#pbss

•×•×•×•

"Sword Saint! Fancy meeting you here!" (Y/N) exclaimed cheerfully as she ran up to Chung Myung.

"Huh? Who were you again? I'm getting old so my memory isn't that great anymore" he replied scratching his cheek as he looked down at (Y/N).

"Eh, what? You haven't actually forgotten me have you?" she giggled, taking out a bottle from inside her robes.

"Oh what, ofcourse not haha. What a wild idea!" he grinned snatching up the bottle in the blink of an eye.

'Old man my ass, he drinks like a fish even now!' (Y/N) thought, a vein popping up on her forehead, a devilish smile on her face.

Chung Myung started chugged started chugging down the contents of the bottle but soon spit it out.

"What the hell is this? Why is it so bitter?!"

"Nothing's free in the world sword saint, and what is will always have something wrong with it! Ofcourse this isn't liquor, instead I filled the bottle with bitter gourd juice!"

"What? YAHH YOU!! Who fills a white gourd bottle with bitter gourd juice, huh? Is this your way of jesting with me? Sheesh I can't trust anyone now!"

"Hahaha, it's healthy so you should drink it!" (Y/N) said, dodging Chung Myung's try at a whack on her head.

(Y/N) took out another bottle from her robes and passed it to Chung Myung.

"Here, drink this one!"

"I'm not falling for that again! Knowing you, it's probably something worse that just bitter gourd juice this time."

"Ahh, trust me, trust me. Look I'll take a sip too!" (Y/N) said, proceeding to take a sip from the bottle.

"Hah! Sweet alcohol! There you go, if you want it you can have it!" she giggled as she dangled the bottle in front of him.

Chung Myung studied her face for a second, looking for any weird expression and snatched the bottle form her hands.

"Fine, fine if you say so." Saying that, he took a sip from the bottle and threw it down instantly, puking out the liquid.

"YOU!! SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THIS NOW?"

(Y/N) laughed loudly and backed away.

"It's... pfft... HAHAHA... ok ok, sorry, it's heh... it's months stale soup!"

"YOU BRAT! EVEN YOU DRANK IT DIDN'T YOU? WOULD YOU GO TO SUCH LENGTHS TO PRANK AN OLD MAN?"

"Hahahaha, ofcourse I had to drink a little, but then again you have to lose something to gain something!"

"Hah! At what cost even, you truly are insufferable" he sighed as they continued to walk down the road.

•×•×•×•

A letter. (Y/N) stared at the chest in front of her, putting the letter inside it and slowly closing the lid. When everyone had left and the bodies had all been collected from the ten thousand mountain range, only she remained on this distant land, far from Shanxi and her sect.

She looked behind her shoulder at the blood soaked ground, the stale smell of iron floating around in the air. The hole in the soil that she had made looked out of place for a battlefield. She got up with the chest in hand and leaped down the hole, into the small cave she had made.

What a day it had been. She was tired... very tired. But it was alright. Soon she could rest. She laid down the chest on one side and covered it with soil and plopped down, leaning her back towards the walls of the cave. Slowly she unsheathed her sword her hands trembling. It felt heavy. Much heavier than ever before, even heavier than when she hsd made her first kill or masccared a force of the demonic sect. Much, much heavier and sluggish than when she had realised how many people she killed or when she got to know she couldn't help in the final showdown against the heavenly demon.

The guilt had weighed her down a lot then and over the past week it had started to eat her from the inside. She felt hollow as she did the work assigned to her, or when she helped carry the martyrs of war to their final resting place. She didn't feel hollow anymore though, she was scared. Her eyes were shut tight, tighter than her hands holding the handle of her sword.