may be the same soul but the experience changed her. This world, even if she lived it once, it's nothing like… It's not going to be the same. Even if this is her first life, its not the same and counted as the Fourth Life instead.
"And now I'm turning into dust in a world that's twisted!
Don't come searching when I go missing!
Close your eyes or just try to look away!" she looked at Dongling and Zhonglei as if pleading them to look away from what a monster she had become, "Don't want to hurt you…" her voice cracked there form the emotions that even if she pushed them away. She hoped, oh she hoped that they will be able to accept her as she is now.
"We lived in a world someone else imagined!
The ghost of what's left of me all but vanished!
Remember my heart, how bright I used shine!" in a sense, indeed, the Huang Beiyue long ago had disappeared. Tempered down, jaded, and scared from all the battles she had fought for so long. But that's not all there is. She learned to be strong, she learned to fight back… She learned her lesson and adopted as well as find a way.
"Please, just don't forget me…
Don't forget me…
Don't forget me…
Don't forget me…
Don't forget me!" but deep inside her, she didn't want to be forgot. That Huang Beiyue, she doesn't want to be forgotten, how selfishly foolish. She doesn't blame her, because no one wants to be forgotten, specially yourself. The pain of doing is unbearable and uncomfortable. Specially when you look back and realized before questioning when did you start to lose yourself.
"We lived in a world someone else imagined!
The ghost of what's left of me all but vanished!
Remember my heart, how bright I used shine!" even if I change, will you still remember the weak one before? Will you still treasure her as you would swear loyalty to me?
"Oh, can you tell me?
Can you tell me…
A monster in my heart…
And now there's nothing left… " Huang Beiyue suddenly felt exhausted with what she would face in the future.
There was silence.
Before she knew it, she was embraced tightly by the two. Its definitely should not be done but for now, they didn't care.
Because at that time, Dongling and Zhonglei felt if they don't hold Beiyue, it felt like she would disappear to somewhere they couldn't follow. And it… That thought scared so much
"Princess, it's okay, it's alright. We're here"
"You're not a monster, Third Sister. You will never be a monster in our eyes."
Ye Lian agreed, "We are shaped by our experience and circumstances in life. None of us are really monsters. We just learned to adapt and survive, even if it's in an unpleasant way. Everyone wants to survive and live."
Akane who had woken up briefly, "Our environment has played a role in it as well. We do have a choice but who can blame us? We are still children and allowed the world to shape us. Now it is our turn to not let other experience what we did. Even if we are monsters, so what? Can't monsters be good too? There are also humans who are bad and worse! No one should condemned someone who seek redemption."
"So relax, Beiyue. We are here for you. This time, you are no alone. You have us now."
Huang Beiyue prove herself that even years of experience is shit when finally confronting your heart demons and reassured that you're not alone. She will not deny the tittle crybaby this time because, without shame, she cried out and released all the other pent up emotions.
The two held her tightly in the real world and two more held her mentally.
Yes… Indeed, she is not alone. This time… She has them to keep her grounded.