Chapter 11: Wu, Ma

Thinking far back into the past, the only image firmly inside her mind was that of a woman; she remembered once calling her her mother, she remembered a faint warmth, and she remembered a face; blurry as the memories might be, she remembered still.

It was a face with a particularly glaring mark on the forehead… what was it? It looked green and blaring, to the point it was the only thing she now remembered of her mother.

Yes, it was the mark of a circle!

Wine had always believed herself to be a girl of lowly origins, a person who shall ultimately become the maid of the next family head, yet, now, her young master was telling her, "You are my little sister." Like it was nothing, she blinked, rather disoriented, as she looked at the notebook with that 'signature' again.

She looked down and muttered to herself, "So then, who was my mother? The…then—"

Ethan tapped her forehead and woke her up from her daze, and then asked, a smile in his voice, "Don't think about it too much, okay? For now, think about why you are here…hmm..tell me, why are you here?"

"…To become a Wuma?" Wine hesitantly replied. She was still rather shocked, to the point even Wuma seemed less important; her whole worldview was shifting after all.

Who wouldn't be excited knowing they were a young mistress from a Wuma family?

At least, Wine was excited.

"So, Teacher, doesn't that mean I'm a young mistress now?" she asked with a tone of amusement and excitement, 'doesn't that also mean…?' her cheeks fleshed.

"Yes, that is exactly what it means," Ethan uninterestedly said and took the other book.

Opening it to its first page, he asked, "What do you know about Wuma?"

"Uhm…" Broken out of her train of thought on marrying the young master, she pondered for a second and said, more excited the more she thought, "Wuma are people who can fight against beasts!"

Ethan nodded and waited for more.

"Wumas are the people who can fly and have hidden wings behind their backs," Wine said.

She could still remember how the Ancestor brought her here from the village after her mother died by flying while carrying her on his back, even though it happened three years ago when she was just 9.

Ethan frowned, "No, Wuma are not people who can fly," he turned and looked at her face and put the book down; he had already confirmed his knowledge. "There are Wumas who can fly, but not every Wuma. Just think with your tiny head, if I can fly, would I have jumped through that hole?"

Wine scratched the side of her head and looked at him with wide eyes, "Then can Wuma not fly?"

He chuckled and shook his head, "Maybe if you are lucky enough to get a Wu like that, but people often don't get what they want. It's better if you keep your expectations low."

"Wu?"

"You don't have to know about it now," he mulled and then said, his own heart beating in excitement, "What you have to know, though, is what people called Wuma truly are."

Wine just blinked and looked at him with her breath held.

"Wuma are people who have touched upon their Wu and come up with a unique resonance of their own, which is a rather complex theory for a start, so I will tell it to you in understandable words." He said and just flipped through the book and stopped in a page; a diagram of the human body.

Wine looked at it, an image of a man with a black dot at the place beneath his sternum and above his belly. "Is that black dot the Wuma Bead?"

"Yes, the most sacred part of a Wuma's body, where the first bead resides." He said and then thought of an easy way to teach her before he asked, "Wine, have you ever heard about souls?"

"Yes…I remember Ancestor saying my mother had become a soul and left the world after she died. Aren't souls what people turn into after dying?"

"No, those are ghosts, not souls," cracking up slightly, he hid his smile with the book and stated, "Think of the soul as your mind; you know what a mind is, right?"

"…I know what a mind is," ashamed, Wine asked, "Mind is what we think with, right?"

"Yes," Ethan put the book down on the floor and pointed at the black mark, "And this bead, it is the one that connects a soul and body, making the body listen to a soul."

Wine blinked.

"And that connection, the feeling of two things becoming one…is called resonance."

Wine blinked again.

He looked at her face and sighed, ruefully saying, "Don't worry, resonance is not a concept for beginners either." He turned silent and then said, "This knowledge is not really needed for your initiation ceremony, but according to a famous theory, it doesn't hurt to be knowledgeable when you start."

"So, can I start the ceremony now?" Wine asked cheekily.

Ethan blinked, then said, "Sure then," and stood up.

Throwing the book to the side, the papers flapped as they moved through the air, the bubble-like doorway kept shining, and the quiet room echoed with the silent thud of the book's drop.

Wine gulped.

Ethan moved to the bookshelf and opened a drawer on it, the wood creaked gently, and he glanced inside; a mirror-like knife reflected his golden eyes, dim like the setting sun… he took it and walked back…