The Magnolia Beauty 1 Heartbroken

Under such circ.u.mstances that something unexplainable would occur on this cold, beautiful spring. The day before, it was raining as if it had never rained so hard before. The rain quickly flooded the streets, the gra.s.s was dampened with puddles, and the skies were covered in dark grey clouds. Suyin sat down by the nearest window in a cafe, waiting for her crush, Minsheng, to come by after he finished some errands. They have known each other for seven years, growing up together since they were teenagers. Suyin always had a crush on Minsheng, but never sort of got the courage to ask him out on a date or to even be her boyfriend. It was about 10 o'clock in the morning already and Suyin had been waiting for Minsheng for about an hour and a half past their meeting time. Suyin glanced at the clock that hung on the wall on her left side of her view and turned back to look outside again, seeing a familiar figure standing in the rain with an umbrella across the street.

"Is that Minsheng?"

Suyin stood up from the chair, her gaze never shaken from the figure that looked like Minsheng. She immediately ran out, forgetting to take her umbrella with her. The rain was pouring even more during the time that Suyin ran outside, soaking her hair as she raced to the stoplight to see if it really was Minsheng. Across from Suyin's side, Minsheng gripped on the umbrella, holding a lady's hand while Suyin watched her lean forward to kiss Minsheng on his lips. Minsheng grabbed her waist and pulled her closer to him, holding her dearly with a big grin on his face.

Suyin was watching afar when this happened, causing her eyes to swell up.

"What kind of pain is this? Why is it hurting my chest so much?" Suyin clenched her fists and brought it to her left chest as the sound of thunder roared throughout the sky.

Minsheng was never the kind of person who would do this in Suyin's eyes, but little did she know that Minsheng had been toying around girls left and right. Being blinded by love from him caused her to ignore those thoughts. Minsheng glanced towards Suyin's direction and noticed that she was standing under the heavy rain that poured. Her teardrops slid down her cheeks but the raindrops hid it under the grey sky. He promptly let go of the girl that he was holding, moving towards her way.

Realizing that Minsheng was getting close to her, Suyin turned around and ran off to avoid him. She did her best to get away because she already knew the answer that she would be nothing more than a friend or someone to lean on, but she was stupid enough to believe in him.

"I'm never believing in anyone again!!" She wiped her tears, das.h.i.+ng towards an open green field where soccer would have been regularly played if it was a sunny day.

"Suyin wait--" Minsheng tried to discuss with her, recklessly pus.h.i.+ng people away so he could get to her but failed to do so. Suyin spun around and gave him a dirty glare--something that she would have never done if she didn't see what had happened today. Minsheng flinched back after seeing her gaze. She would have never done anything like that to him, so was it possible that she saw him flirting around with another girl?

"Let me explain!"

"You don't have to explain anything! I was stupid to believe in you and I really thought that you were a genuine person to me!" Suyin shouted out to the world, trying to out beat the roaring thunder that closed into them.

"No! It's nothing like that!" Minsheng hesitated, gazing at the sky as the thunder became harsher and louder.

"Leave me alone! It was a stupid waste of time for all of these years to think that I would even fall for someone like you!---"

Boom!

A flash of light (lightning) hit Suyin, causing Minsheng to freak out and run away from mother nature. All Suyin could see in her eyes was a bright light, blinding her in every way that made it impossible for her to see.

.....

Neighh!

The sound of the horse's cry could be heard in Suyin's ears.

"My lady! Wake up! Let's go right now." A lady dressed in plain clothes tried waking up Suyin, who laid by a large oak tree. "Hurry! You don't want your father to get mad at us now! You know mother's going to beat us!" She continued to shake Suyin's shoulders, gradually increasing her strength to wake her up.

"Mmhhh." Suyin grumbled, fixing her head to find her comfortable spot to go back to sleep. With the feeling of dry gra.s.s and the smell of cherry blossoms surrounding her, she knew that something was wrong. "Hm?" Suyin immediately opened her eyes with a blank expression.

"Good thing that you are awake, my lady! I didn't think you would wake up soon enough." She made a sigh of relief, wiping her sweat as she helped Suyin up. "We need to leave soon and leave our horse here! I don't even know why you decided to try to ride something dangerous like that!" The servant said, furrowing her brows as she sat on her heels. She interlocked both of her hands and laid it on her lap, never looking up to Suyin as she took a glance around the area.

"I-I'm....not back at home?" Suyin's eyes were scanning the area. Trees, a lake nearby, and the sound of a horse crying echoed through the forest. She then looked at her clothes which weren't the ones that she was wearing previously--and it was raining during that time! Over here, the sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly in the sky, trying to find ways to emit through the trees in this dark forest. "Am I dead?"

"Of course, my lady. You were the one who decided to take one of Master's horse and learn how to ride it, only to let it free." The servant explained to Suyin the situation, causing her to frown.

"I don't remember this?" Suyin thought about her previous experience back at home. She remembered being a pediatrics doctor working at the hospital and Minsheng betraying her before she could remember anything else that was recent. Not to mention...

"And instead of trying to ride that horse, I failed and let it free instead huh? I tried to calm the horse down but it dashed towards me and in a neck of time, I was able to barely escape from being trampled upon from the horse." Suyin answered the servant as she nodded with a confused expression.

"My lady, why are you answering yourself to what happened just a couple of minutes ago?" the servant asked as Suyin shrugged her shoulders as if she didn't know why. If her answer was correct then it meant that Suyin could remember memories of this occurrence too! Suyin kneeled in front of the servant, causing her to freak out (because a n.o.ble lady should not kneel in front of anyone) and closed her eyes.

"Think Suyin. THINK." She concentrated hard in her mind.

Memories of her family and the great emperor Euitae resided in her mind. She came from a n.o.ble family who are scholars and have a good relations.h.i.+p with the emperor and the palace in general since her father is the one educating the princess and prince. Emperor Eunitae! This was the era of time when the Long and the Qin clan was in war!

Somehow, Suyin's concentration closed everything out of her, but it made her focus really well. She could hear a faint voice calling out to her, causing her to open her eyes.

"My lady!! Did you not hear what I said. Your father is going to kill me if they see that you're kneeling in front of me!" The servant tried to pull Suyin's arm up so she wouldn't kneel in front of her. Although her history sucks as h.e.l.l, she surely didn't remember about this era of time although she clearly remembered learning about this at school in high school and college.

Maybe it was taboo to learn about who won in this war and what happened in the past. Suyin somehow couldn't grasp as to why she couldn't know or understand, but maybe that would be what they called, "Cheating to the G.o.ds" during this time and day since she didn't even belong in this time frame! All she could remember that last occurred before all of this difference was a lightning flash and being suddenly blinded, only to end up here! Well? Maybe Suyin will just go along with this. She was startled at first, but she had nothing to lose. Her parents back in the present day were no longer there due to old age and she actually didn't have any close friends either (besides Minsheng). Minsheng was the reason why she didn't have many close friends because they warned her about him but this was because they were jealous that he would stick with her rather than anyone else.

"Areum!" The servant looked up to Suyin, startled because she called her name as she kneeled in front of Suyin again.

"Y-Yes!" She answered out.

"Let's go home." The maid, Areum, nodded her head in agreement with a smile, standing straight and tall as she brushed the leaves off of her plain, baby blue dress. Suyin could recall that Areum's name was given by her because Areum was an orphan and was being bullied by others at the age of six. That's when Suyin took her in as a maid/servant, protected her, and gave her a name to give her an ident.i.ty to herself. Areum promised to devote her life to her and loved Suyin like her own sister of hers, but the status was something that she would never go against either.

The two walked together with Suyin in the front as she guided Areum out of the forest. Suyin wasn't too confident in finding a way to get out of the forest, but thanks to the horse's track, she found a way to get to this forest because of that. She couldn't let Areum worry and freak out, though. Each footstep began slowing down more and more and Suyin honestly felt lost at the sight of all of the pathways that the forest had ahead of them.

"Um.. maybe it's this way." Suyin pointed at a random pathway. She honestly only wanted to go the direction that had moss on one side of the trees because she remembered about the saying that the side with the moss should lead her home. Unfortunately, she wasn't too sure about this place and caused her to become more and more unfamiliar with her surroundings.

Four silhouettes swiftly surrounded Suyin and Areum from up above, causing the two to shriek in surprise.

"What are you two ladies doing out here?" one of the guys asked, rubbing his chin with a grin on his face. "It seems like you two shouldn't be out here... unless you're doing some dirty work." He continued, scanning Suyin from the top to the bottom.

"Stop! We aren't doing anything wrong here! We just got lost here." Areum explained.

"Lost?!! Do you think we are stupid enough to think that you two are just here because you ladies are 'lost' instead? It's hard to get here by foot!" another one of the man's minion exclaimed as the other men nodded.

"According to you brainheads, you think everyone has to do something 'dirty' in order to come in this d.a.m.n forest. Is your name on this forest or something?" Suyin grumbled, glaring at the man who shamelessly continued to check her out thoroughly.

"Ey. Come down beauty. Don't you know that this forest is the barrier between the Qin

and Long clan? Anyone knows that." The man stopped rubbing his chin, then walked closer to Suyin as he got a sniff of her fragrance. "Say. If you don't want to become dead souls, why don't you give up something else instead and we'll let you two live?"

Suyin turned her head to the man as she gritted her teeth, slapping the man's face as he slid off the sword from his scabbard. "How dare you slap my face, you stupid woman!" He swung his sword towards Suyin. She was just about to be ready to find a way to dodge before closing her eyes.

Clang!

Suyin's focus forgot about the dangerous situation at the moment and opened her eyes, fixing her attention to the eyes of a beautiful man that stood in between the bandits and Suyin. He had sharp eyebrows that could cut someone's gaze and eyes that made his face look so evil and fearsome yet so beautiful.