Two nights after Tang Daiyu and Tang Bao were put on house arrest…

Tang Daiyu had just put Baobao to bed. She sighed sadly and went over to the table and poured herself a cup of now-cold tea. As she stared at the residue of tea leaves in her cup, a whoosh of robes sounded off to the side of her. Whipping around, she watched as a black-clothed, masked man entered the room. Fear instantly gripped her, and her spine went straight. She swallowed slowly.

"Do not be afraid, Ms. Tang. I'm here to help you," the man's deep bass voice murmured quietly.

"Ni- ni shi shei?" Who are you?

"I'm afraid I cannot tell you my name. But, I can teach you something that will help you in the future."

"Why do you want to help me?"

"Because... your destiny is a special one."

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Why should I believe you?"

"Do you want revenge for your family or not?"

Her guard flew up immediately. "How do you know what happened to my family?"

"How I know doesn't matter. What matters is if you want to be strong enough to rise up and go head-to-head with Emperor Jianyuan in the future."

Tang Daiyu looked towards her sleeping brother. She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. Finally, her eyelids fluttered open, and she looked towards the man in black.

"What would I be learning?"

"A very special and rare martial art."

"What's it called?"

"Hei Siwang."

Her face shifted with confusion. "Hei Siwang? I've never heard of that before."

"As I said, it's very special and rare. There’s very few martial artists who use it. Though I will warn you, it comes at a very high cost."

"What?"

"You will eventually degrade yourself. Your qi will grow more and more impure until it finally deviates and destroys you. But at your peak, your power will be so powerful that no one will be able to compare to you."

After weighing the pros and cons, Tang Daiyu finally made her choice.

"Alright. What do I have to do?"

~~~

A year and a half later, Tang Daiyu was mastering Hei Siwang very well. Her power had indeed surged, and she was growing stronger by the day.

One night, as she was mediating, working on cultivating her qi, she asked quietly, "Shifu, if I ever wanted, could I undo the side-effects Hei Siwang?"

He looked at her. She nearly cringed away under his imposing gaze.

Finally, he answered, "There is one way."

Slightly perking up, she pushed onward, "What is it?"

"To switch qi's."

Tang Daiyu fell silent. Her master eyed her.

He continued, "If someone with pure qi was willing to switch theirs with yours, then you'd be free. But they'd take your impure qi, accepting the side-effects of Hei Siwang. And you can never use the martial arts of Hei Siwang again, otherwise the sacrifice would be meaningless."

She looked away. Digging through her memories, she latched onto something.

The only person who I can think of that'd be willing to do this is Zhou-ge. But I haven't seen him for years. I don't even know if he remembers me.

Not wanting to think about the matter any longer, she changed the subject. "What's next that I have to learn?"

The graveness in the air lifted, and her training resumed.

~~~

A few nights before the second anniversary of their parents' deaths, her master came in, a dark look in his eyes. Her eyebrows furrowed.

"Shifu, what is it?"

"I'm going to teach you a skill that's very difficult to master. It's called Four Winding Snakes. I will say this though, Four Winding Snakes should only be used in times of true dire need. It isn't for using recklessly."

"Why?"

"Because it draws directly from your impure qi and if executed wrongly, it will be detrimental to your cultivation and potentially kill you."

Why is everything about Hei Siwang able to kill me?

"I understand, Shifu."

"Good. Now, I want you to close your eyes."

Tang Daiyu followed each of his instructions carefully. Once he had taught her the steps to the skill, he monitored her as she went through the steps again.

"When practising, you can only ever go through the steps. If you try to use your qi during a practice and not the real thing, well, I wouldn't recommend that."

She nodded in understanding. Satisfied, he turned to leave. But in a moment of sentiment, he turned around.

"Xiao Tang, I hope that you'll never have to use Four Winding Snakes."

And then... he was gone.

Warm orange sunlight began to peek in through the closed shutters on the windows. Tang Daiyu looked over at her sleeping brother.

Dear Guanyin, what have I done? How could I abandon my own brother like this?