Huichen

Chapter 2: a bad wind

"Kyeh" cursed Chai under his breath. He never liked moving, and now they'd been walking for days, with barely anything to eat or drink. It was about the end of the rope for a 9 year old's strength. Hui luckily had good cultivation, but even Shi was beginning to feel it. They stayed together as best they could, trying to remain near the middle of the crowd and were one of the lucky ones who'd avoided the beatings of the demonic sect so they really had little to complain about, except the basic fact that they were now captured by members of the demonic sect. Hui had noticed rather quickly, after not only seeing their brutality and martial arts, but also noticing the logo they all displayed on their black and red robes. They were one of the most well known of demonic cults, the black sun cult.

Hui did her best to comfort Chai, and checked on Shi to make sure he was doing alright. She understood that this was probably another smash to his ego, not only was he of dirty blood, unlike his half brothers, but he also had no talent like Ye, in fact, when they had examined Hui, they also found just enough talent to put her somewhere in the outer sect, but she had rejected it, not only because she knew it involved mostly menial chores if she took it up, but also to take care of her two brothers still at home. Shi seemed to resent her for this, making their relationship strained. Time had passed since then, and after treating him as gently as possible, Shi had eventually forgotten to a degree, and they were once more a united family. However, now shi's life was even more miserable, having been captured by a demonic cult when he was just at the age that boys would run off to war or start a trade or something. It was very unlucky for him. Hui was only glad he was still young enough to not end up slaughtered like the rest of the men of the village, but Shi took it as they didn't see him as a man and was frustrated instead. Hui took out the food she'd saved from earlier, stale bread, baked with old grain, and broke it into two, to share with her brothers. Chai took it with thanks, and Shi stopped glaring at the world for a bit.

Hui was content. She knew she'd done her job right when her two brothers didn't even think twice about that fact that she gave her whole breakfast to them. They only got two meals a day, and each one was merely a small loaf of hard bread in the morning, and a bowl of broth in the evening. They were passing over a desert, so the only water they got was at nightfall and the morning when they were passed around a bucket to drink from. 

However, the never ending walking was killing them, and after almost half a month, most of the kids had lost almost a third to half of their weight.

The cult members constantly watched them, and one of them, who Hui had nicknamed 'the meddler' since he couldn't keep his nose out of any of the prisoner's business, currently had his eyes on Hui. Knowing whoever had his eye usually ended up with a beating, Hui decided to look down quickly. But that didn't stop him from walking over to her, and picking her up by her collar, pulling her away from the line, lifting her up to his face, his spit hitting her in the eye as spoke.

"Do you think this walk is a joke? Giving away your food like that?"

She immediately made a pained, apologetic look. "No, I'm sorry, I was wrong, sir/uncle!"

The meddler seemed confused by her response. Before he became extremely scary, his one eye flashing with anger. "Do I not look scary to you?"

Hui wasn't sure how to respond, but knowing apologizing wasn't the way, immediately shrunk back. "Yes, yes, sir/uncle is very scary." She whined, hiding her face.

The meddler's fierceness immediately disappeared. As he stopped holding her by her collar and pulled her into an embrace. "Don't worry, I'm not scary."

Hui was even more confused, but decided to play along. She peaked out from behind her hands, looking up to the chin now above her, as his arm supported her legs in a sitting position. "Really?"

"Yes, in fact, people think I'm very scary, but I'm actually a really nice guy! You can call me Big Bro!"

"Oh? Big bro is nice?" Hui at this point was having a sort of sarcastic moment, playing along, hugely curious about where he was going with this nonsense. A guy who murdered an entire town and took the children, torturing them along the way, is nice? What a lie! Stop trying to brainwash little kids!

"Yes, yes, here! Have a piece of jerky!"

"Ooh!" she grabbed it in excitement. "Thank you, big bro!" She made sure to kiss him first, and the man, who was planning to steal the jerky back before she had a chance to eat it, was struck stock still, by the time he'd recovered, she'd already stuffed the whole thing in her mouth. You want to trick me? You are 100 years too early!

However, instead of trying to pull it out of her mouth, the Meddler seemed to find her antics funny and instead burst out laughing. "Well well, I'll say, you eat so fast! Want another one?"

She shook her head cutely. "Nope! Big bro is all I need!" She said as she reached up to try to hug the Meddler's head, curious about how far she could take this joke. Only, to her surprise the guy with snake eyes, long black hair, slicked back without a tie, with slim robes, an eyepatch, and scars covering the entire face, let her do as she pleased.

For such a merciless man, she was surprised he hadn't killed her, but well, if you're falling down a chasm, why not ride on the top of a train car going down there?

"Really? This big bro is all you need?" The meddler found this extremely entertaining. And Hui thanked her baby face for convincing him that all she said was real. "Then I guess you won't need to stay here any longer!"

Hui: "!"