Week 41.5 – Time Travel Never Helps!

Previously: In the past, Twain fought with the young Yi Fan’s father to keep them away from the cave where Ghost Dragon was trapped. And now…

Twain stumbled sideways from the blow. The knife had struck the bag holding the mask, so had not penetrated. Yi Fan’s father staggered forward and lunged at Twain with the knife again.

But Twain saw it coming this time. His left hand came up almost without thought to deflect the man’s arm, while his right redirected, turning the knife and thrusting it back at his attacker. The knife slipped in under the man’s breastbone. His eyes went wide in shock as his breath caught in his chest. He wheezed and sank to the ground.

“What have you done?” Yi Fan screamed.

“It’s the standard move they taught me when someone comes at me with a knife.” Twain knelt beside the gasping man, whose hands still clutched the hilt of the knife that had been turned against him. Twain gently pried the man’s hands away from the knife hilt and reached for it himself. He wasn’t going to pull it out–right now, the knife in the wound was the only thing keeping the man from bleeding out–but if Twain had hold of the knife, neither Yi Fan nor her father could pull it out and kill him before they could get him to a doctor or something. “But then, we never used a real knife be…”

As the shadow of Twain’s hand fell over the knife hilt, he noticed a crystal inlay in the hilt bore a faint blue glow that hadn’t been visible outside the shadow. And when his finger brushed across it in the next instant, he was gone.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”right”]he noticed a crystal inlay in the hilt bore a faint blue glow… And when his finger brushed across it in the next instant, he was gone…[/blockquote]“…fore…” Everything went dark, and the ground shifted underneath Twain. The gentle rain ended, and when Twain stood up and looked around, he realized he was in the compound which held the City of the Moon, and it was nighttime. “NO!”

He heard voices speaking out nearby, and realized guards were coming to check out the noise.

He faded back toward a fence, angled away from the approaching voices, then took to the shadow of a maintenance shed. He quietly turned a corner and almost bumped into someone coming the other way.

The white streak in Yi Fan’s hair was unmistakeable in the moonlight, and Twain’s heart sank. When he had encountered the younger Yi Fan, her hair had borne no white streak, and her face was unscarred. Obviously, he had failed to stop the curse from playing out.

Yi Fan’s lip curled in a snarl, but before she could summon the Ghost, he took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply.

She grunted angrily and pushed him away. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’ve missed you.”

She brushed a hand through the white streak in her hair and stepped back. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Yes, you’re Liu Yi Fan,” he said, stepping forward and taking her in his arms. “I know everything about you, and I love you.”

He kissed her again, and this time, she didn’t struggle as much.

We knew this was coming, so the circle is now complete. But can Twain manage to save Yi Fan in the future? Dont miss next week’s crucial chapter!

To read from the beginning, click here…