It was really hot all around, as if trying to roast a person.
The flickering lights on the sides were like cobwebs, densely covering the electrical wires. It made her dizzy, but she continued to move forward quickly.
The sensation of her body being baked was something she had already experienced a long, long time ago. The pain she went through that time was a hundred times worse than this. Sean was right; if she didn't loathe herself, she wouldn't have become Formless.
She thought of her own family. Their clan is an existence that everyone despises unanimously and wishes to see annihilated. They live humbly in the darkest, filthiest corners of the world, eating the scraps left by humans, leading a life in perpetual darkness. She remembered her mother, who, out of hunger, tried to steal meat from a family and was killed by them. There were also many neighbors she knew, some poisoned, some burned, and few with a peaceful end.
She was burdened with a shameful reputation the moment she was born. She was hated, and hated herself, questioning why she couldn't have a stable life like those people, along with respect and admiration. She feared that one day, she would end up like those of her kind — dying in obscurity and disgrace.
She wanted to change. So, she traversed many mountains and rivers to reach the Western Waters of the Hidden Sea. In that sacred land of monsters, there was a formless cave. By shedding all fur and jumping into the rolling magma, enduring seven days and nights of excruciating pain, if she could survive without dying, she could freely transform into any human at will — a rare species even in the demon world called "Formless." Achieving formlessness means completely abandoning your past self[1].
She could start a completely new life as a Formless and attain everything she had once yearned for. In the future, no one would know where she was born or who she truly was. But today, she surprisingly chose to revert to her true form to do something she thought she would never be able to do.
Formless are immortal, but choosing to restore their original form means giving up immortality... quite foolish. However, she faintly felt that, perhaps, she had done something genuinely right.
That night, everyone in Paris felt an earthquake-like phenomenon. Of course, the ground only shook slightly a few times before everything returned to normal.
The next day, people woke up, had breakfast, went to work; the streets were bustling with traffic and pedestrians, and life went on as usual, as if nothing had happened...
[1] 无相 has Buddhist origins and is associated with Buddhist philosophy. It is related to the idea that all phenomena lack inherent, independent existence or permanent form, and it is connected to the understanding of the nature of reality and the path to enlightenment. The state of being 无相 implies a transcendence beyond the limitations of fixed forms or appearances. In the end, Lu Ah-Cang achieved formlessness not only physically but also, I think, in the philosophical sense.
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