It was not a kiss of gentle comfort, but one of deliberate, powerful distraction. It was ant to overwhelm her senses, to pull her from the abyss of her fractured mories and anchor her firmly in the present, in him.
For a long mont, she stiffened, the shock of it overriding the pain. Then, a broken sob lted into the kiss as her body went limp against his, the fight draining out of her.
When he finally pulled away, she was breathless, her mind blanketed in a temporary, stunned calm. Her headache had receded to a dull throb, and the sharp edges of the nightmare had blurred beyond recognition.
Seeing her fragile state, Huo Ting Cheng looked up and gave a sharp, silent nod to a guard stationed by the elevator. The man moved with quiet efficiency, retrieving a small, locked case from a concealed cabinet in the office wall. He brought it over, along with a glass of water.
Huo Ting Cheng opened the case, revealing two small, distinctive tablets. He took one, his movents sure.
"Here," he said, his voice softening into an uncompromising gentleness. He brought the tablet to her lips. "This will help the pain. Swallow."
Dazed and exhausted, Tang Fei obeyed without question, washing the pill down with the water he held for her. He then fed her the second one, a powerful tranquilizer he knew would grant her the oblivion she desperately needed.
"Just relax," he instructed, stroking her hair as he settled her back against the cushions. "Let it go. I’m here."
The dications worked with swift, brutal efficiency. The tension seeped from her muscles, her eyelids fluttered shut, and within minutes, her breathing evened out into the deep, unnaturally still rhythm of drugged sleep. She was unconscious, safely pulled back from the precipice.
Only when she was completely under did the carefully controlled mask on Huo Ting Cheng’s face slip. He stood, his back to Huo Wu, looking down at Tang Fei’s peacefully sleeping form, a stark contrast to the agony of monts before.
Huo Wu approached quietly, his voice laced with concern. Luckily, he had sent Twilight to handle so things at the halls, "Sixth Master... was... she rembering?"
Huo Ting Cheng didn’t turn. His hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. "It was always a possibility," he stated, his voice cold and flat. "Erasing mories was never a permanent solution. The mind has a way of fighting back. The foundations remain; the emotions... the trauma. They always find a crack to seep through."
He finally turned, and the look in his eyes was one of grim, pained resolve. "But I will not let her rember. Not like this. Not ever." He glanced back at her, his gaze lingering on her face. "If she ever truly recalls what happened that night... if she rembers his face, his blood... she wouldn’t survive it. It would shatter her completely."
He walked back to his desk, the weight of his secret and his choice settling heavily upon him. He would rather bear the burden of her stolen past and her fleeting nightmares himself than watch her be destroyed by the unendurable truth. His protection of her was absolute, even if it ant guarding her from her own mind.
The soft hiss of the elevator doors announced Huo Qi’s return. He stepped into the tense silence, his sharp eyes missing nothing. There was the dical case on the table, normally used for ergencies, Tang Fei’s deeply sedated form, and the grim expressions on Huo Ting Cheng and Huo Wu’s faces. He had caught the tail end of their conversation.
"She’s rembering?" Huo Qi asked, his voice low and laced with surprise. He looked directly at Huo Ting Cheng, a hint of grim validation in his gaze. "Sixth Master, with all respect... I warned you. mory suppression was never a feasible long-term solution. The psyche fights to reclaim its history, no matter how painful it is, you know the situation can never be permanent."
Huo Ting Cheng’s composure, already fractured, finally splintered. He turned on Huo Qi, his eyes blazing with a raw, painful fury that was as much directed at himself as at them.
"Feasible?" he bit out, the word a venomous whisper. "What was feasible, Huo Qi? Tell ! What other solution did I have? What other choices do you think I had then?"
He took a step forward, the ghost of that terrible ti clawing its way to the surface. "When I woke up from that three-month coma, what did we find? She was gone! Not just physically, but shattered! Her mind was a ruin!"
The mories, long buried under layers of control, poured out in a torrent of anguished images.... "She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. Her entire body trembled incessantly. She was a ghost, murmuring about the people she’d killed... and then she’d scream, over and over, that she had killed him with her own hands!" His voice cracked, the sound unnerving in the sterile quiet of the room.
"Her own family she had protected, betrayed him, for she had thrown her away like garbage. We found her loitering in the filth of the streets, unrecognizable, dressed in rags, her feet bare and bleeding. She was beyond reach, Huo Qi," He looked from Huo Qi to Huo Wu, his gaze pleading for an understanding he knew they couldn’t truly give. "The doctors, the specialists... they all said the sa thing. She was beyond normal. They told she might never find her way back."
He ran a hand through his nicely done hair, a rare gesture of utter desperation. "And she was carrying my child. My child Huo Qi, what else could I have done? Let her and our baby waste away in so institution? Let her be consud by a guilt that wasn’t even hers to bear? Yes, she made a mistake, but she doesn’t have to bear anything for that filthy family that played her... I should have destroyed them all..."
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