There was no room for hesitation in that instant between life and death. The two choices before Xie Ying could not have been simpler: push off the rock wall and leap aside, perhaps avoiding the falling boulder and returning to solid ground; or let go and jump after Jiang Guan, after which both of them might be smashed into pulp at the bottom of the chasm.
To live or to die—hardly a question that required thought.
And Xie Ying truly did not think. He followed his instincts—or rather, the strongest emotion surging through him at that moment—and let go.
He jumped after Jiang Guan.
Had this happened outside the Medicine Buddha Hall, he might still have paused to weigh the choices. But after everything that had happened since then, reason had already stepped down from office and yielded its seat to sheer stubbornness. He had wanted to kill Helan Zhenjia, so he had killed him. He had wanted to burn the Ten Aspects Sect’s main altar, so he had burned it. Why should saving one measly Jiang Guan be so impossibly difficult?
Why?
Xie Ying refused to believe in fate. If some predetermined destiny truly existed, Helan Zhenjia should have died long ago without requiring Xie Ying’s hand. And if this so-called destiny could tolerate monstrous evil yet refused to spare one mute boy, then it possessed nothing worthy of reverence.
He had inhaled smoke, suffered severe injuries, struggled and fought all the way here—was all of it merely so he could watch Jiang Guan die?
Xie Ying had dared at such a young age to infiltrate the Ten Aspects Sect’s main altar and assassinate its leader. What he relied upon was not merely talent and intelligence but a determination that admitted no retreat. Once he made up his mind, he would accomplish the goal by whatever means necessary. Put another way, when he became stubborn, no one could stop him. If he had been an animal, that stubbornness might have grown three feet of fur—enough to braid into a rope and swing from.
The warmth of another person’s fingers had not yet faded from his hand when the same familiar warmth suddenly filled it again.
Jiang Guan, still falling, opened his eyes wide in shock.
Xie Ying had caught him.
With lightning speed, Xie Ying yanked Jiang Guan upward with one arm and pulled him into his embrace. With the other, he drew the long sword at his waist and drove it with all his strength into the rock wall.
Clang!
Metal struck stone. Sparks burst through the darkness.
Jiang Guan: !
You can do that?!
The sword Xie Ying had gone out of his way to steal proved worthy of being called a divine weapon. The blade entered solid rock almost as easily as a knife entering wood, embedding deeply enough to stop their fall at once.
The enormous boulder roared past their shoulders and plunged into the abyss below.
A moment later came a tremendous splash.
Xie Ying listened intently in the darkness and rapidly estimated the distance. “There’s an underground river beneath us. It isn’t far. If we jump, we have a chance of surviving.”
“Hold on to me. Take a deep breath. When I say jump, hold it. This time, no matter what happens, you absolutely cannot let go.”
At a moment like this, he was calmer than usual. There was neither rebuke nor hesitation. Every sentence was short and decisive, carrying an inexplicable sense of security that made obedience feel natural.
Jiang Guan tightened his grip on the wet cloth across Xie Ying’s back and inhaled deeply, breathing air heavy with moisture and the faint smell of blood.
“Jump.”
When Xie Ying said jump, he meant exactly that. There was no “three, two, one.”
Jiang Guan closed his eyes. The familiar sensation of falling returned, except this time another person’s arms remained wrapped around him.
Splash!
A huge plume of water rose around them. From such a height, the underground river was only slightly more forgiving than a stone floor and did not receive them gently.
Fortunately, it was deep enough that they did not smash directly into the bottom.
Unfortunately, the current was ferocious. The icy water struck like merciless slaps, spinning them until neither knew which direction was up. By the time Xie Ying remembered exactly what dangers lurked in water, the back of his head had already collided violently with a rock that might as well have been Helan Zhenjia’s reincarnated soul.
Glug… glug…
Xie Ying swallowed a great mouthful of freezing water and expelled two indignant bubbles. The already dark world before his eyes grew darker still. His consciousness snapped.
The sound of water washing against the bank echoed over and over through his dreams, like the tides of his homeland carrying scattered fragments of memory.
Most of his youth had been spent between classrooms and training grounds. There had been none of the messy troubles other people seemed to have, only endless practice repeated day after day.
The woman dressed in black usually stood at the edge of the training ground with her hands behind her back. Only occasionally did she step forward and spar with him herself.
Her martial arts were excellent.
Her attacks were also genuinely ruthless. She felt no guilt whatsoever about using adult strength to bully a child. Xie Ying rolled across the sand like a lump of dough, scrambling and dodging until he was covered head to toe in dirt. At last, that sweeping kick cut through the air toward him with a sharp rush of wind—
Xie Ying jerked upright as though the kick in his dream had truly landed. He clutched his shoulder and groaned, and his newly returned consciousness nearly fled again beneath the violent pain spreading through his entire body.
There was hardly a place on him that did not hurt: the back of his head where he had struck the rock, the cuts across his back, his lungs burned by smoke and river water…
Yet he was alive.
Then he felt a pair of arms circle him, carefully avoiding his wounds and gently patting his back. Through the cold, soaked fabric of their clothes, faint warmth seeped into him.
A silent comfort.
Who?
The unfamiliar contact made every hair on his body rise. Instinctively, he almost struck out and threw the person away.
Then memory returned.
“Cough… cough… Jiang Guan?”
The other person patted his back twice in answer, confirming his identity, then moved away with a soft rustle. A scraping sound followed. Xie Ying tilted his head. “What are you doing?”
Jiang Guan, who had been writing upon the ground, suddenly turned toward him and stared. The stone dropped from his hand with a quiet clack.
In the faint firelight, Xie Ying’s eyes were clear as amber. He “looked” directly toward Jiang Guan’s position.
But his gaze was empty.
Unfocused.
Jiang Guan’s face went white. He looked as if someone had slapped him. His lips trembled. His hands trembled. He waved one hand before Xie Ying’s eyes.
Xie Ying caught it precisely. “What’s wrong? Why are you shaking?”
Another cold hand covered his eyes. The already faint, blurred light vanished completely.
Xie Ying was extremely perceptive. His heart dropped. It felt like missing a step and plunging heavily into emptiness.
It was not simply dark underground.
It was not residual smoke from the fire clouding his sight.
There was a fire burning beside them.
And he could not see it.
He was blind.
Was it because of the blow to his head? Temporary or permanent?
Could it be cured?
What if it could not? What would he do if he became useless at such a young age?
Was all this worth it for a stranger he barely knew?
Countless chaotic thoughts roared through him. Panic grew like wild vines, dragging his reason toward a bottomless darkness.
His will cut them down almost immediately.
He had already done it. Regretting an act of heroism after the fact would be more shameful than running away in the first place. If this was simply his luck, so be it. No one else was to blame.
“You can see me.”
He gently removed the hand that trembled like a fallen leaf in the wind and scarcely dared touch him. His tone was almost gentle as he confirmed, “I’ve gone blind, haven’t I?”
That calmness was more frightening than any outburst. Never in his life had Jiang Guan wanted so desperately to answer another person. He struggled to force sound through his throat but managed only weak breath.
His tears, however, met no such obstruction.
They poured out.
How ugly.
Why do I even have the face to cry?
Xie Ying is the one who should be crying.
Jiang Guan scrubbed those useless, weak tears from his face so harshly that his cheeks stung, yet they remained wet. He almost hated his own existence on Xie Ying’s behalf, while at the same time an unavoidable sense of grievance and bitterness rose from deep within him.
What heavenly law had he broken to deserve being tormented like this?
At what point had everything begun to go wrong?
Though Xie Ying could no longer see, his other senses seemed sharper than before. No matter how desperately Jiang Guan restrained himself, small sounds still escaped. Xie Ying listened for a moment. “What’s wrong?” he asked tentatively. “Why are you crying?”
He actually asked why.
It was the first time Jiang Guan had ever encountered this particular variety of heart made of iron and stone. A sob lodged in his throat and nearly suffocated him.
Still remembering that an injured person should not be burdened further, he forced back his tears and shook Xie Ying’s hand, pretending nothing was wrong.
Xie Ying clasped his wrist in return. Years of habit made his fingers naturally settle over Jiang Guan’s pulse. The rapid heartbeat hammered against his fingertips.
“You’re lying,” Xie Ying said immediately. “Your heart is beating too fast. Anyone can see it.”
Jiang Guan: “…”
“Oh, right.” Xie Ying realized his own mistake and gave a small amused laugh. “You can’t exactly say a lie, and I can’t exactly see one either.”
Jiang Guan: “…”
Was this man born missing an important part of his brain?
“If you want to say something, write it on my palm.”
Xie Ying opened his hand toward him. Apart from the unfocused eyes, his manner and movements were completely normal. Even the angle of his palm was perfectly natural. “It’s slower, but there’s no better way. In any case, time is the one thing we have plenty of right now.”
Cold, trembling fingertips traced faintly ticklish lines across his palm. Even though years of martial arts had left Xie Ying’s hands calloused, the palm remained one of the body’s most sensitive places. He had to concentrate on deciphering the strokes while simultaneously resisting the instinct to curl his fingers. A tingling numbness traveled from the back of his head all the way down his spine. He became acutely aware of every minute movement Jiang Guan made.
Now and then, something warm fell onto his palm.
Tears.
He cries far too much.
Xie Ying thought helplessly.
The characters slowly formed beneath Jiang Guan’s fingertips:
I caused this. I’m sor—
Before he could finish, Xie Ying closed his hand and cut the apology off.
“What do you mean, you caused this?”
The words sounded harsher than he intended. Not wanting Jiang Guan to misunderstand and think he was being blamed, Xie Ying added, “You did nothing wrong. We were simply unlucky. There’s no reason to be so hard on yourself.”
Jiang Guan urgently tried to pry his fingers open, carrying an entire flood of guilt he was determined to pour out.
Xie Ying simply closed his eyes, hid his fist behind his back, and said lazily, “No. You’ve dripped tears all over my hand. I’ll give it back when you stop being stubborn.”
Firelight flickered over rippling water. Xie Ying sat within the shifting light and shadow, his jawline sharp and clean, his features deep and refined. He resembled a divine weapon just drawn from its sheath, harder and brighter than jade, obviously not someone to be trifled with. Yet his heart was soft enough that even a discarded melon-seed shell could sink into it.
That restrained gentleness was deeply hidden and yet impossibly close. Jiang Guan’s last thread of endurance finally snapped.
He threw himself forward, wrapped both arms around Xie Ying, buried his face against his shoulder, and began to cry soundlessly.
Xie Ying: “Sigh…”
The violent trembling of Jiang Guan’s back alone revealed how hard he was crying.
Even his grief could not become a proper wail.
It was rather pitiful.
Xie Ying assumed he had simply been badly frightened. He wrapped an arm around him and, having no idea how one was supposed to comfort another person, carefully patted his back. “It’s all right. Cry for a while.”
Jiang Guan tightened his arms until he almost drove Xie Ying into his own chest.
Xie Ying nearly stopped breathing and still managed to laugh. “Hiss… good boy. At least you remember to avoid my wounds, but you’re about to squeeze my lungs out.”
Warm tears soaked through the thin fabric over his shoulder.
Jiang Guan cried even harder.
Xie Ying: “…All right, all right. Cry.”
Half a ke later.
Xie Ying: “You’re still crying?”
A while after that—
Xie Ying: “Jiang Guan, are you a crybaby? That’s enough.”
“I’m not dead. Stop mourning me… All right, you’re done. Three, two, one—stop.”
“Jiang Guan? Did you fall asleep?”
“The river just rose another foot. If you don’t believe me, look… Great Xiao Guan, please withdraw your divine powers.”
Warm tears still fell occasionally.
He really cries too much.
Xie Ying could only sigh inwardly.
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