In a long and deserted road, a carriage was braving the imperial orders. The coachman, willing the horses to run faster, whipped them twice. They had to run. Faster. Further. They couldn't be found. Not yet. His mistress's wish... her wish.
Thinking about it, his eyes went red again and he whipped the horse "hya, hya"
Soft moans were emanating from inside the wildly jolting carriage. Two women were there, both of them wearing servants' clothes. One was lying on the others' knees.
"Hold on mistress", the seated one pleaded, clasping the other's hand tighter.
Yue Liang couldn't really hear her. She was a bit delirium, suffering too much to hold onto consciousness much longer. Her throat was raspy and felt dry no matter the amount of water she drank. Her stomach hurt so much, it was way worse than the time she was stabbed and the knife had been turned into the wound. Feebly, almost not hearing her own voice, she said.
"Stop... the... carriage". Her servant though failed to hear and she had to repeat it with difficulty.
"We're almost there" the girl pleaded, but seeing her mistress's pale face and blue lips, she knew the latter didn't have much longer to go on and so, with tears in her voice, she shouted for the coachman to stop.
They did so, and under Yue Liang's insistence, they took her out and let her lay outside to contemplate the sun. Both servants, eyes having gone red but unwilling to cry yet, retreated some steps away to let her some privacy.
It seemed to her that the sky was bluer today than it had ever been before. The few present clouds had a pure white with no trace of rain in them, with quite funny shapes. The sun though, she had yet to see the sun. She longed to see it. Behind which cloud was it hiding?
She was only a few minutes away from death, will this wish too not be fulfilled?
She had first wanted to die in her own country, her family's country, where they all lived and where they all died. It didn't matter if she came back just to breathe her last, as long as she was the nearest physically possible with her family than she could. However, that had been proven impossible. There were still miles to go and she didn't have the time left. At this very moment, what was making her still hold was the willingness to glimpse at the sun one last time. That was her ultimate dying wish.
She had in her, a long list of regrets and a deep bitterness. She was also, a little unwilling to go like this. She needed to see him one last time. Just once more.
However, if she died on the road like this, will he even know? Will he spare thought for her after her death? Will he care? How sad it will be if him, the last person who considered her as a human being, never visit her grave! She had so much to say yet not the possibility to do so. How bitter an end!
It was said that the moon was the brightest in the sky upon her birth, so her parents called her after it. She had always taken a certain pride in her name. But sometimes it felt a little lonely up there without any star as big as the full moon.
She coughed a little and felt like she was dying with each cough.
If the soul could really reincarnate after death, she hoped that in her next life she would be a bird. A free bird that could fly to wherever its wings took it. No more losing family's members, no more betrayal, no more humanity's perversion. Just a free bird between birds. There, there wouldn't be monsters disguising themselves behind a human face.
Finally, the sun rays shone and the hiding star appeared in all its glory. Yue Liang smiled at the sight. Ah, it was really beautiful.
'Tai Yang' she thought, 'I hope you have a long and good life.' Then, thinking about her family, her smile was a little wider even through the pain. 'I'm coming home'. That was her only joy.
The battered and tired woman finally closed her eyes.
Not hearing the soft moans she was producing anymore, both servants knelt and cried.
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