Bam's head grew heavy as foreign memories crashed into his consciousness like tidal waves. The reality before him began to waver and blur, as if someone had smeared ink across his vision.
"Hey! What's wrong with you?" Yetao's concerned voice seemed to echo from a great distance as he approached the staggering king. Water still dripped from his pink hair as he reached out, genuine alarm replacing his earlier anger.
Bam squinted through the haze, trying to focus on Yetao's face, but the present and his dreams collided violently. The only word echoing through his fractured consciousness was "Princess"—and suddenly, the Yetao holding his arm and the mysterious princess from his visions began to merge into one.
Rage exploded through Bam's system like wildfire.
With a violent swipe, he knocked Yetao's helping hand away. The sharp crack of the impact made Yetao wince, but worry still clouded his features as he stared at the king's increasingly erratic behavior.
Before Yetao could react, Bam's fingers wrapped around his throat.
"I know your plan is to mess with my mind," Bam snarled, his eyes burning with crimson fury as his grip tightened mercilessly. "What did you do to me?"
Yetao clawed frantically at the hands crushing his windpipe, his eyes wide with terror and confusion. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't understand what had triggered this sudden violence.
"Did you think I'd become prey to your schemes?" Bam's voice was barely human, twisted with paranoid rage.
But Yetao had no clue what schemes the king spoke of. As darkness crept around the edges of his vision, only one desperate thought managed to form: Is this how I die? In this foreign land, at the hands of a madman? What sin did I commit to deserve this fate?
His struggling hands fell limp as resignation washed over him.
The moment Bam saw the light beginning to fade from Yetao's eyes, a flash of vision struck him like lightning—Yetao's lifeless gaze, his body falling from a cliff, but somehow... smiling?
The image shattered his rage instantly.
Bam released his death grip, and Yetao collapsed into the water, gasping desperately for air. The king stared at his trembling hands in horror, as if they belonged to someone else entirely.
Color slowly returned to Yetao's ashen face as oxygen reached his brain again. When he looked up at Bam, his eyes blazed with hurt and fury that cut deeper than any blade. He wanted to scream, to strike back, to demand answers—but he was still a prisoner in a foreign land, completely at the mercy of a clearly unstable ruler.
His lips trembled with suppressed rage as tears of frustration gathered in his eyes. Without a word, he gave Bam one final, devastating glare and fled.
Bam remained frozen in the bath, staring at his hands in bewilderment. "Why did I...?" The question hung unanswered in the steamy air.
Yetao wandered through the palace corridors like a ghost, his mind completely shattered. The ornate hallways, normally illuminated by elegant oil lamps, seemed shrouded in oppressive darkness that matched his mental state.
He stumbled forward blindly until something solid blocked his path—an ornate fountain in one of the palace courtyards. The faint moonlight danced across the water's surface as Yetao stared at his reflection, fragmented and wavering.
A single tear dropped into the water, sending ripples across his image. Then another. And another.
The dam burst.
Yetao collapsed beside the fountain, sobbing with the raw desperation of someone who had reached their absolute limit.
"When... just when will I escape this hellish place?" The words tore from his throat between gasping breaths. "I thought I could handle everything. I thought if I stayed strong and didn't break, everything would work out. I thought I'd find a way home. But..."
His voice cracked as fresh waves of despair crashed over him.
"Nothing is fine. Even though I've made friends, I can't trust any of them. And that king... one word from him and they'd squash me like an insect. Why should I live like this?"
"Yetao?"
The gentle voice made him freeze. He spun around to find Peanut standing there, shock written across his features as he took in the sight—Yetao completely drenched, tears streaming down his face like a broken dam.
Without hesitation, Peanut shrugged off his outer robe and wrapped it around Yetao's trembling shoulders.
"I was... I was taking a walk and got lost in the darkness," Yetao managed through his tears, forcing the worst fake laugh in human history. "I accidentally fell into the fountain. Talk about being stupid, right?"
The sound that emerged was like a dying car engine attempting to start.
Peanut studied him with knowing eyes and sighed deeply. "You can't return to your quarters like this anyway. Follow me."
Peanut's quarters were a haven of warmth and comfort. He immediately summoned servants to prepare hot bath water and fresh clothes for Yetao, his kindness cutting through the darkness that had consumed the younger man's heart.
"For now, he's the only one I can truly trust," Yetao thought as he soaked in the healing warmth of the bath, washing away both the physical and emotional residue of the night's trauma.
When he emerged, hair still damp in the absence of modern conveniences, he found Peanut on the balcony, gazing at the star-scattered sky with an expression of deep contemplation.
"What has you thinking so deeply?" Yetao asked, approaching under the pretense of letting the night breeze dry his hair.
Peanut turned, and for a moment, Yetao glimpsed something profound and unreadable in his friend's eyes.
"From now on, you can bathe here," Peanut said simply.
Yetao's shoulders tensed. Does he know about my encounter with that psychopath? Panic fluttered in his chest.
"I just thought you might have trouble bathing alone when no one else is around," Peanut continued with genuine concern. "You can use my facilities instead."
Relief flooded through Yetao like cool water. "Okay then," he managed, forcing an embarrassed smile.
For an entire week, Yetao used Peanut's quarters and managed to avoid any encounters with King Bam. The days blurred together in a haze of fruitless searching—no progress on finding the artifact, no clues about returning home. Hope leaked from his heart drop by drop until he felt hollow inside.
His despair must have been written clearly on his face, because Lisa noticed immediately when she spotted him during his duties in the art hall.
"Come with me," she declared without preamble, grabbing his arm and leading him toward the restricted tower section of the art hall.
Too emotionally drained to resist, Yetao allowed himself to be dragged along like a rag doll.
When Lisa finally threw open the balcony doors at the tower's peak, wind rushed across Yetao's face, and his breath caught in his throat.
The entire palace spread below them like a masterfully crafted miniature world. From this height, everything seemed small and manageable—the towering statues reduced to figurines, the massive courtyards to mere gardens. The architectural beauty of the palace revealed itself in full glory, and for the first time in days, Yetao felt a strange sense of peace settle over his troubled heart.
"Whenever my mind is cluttered with unnecessary worries, I come here," Lisa explained with a gentle smile. "From up here, you can see how small the world really is. Our problems might seem enormous when we're trapped within them, but sometimes we need to look down from above. Solutions often appear when we change our perspective."
Yetao's heart warmed at her wisdom, and he managed his first genuine smile in days. As he continued to drink in the breathtaking view, his eyes caught a familiar figure in the distance.
King Bam stood alone near the temple where they had first fallen into that mysterious pond. He remained motionless before the ancient statue for several long minutes before departing.
"Whatever. Who cares what he's doing?" Yetao thought, rolling his eyes dismissively.
But as his gaze wandered, it fell upon something carved into the tower wall itself that made his heart leap.
"This is it!" he exclaimed, happiness surging through him like electricity.
Lisa approached curiously. "What?"
Yetao pointed excitedly at a mural depicting a goddess holding an ornate object. "That! What she's holding!"
"Oh, this is Hathor, the goddess of love and arts," Lisa explained casually.
"No, no—the instrument in her hands!" Yetao pressed urgently.
"It's a sistrum. It's actually a common musical instrument, but no one uses it—"
Before she could finish her sentence, Yetao was already in motion, calling out a hasty "Thank you!" as he raced away.
"—nowadays in the palace," Lisa completed to the empty air, shaking her head in bemusement.
Yetao searched frantically through the palace until he spotted Peanut deep in conversation with a mysterious figure. As he approached, calling out his friend's name, the stranger melted into the shadows with movements so fluid they seemed supernatural.
"It looked like high-budget CGI," Yetao marveled, momentarily distracted by the impossible display.
"Um... Yetao?" Peanut's voice snapped him back to reality.
"I found it!" Yetao exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "I know what the artifact looks like—it's a sistrum!"
The transformation in Peanut was instant and startling. Something wild and calculating flashed behind his eyes.
"How is that possible?" Peanut muttered, more to himself than to Yetao. "If it's what I think it is, then..."
He fell into deep contemplation, completely forgetting about his friend's presence.
Yetao waved a hand in front of Peanut's face, bringing him back to the present. The calculating expression vanished, replaced by his usual practiced smile.
"I guess we finally have something to move forward with," Peanut said, but his mind was clearly elsewhere, already formulating plans that would remain hidden from Yetao's innocent eyes.
To Be Continued...