The Inconceivable Flame: A Fallen Angel's Disguise

Madness; it lies somewhere between the chaos of insanity and the beautiful dreams we hold of reality. All of us hide some madness within ourselves. And you can’t possibly figure out a person until you’ve seen the madness they are concealing.

There is nothing wrong with the person who has the courage to show you his madness. We should be wary of the ones who never even learned the extent of their own madness.

In the past years, Ru ruled over people with her madness as her sole companion. She always fancied the idea of it.

She let the insanity toil with her,

While her madness devour her

In her journey to learn the reality;

Insanity prevailed her stance of sanity

Standing on the edge of insomnia and calamity

She walked in the abyss of darkness superciliously.

She was so intoxicated by madness

That she fell in love with her own sadness...

But seeing Xiao Zhi-Ren’s relationship with his half-sister brought a strange feeling to Ru’s heart. For the first time in a long while, she desired someone who could understand her madness without judging her. She closed her eyes and only one person came to her mind.

She didn’t go to her condominium building that night and went straight to the bamboo house she had built on the outskirts of the city in the mountains.

"Adia, bring the girl who attacked me in London." Adia was taken aback a bit to hear the orders but she knew, questioning her master would only bring her trouble. Therefore, she stayed quiet and left to work on the order she received.

In two days, when Adia brought the mute assassin to Ru, she was still in the same bamboo house fiddling around with chemicals.

"Master, she’s here!" Adia informed Ru while she was staring intently at the strange concoction of herbs.

Hearing Adia’s voice, Ru picked up a syringe and filled it with that liquid. She came to the courtyard where the mute assassin girl was tied up against the tree.

Ru took slow but steady steps and stood right in front of the chained girl who had a murderous look in her eyes as if trying to kill Ru with her looks. But if looks could kill, Ru would have been long dead.

"Go back to your original positions. Leave us alone," Ru waved off her group of people who reluctantly shared a look with each other. "Do I need to repeat myself?" Although her voice was still deep and low, they could feel the change in the meaning behind it. Within minutes, the courtyard was empty with only Ru and the mute girl standing facing each other.

The chained figure was inflamed while the other figure before her was nonchalant. Both kept having a staring competition for a long while. In the end, Ru sighed heavily feeling the helplessness of that mute girl. For the first time in her life, she was feeling pity for someone.

She pulled out the syringe from her pocket and looked straight into sinister eyes before her. "Right now, whatever I say will have no effect on you. You’re like that mad dog who has lost his ability to differentiate. So, before I offer anything. I need to wake you up from your slumber."

The mute girl tried hard to tug at the chains gritting her teeth but it didn’t work. Ru didn’t care about her efforts of trying to escape, she injected the liquid straight into her neck.

Ru had been experimenting on the same girl’s blood since she had faced her. She wasn’t sure if her personal creation would be able to fix the girl before her but she was certain that the mixture would allow this young girl to think for herself again.

After injecting the liquid, Ru unchained her and threw the chains away. The girl had a splitting headache but on instinct, she lunged to attack Ru with all her strength. Ru nimbly turned to her right side and held her arm to twist it. Her one hand had twisted the girl’s arms behind her back while her other arm came around her neck to put her in a headlock.

The girl tried to kick Ru’s knee but Ru had already caged her legs by twisting her own leg with hers.

"Seeing your feisty personality, I’ve come up with a name for you... I’ll call you Lilith." Saying that Ru pushed her away making her fall on the ground.

"Let’s play a game," Ru started as she pulled out a stick of cigarette and continued, "Since you want to kill me, I’ll give you a chance to do that." The other girl who she just named Lilith was shaking her head as she felt strange sensations all over her body and most of all, her brain. But listening to Ru’s voice, she stopped and lifted her face to stare at her indecisively. "We’ll play two rounds. The first round will end when this cigarette of mine ends and in that round, I won’t counterattack. As for the second round..." she smiled boldly. "You will know when we get to it."

"There are no rules. But there is a reward if even the tip of your nail managed to touch me, I’ll let you walk away from here freely." Because of the medicine in her body, Lilith could understand Ru’s meaning which shook her a bit.

Noticing the flicker in her eyes, Ru knew that she had managed to get her attention. She lit up her cigarette and said, "Your time starts now!"

As her words fell, Lilith stood up and curled her hand into a tight fist. She was trying to aim for Ru’s face and from Ru’s experience, she could tell that the punch was solid. But Lilith had underestimated Ru’s ability. The girl who was languidly puffing out rings of smoke agilely jumped in the air and did a backward somersault with perfection.

But Lilith’s attack didn’t stop, she was enraged even more and she tried to slam her hand into Ru’s ribs. This time, Ru turned sideways right before her hand could even touch Ru’s jacket. The attack from Lilith continued as she tried to kick, punch or even scratch Ru but for the next five minutes, all her hands and legs touched was air.

After five minutes, Ru threw the cigarette butt to the ground and stubbed it with her shoe as she said, "Round one is over!" The languid smile turned into a solemn look as she added, "Now, it’s my turn."

Lilith felt the change in her green eyes and her heart jolted. She didn’t even get a chance to move when Ru’s palm landed straight to her chest throwing her quite far away. Lilith spurted out blood as her body landed on the cobblestones. She felt a piercing pain in her chest as if a boulder had hit her brutally.

After this blow, her mind was a lot clearer than before and she took this chance to observe the tall figure before her eyes. Ru’s green eyes looked beautiful but she realized that those eyes held the same pain as she had.

As Ru walked slowly towards her, Lilith tried to get up but her body felt shattered. When Ru crouched down before her, she tried to cower away with fear in her eyes.

Pulling two things out of her jacket, Ru placed them on the ground and said, "Since I won, now, it’s time for a decision... You have to choose one of these things and it’ll decide what future holds for you."

Lilith frowned as her eyes looked at one of the things on the ground; a small dagger. "If you choose the dagger, I’ll kill you plainly. Don’t forget, you are of no use to me since even you have no idea who turned you into a killing machine. So, killing you plainly is the only mercy I can offer." Lilith gulped visibly and looked at the other thing; black rose. "And if you choose the black rose... Then I can help you."

Lilith stared wide-eyed at Ru with disbelief in her eyes. "I’ll help in fixing the effects of their experiments on your body as for healing your mind, that’s all up to you." Ru stood up to leave and passed her last words, "Choose wisely."