Eternal Beloved

Chapter 7

They were late to arrive at the meeting. Deming wasted ten minutes to find her a change, insisting that she is not going out in the nightdress despite the fact that no human but spirits and those with the Sight can see her and in her world, no one bothered by what others wore. The drive itself took another thirty minutes from the estate to the office building but no one seems particularly offended by their tardiness.

Judging from the way they were welcomed, Deming appeared to be of higher ranking compared to others in the room though he doesn’t look the part throughout the meeting that was conducted by Yuan.

For the first time, she heard him speaking more than a sentence and he seems to have a flair for words when he want to. Deming, on the other hand, is happily sleeping in his chairs, occasionally waking up to agree with whatever Yuan says before continuing his peaceful nap.

She was wrong to think that she’s bored getting cooped up in the living quarter. Getting dragged into a meeting by Deming is far worst as she literally has to sit down for two hours straight doing nothing but staring and memorizing each of the faces presence. Deming forbade her from roaming around the building without his presence, reminding her that she is not accustomed to the place.

Her patience grows thin on the third hour as she sneaks out of the meeting room, knowing Yuan can’t particularly stopping her without looking crazy while Deming looks like he’s far into the dreamland. She entered the first room that she encounter only to be disappointed as it turns out to be a file room, which provides her with zero distraction that she needs.

The rest of the floor appeared to be more file rooms and stores that she decided to ascend to the next floor. With a soft ping, the doors opened, revealing an empty elevator except for women in his late twenties with her head buries into her phone. Silently, Yu Qi slips into the elevator, trying to be discreet though she’s aware the stranger can’t exactly see her.

Her blood runs cold when the woman looks up from her phone. From the reflection on the elevator’s wall, she could see the woman is staring into her back. “Who are you? How do you manage to enter this building?”

Out of confusion, she looks around for another presence before realizing, the woman is talking to her. With a closer inspection, she recognised her as a hunter, most probably another Gao. Yu Qi inches toward the door, rather unwilling to explain herself. Sensing her intention, the hunter hurl toward her, grabbing a handful of her jacket at the same time the doors open. Yu Qi ducked out of her reach, shrugging out of her jacket as she jumped out of the elevator and bolted toward the staircase.

Ten years of experiences, climbing up and down the staircase enable her to skip three steps at a time without looking and burst through the meeting room ahead of the hunter. Ignoring the confused faces, she runs toward Deming who look very much awake (and angry) and scrambled to hide beside him.

The hunter appears at the door frame seconds later with her jacket in one hand, wrenching the door open, startling everyone inside the room again.

“Sorry.” she stammered as she scanned the room, without a doubt searching for her. Her face went from crimson to pale when she saw Yu Qi kneeling next to Deming, who’s straightened up in his seat in a protective stance. The hunter bow once before she closed the door, the sound of her steps fading away.

“What happens?” Deming asked, squeezing her hand softly that somehow ended up on his knee. She pulled her hand away quickly as she rose to her feet, smiling reassuringly. “Nothing really, she caught me roaming around and got suspicious, well no spirits should be able to cross the barrier you placed around this area,” she explains as she settles down on the empty chair next to him.

 Deming stared at her with discontent but decided to hold back as all the eyes on in the room directed toward him.

Sighing heavily, he stood up and motion Yuan to take over the meeting as he towed her out of the room, inviting more curious look as in the eyes of the mortal, he looks like he is grabbing the air.

Yu Qi has to jog to keep up with his long stride as he dragged her toward the end of the hallway into an artificially lighted up tunnel. Before she could get accustomed to the bright light, the tunnel end and they arrived in another private lounging area. Glancing through the huge window, Yu Qi realizes they have reached the second tower that connected to the main building.

“Are you okay?” Deming asked and without warning he runs his hands through her body, searching for any sign of assault. Startled, she slapped his hands away and step away into a safe distance from him.

“One of this day, I’ll cut that hand of yours if you can’t keep it to yourself.” she threatens, scrutinizing his hands suspiciously. He finally seems to accept that she is okay seeing her defensive act.

“Did she saw your face?” Deming asks as he sits on one of the nearest couch. Despite his recent outburst when he dragged her through the building, there’s still a sunken look on his pale face that she finally able to see properly now he’s awake. A familiar effect that she knew once she saw one.

To his inquisitive expression, she nodded once as she kneels next to him for a closer inspection.

“You didn’t just bind my spirit to your qi, aren’t you? You gave me a better half of it to me that night. That’s the reason why you keep on sleeping to the edge of comatose.” she accused, staring him in a mixture of awe and disbelieves. In awe at his stupidity to go to that extent for her, a random spirit that he barely knew.

She has spent two whole days thinking of his motive to choose her but none seems to make any sense and that was before she knew of his little stunt. To say she is baffled right now is rather an understatement.

“Don’t make that face, you scared me with whatever brewing inside your head. Stop overthinking. No permanent harm is done. Besides you won’t be around any more if I didn’t do that and I can’t let anything happen to my little spirit shadow, can I?” he replied with a little shrug as he reached over, mussing up her hair.

Reflectively she catch his hand, seconds away from biting him but those dark shadows under his eyes stop her. She’ll let him go this once.   

“That’s new. Had I know I can tame you this way, I’ll tell you earlier,” he said in between chuckles, irritating her again. His face grew serious suddenly as his eyes focus on something behind her. Following his gaze, she saw the huntress from earlier staring dagger at her from the main entrance, thirteen storeys below. Her eyes didn’t budge as she scanned Yu Qi, her face harden by each second.