I was angry at everyone. A blind rage that wanted to burn everything. I wanted to take revenge on the crowd that had watched her like a commodity, on the man who had bought her, on the guards who had done nothing. But as I was walking back through the streets of Chang'an, I realized that all these faces were just symptoms of the disease. The source of the disease, the person who had set the rules in my small world, the person who had stolen my sun... had one face. Ikumi's face.

  I didn't go straight back to the orphanage. My feet led me to a side alley, to a small, dark shop of herbs and poisons, the same shop she sometimes took me to. I remembered her smile as she bought these "medicinal herbs" before. I thought it was medicine for her. What a fool. It wasn't medicine; it was a silent weapon.

  I entered, and with the money left over from buying the meat, I bought a small dose of the same poison. A poison with no taste, no smell, that works slowly, and makes death look like just a heart attack due to old age. Today, I would use her weapon against her.

  I returned to the orphanage. Ikumi was in her office. "The remaining money was stolen from me in the market," I said coldly, placing the pork in front of her. She didn't even raise her head. "It doesn't matter," she said with indifference.

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  I went to the kitchen and started cooking. My hands moved with a calm, robotic precision. There was no fear, no hesitation. There was only a cold, dead calm. I added the poison to her dish and served it to her.

  I sat in a far corner and watched her eat. She finished and went to her room to sleep. I went to the common hall and slept.

  I woke up the next morning to an unusual commotion. There was a gathering in front of Ikumi's room. I pushed my way through them. I saw medics trying to revive her, but to no avail. "She's dead," one of them said. "It seems her heart stopped. She was in her mid-forties, it happens."

  In that moment, I felt it. A sharp, powerful feeling of victory. I had done it. I had taken my revenge. It was a real happiness, the brightest feeling I had felt in years. But it lasted for only a second.

  Right after, emptiness set in. A vast, cold emptiness, colder than any winter, and more hollow than any night. 'Why...?' I wondered to myself as I looked at her corpse. 'Why am I a little sad?'

  No, it wasn't sadness. It was something else. It was disgust. Disgust with myself. I had killed someone. And that person was my "mother." The only person left for me in this world. I thought I would feel satisfaction, liberation. But I only felt this emptiness.

  She was the center of my world. My hatred for her was my fuel, and my desire to protect myself from her was my goal. Now that she was dead... what was left? Who am I without my jailer?

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