Author's notes

A-ji meets...

She decides...

The prison guards stay...

Chapter 36 – Re-encounter after capture

A-ji prepared to treat him and began to observe the currents in his tail in search of the origin using her hidden pulse, as she was self-taught, learning by herself and then improving her development thanks to the help of her friends.

The princess remembered when she walked alone with books to learn by herself and her sister looked down on her for having no one to teach her, unlike her who had as her shifu the most powerful demon master of the present time and who held the title of grandmaster, Ning Qing.

A-ji learned to accept it silently and just bowed while praying in her mind that her older sister would be in a good mood because if the crown princess was in a bad mood she would torture her as she always did until she felt satisfied by making the younger one's life even more miserable. The second princess also clearly remembered when the emperor and empress had commented that it would be a waste of time to assign anyone to teach her while simultaneously showing her their usual cold eyes, even though she had grown accustomed to such gazes.

After all, these cold gazes had always followed her for as long as she could remember.

She only saw opposing views from her lord Dai Di, Li Haoqing, Ru Jun, Qu Xiaoxing and Luo Jinsang because they were some of the exceptions, and for the young girl, Dai Di was considered a grandfather to her and not just her lord, making his murder an extremely brutal blow to A-ji.

In fact, because of these few people who treated her well, the princess was willing to take any punishment for her actions in their place. She would never allow them to be punished.

Then, leaving her memories while questioning herself as to why she remembered them at that moment, the young woman follows with her gaze the chains that restricted the tail to their origin and which came from a type of arrow that was removed by her after being partially out during the merman's battle against his torturer, causing all the chains to fall to the ground with a crash, and then vanish into thin air along with the arrow without leaving any traces.

A-Ji felt pitiful when she saw that the tail was in tatters, with scales turned or missing that revealed the flesh and bloody cuts as if a blade had been sharpened on the skin, although the young woman knew that they were the result of the lightning that cut at the same time. when they burned.

At least without the chains on his tail, his dangling arms carried less weight.

When the princess looked at him again, who apparently felt nothing at first glance, the young woman was relieved to see that there was a sudden relaxation of the merman's body and that his eyes had faintly returned to the ice blue of before, and then, fixate on the girl, recognizing her as the one he saved.

As recognition flashed in his gaze, the jiaoren narrowed his eyes, looking at her intently as the purest anger was visible in them, with the demon master not condemning him because it was all her fault. The intensity of the furious gaze makes her feel chills to the point of making her lower her head at the same time that she was overcome by shame, with A-ji accepting the treatment given to her because he was not wrong to feel angry with her.

The young woman also regretted having incurred yet another debt that seemed unpayable considering what she had witnessed.

After all, even if he punished her in a similar way, her body wouldn't be able to withstand even a quarter of what he had endured, and even if he could, it wouldn't be enough to repay his debt.

In fact, the young woman feared that she would never be able to pay off the seemingly unpayable debt and as she reflected on this, the overwhelming guilt massacred her heart and mind at the same time as it joined the other regrets that she had accumulated in her short life up until that moment. Her debts just piled up relentlessly without giving her any means to pay them off, making her despair internally.

Stoically, the princess pushes such feelings and thoughts to the corner of her mind and heart because she had to treat him and for that, she needed to act like her older sister to gain obedience from the guards. Wiping away the tears that threatened to well up in her eyes, the young woman took a deep breath and stood up, seeing both guards looking at her apprehensively while fear was visible in their eyes.

After A-ji stands up, she assumes Ru Ling's authoritative posture, voice and gaze, starting to speak in an authoritative manner that does not accept any objection, "Move the mechanism to lower the merman!"

The guards weakly threaten to refuse, making the princess remember what her sister did to those who dared to question her because she herself had felt it several times on her skin.

Quickly, the young woman makes seals with her hands, making a golden whip appear and with a kick after gathering her spiritual power to increase her natural strength, she opens the cell door wide and slams it on its hinges, making them look in astonishment at A-ji who abruptly slams the whip violently on the floor, and then lowers his face to the level of the fallen guards who were terrified after getting over their initial stupor, "How dare you disobey me?"

"But..."

"Apparently, this cell is so pathetic that it cannot hold a merman. This means that you dared to tell lies to the royal family. After all, in the letters sent to the palace, you said that the demon was in the best prison and that it was impossible for him to escape. Apparently, you lied. Imagine how my parents and sister will feel when they find out about this lie?" She spoke in a threatening tone while maintaining an authoritarian and belligerent face, with the whip being brandished again, making the sound of the crack reverberate throughout the place.

Promptly, the guards kneeled down begging for mercy while saying that it was not a lie because they knew the penalty of lying to the emperor.

One of them stood up with shaky legs and hurriedly activated the device to lower the jiaoren.

Remembering that her sister loved to crack the whip she summoned and that she always made a point of insisting on her dominance and arrogance as well as her need to impose fear in various ways on those she considered inferior, A-ji brandishes the whip again as she speaks, hiding the disgust she feels when remembering how her sister used the whip that was her favorite weapon, "I hope I was clear. Are you going to disobey me, again?"

"No." They speak in a whisper.

"Now, stay outside!"

"Yes!"

The one who was standing helps his fallen colleague to get up and with both tripping over their own feet they run weakly outside, trying to disappear as quickly as possible from the young woman's sight.

Then, the princess turns around and after entering, undoes the whip and goes back to treating the jiaoren while she can't look at him because of the guilt and shame that plagues her relentlessly.

Finally, the tail is on the ground as well as his weakened body covered in wounds.

The young woman promptly opened the bag and took out the medicines, noting that many would be useful for the state the jiaoren was in. After separating what she needed, she carefully looked at the wounds on the shark's body, starting with the head and then looking down, deciding to focus only on the state of the skin and scales. The princess realized that despite him being weakly awake, she could still feel the merman's eyes on her and when she gained the courage to look at him, the crown prince of the oceans turned his face rigidly away from her, making the young woman sigh because she was absolutely certain that he blamed her for what happened, even though he was right to blame her in her eyes. After all, if she had drowned in the ship's cabin, they would never have met and he would not have ended up being fished out of the coast by the grandmaster of demons at Ru Ling's request. Then, remembering a useful spell, she conjured condensed water and moistened all the fish scales that were dry, cracked and deformed on the shark's tail and even though they were still marked because of the injuries, they were in a much better state than before, allowing the girl to vaguely remember the former splendor instead of the bloody and faded tail she found when entering the prison.

A-ji realized that the jiaoren ended up falling asleep after losing the battle against unconsciousness, with the young girl believing that it was due to the fact that he could no longer bear the exhaustion in his body, whereas before he was only fighting against the inevitable unconsciousness that wanted to take him.

As she began to treat the merman, she remembered that the brothers had said that it was rare to find any medicine to treat internal damage from demons when they brought the bag because it was common sense among demon masters to never heal internal wounds even of those who were "tamed," as they loved to term them, so that they could not replenish the demonic power that had been consumed.

Therefore, with great difficulty, they obtained one of the best high-quality medicines, Ningxue Wan, for internal injuries and which was refined in the Demon Valley, with both of them obtaining four capsules at her request.

However, to her despair, he refused to take the medicine, with the young woman not condemning him for his act when considering the suffering he experienced, as well as his distrust towards her after the recent events.

A-Ji confessed that she was surprised that even unconscious, the merman managed to keep his jaws locked with her, believing that it was not only to avoid putting something in his mouth. It was also so that he would not scream if they came to punish him later and as she analyzed it from that angle, she could see how proud he was.

After all, for the jiaoren it did not matter how much he was tortured and humiliated. He would not satisfy his tormentor or any other human. Sealing his jaws tightly was a way for him to avoid screaming so as not to satisfy his torturer while at the same time wanting to remain firm and stoic. As she thought about it, she agreed that he did indeed represent the ocean in all its pride and power.

In fact, in her view, it could be considered a crime for a human to desire as much symbolic power in the form of subjugating the merman as he would subjugating the ocean.