Futile Devices Scans

In the silent world where his soul seemed to have drifted from his body, a faint hissing sound came from nearby, as if something were leaking air.

Xie Ying groaned in pain. “So this is how you treat your lifesaver…”

Cold fingers trembled like shaking blossoms as Jiang Guan coaxingly fed him a soft, fully ripened wild fruit. The rich sweet-and-sour taste eased the grimace on Xie Ying’s face a little. He grabbed the mischievous hand and felt the damp sleeve. “You even went to wash just to prank me like this?”

Jiang Guan stuffed a small handful of wild fruits into his hand and wrote on the other: There was ash. Dirty.

Xie Ying snorted silently, thinking that the Young Master’s cleanliness was quite particular. Jiang Guan picked up another fruit and brought it to his mouth. Having learned from the previous experience, Xie Ying turned his head to avoid it. “I’m blind, not missing my hands. You don’t have to keep feeding me.”

But Jiang Guan stubbornly held his hand there, insisting he taste it. Xie Ying had no choice but to lean forward and take it in his mouth. “What kind is this this time…?”

His words abruptly stopped. His brows lifted slightly in surprise as he caught a familiar taste from the tiny fruit. “Goji berry?”

“Isn’t it May now? Where did you get goji berries?”

The flowering period of goji berries is in summer, and the fruiting period is in autumn. Now, at the turn between spring and summer, and with the mountains colder than the plains, the trees should only just be blooming—far from bearing fruit.

Could there be some wild fruit in the mountains that resembled goji berries? Xie Ying chewed another one. The taste could not be mistaken.

Jiang Guan held his hand, closing the small handful of precious fruits into his palm, and for once wrote a longer sentence: A tree on the shaded slope that overwintered—its fruits remained. Fortunate indeed.

Goji berries can brighten the eyes and nourish the liver. Whether or not they would help Xie Ying’s condition, it was still better than nothing.

His hands were covered in small cuts from branches and leaves. As a pampered Young Master, he had never done such gathering work before, and after soaking in cold water, they stung slightly. But the joy of finally being able to do something for Xie Ying was the best medicine.

He happily planned to find more goji berries the next day. Writing quickly in Xie Ying’s palm, his strokes almost flying, he asked what other herbs in the mountains could treat the eyes so he could gather them for Xie Ying to identify.

Xie Ying could barely keep up with the speed of his writing. He closed his hand and firmly grasped Jiang Guan’s.

Jiang Guan had survived near death four times without once saying “fortunate,” yet a mere handful of goji berries made him so happy—without any hint of pride or seeking credit, only pure gratitude for nature’s gift. What a cruel fate, to have worn down such a Young Master into this state.

“I just felt that I could see a little more clearly than before. The blindness should only be temporary. When it improves further, we’ll need to find a way down the mountain,” Xie Ying said, keeping his tone as gentle and patient as possible. “Food just needs to fill the stomach. The mountains are dangerous—your safety comes first. Don’t take unnecessary risks.”

What he said made sense, and Jiang Guan was best at being “sensible.” He quickly suppressed his excessive enthusiasm. Even without seeing, Xie Ying could almost feel an invisible tail drooping. His throat moved as he considered saying something soft to comfort him, but Jiang Guan had already cheered himself up, pulling his hand to show what he had gained from hunting.

To be honest, after eating that sour fruit, Xie Ying had no expectations for what Jiang Guan brought back. But having just dampened his spirits, he couldn’t act discouraging again. So he straightened up solemnly, as if awaiting dishes like an emperor.

His hand was guided from item to item. When he touched a pile of fruits that had nearly killed him earlier, his heart skipped, but he forced himself to stay calm and gave an encouraging hum. “Not bad. As long as it’s edible.”

Next he felt a handful of half-ripe mulberries. He relaxed slightly. “Good stuff. Did you climb a tree to pick these?”

Then Jiang Guan handed him some kind of plant roots. Xie Ying lifted them and sniffed, his expression loosening. “We call this ‘sour tube’ where I’m from—you call it ‘knotweed’? Quite elegant… I read it in a medical text.”

The next item was several mushrooms. According to Jiang Guan’s description, they had red caps and white stems, bright in color. Xie Ying examined them thoughtfully and said cautiously, “I don’t recognize them either. For safety’s sake, better not eat them.”

When he finally felt a fish about the length of a forearm, he was running out of words. “You caught this with your bare hands? Did you train in martial arts before? My respects, my respects…”

Finally, Jiang Guan presented a fluffy wild rabbit. Xie Ying’s fingers sank into the soft fur, and he fell silent for a long moment before withdrawing his hand shakily. Facing him, he clasped his hands together and said solemnly, “Mountain spirit, I was blind to your greatness earlier and offended you. Please forgive my ignorance.”

Jiang Guan collapsed laughing against his shoulder. Xie Ying, suddenly crushed by the weight, dared not push him away, supporting himself with one hand on the ground to avoid them both falling over, while sincerely lamenting, “It’s all my arrogance—I underestimated the Young Master. Even without someone as useless as me, Young Master Guan could survive alone in these mountains for a year or more… mmph.”

A handful of green fruits stuffed into his mouth silenced him. Jiang Guan’s way of showing displeasure was pressing harder with his fingers as he wrote firmly in his palm: Without you, I would have died.

Xie Ying was so overwhelmed his eyes almost watered. He seemed to enjoy provoking him, chewing through the fruit while grinning stubbornly. “Young Master Guan is right to scold me. I saved you, you repay me—fair exchange. Why are you hitting me again?”

After crawling out from the damp darkness underground and basking in the sunlight, they both seemed livelier. Though dangers still lay ahead, this moment of ease was rare. They briefly shed their composed facades, fooling around like carefree youths, laughing until they were breathless and their chests ached, finally collapsing onto the slightly uncomfortable stone ground covered with grass.

Xie Ying remembered the fleeting thought he had when he first saw Jiang Guan smile in the underground passage. Now, Jiang Guan could laugh freely under the sunlight. Though Xie Ying couldn’t see it, it didn’t matter—despite all the twists and dangers, what he had hoped for had come true. It hadn’t been for nothing.

After resting for a while, Jiang Guan got up first, pulling Xie Ying up as well, brushing the dirt off him and helping him sit properly. He briefly wrote in his hand: Gather firewood, make fire.

Xie Ying waved a hand. “Alright, go.”

There was no need to go far for firewood. Sitting at the cave entrance, Xie Ying could hear his movements. Soon, Jiang Guan returned carrying a small bundle of firewood, lit a fire in the open space near the entrance, and brought the earlier hunting catch to the campfire—

Then it went quiet again.

Xie Ying: ?

Jiang Guan crouched in front of the prey with a dagger in hand, falling into a long hesitation. After waiting quite a while without seeing any movement, Xie Ying asked, “What’s wrong?”

In his blurred vision, a shadow slowly edged closer, reaching out helplessly to tug at his sleeve.

Xie Ying couldn’t help but laugh. “If there’s something, just say it. What’s with all this tugging?”

Someone traced strokes—dot, lift, horizontal, hook—on his palm for a long time, then quickly wrote a few small words: I can’t bring myself to do it.

“Hm?” Xie Ying didn’t even understand what he meant at first. “Do what? They’re already dead, aren’t they? You caught them yourself.”

Jiang Guan couldn’t find the right words and truly couldn’t face it. He just kept scratching lightly at Xie Ying’s palm until Xie Ying finally understood. “Young Master, by ‘do it,’ you don’t mean… preparing the food, do you?”

Jiang Guan wrote blankly: What is ‘preparing food’?

“It means plucking fur, skinning, bleeding, scaling—those kinds of tasks,” Xie Ying said, barely holding back laughter. “If you can’t do it, what then? Are we going vegetarian today?”

Jiang Guan lowered his head in embarrassment and wrote ashamed. Xie Ying teased mischievously, “You just cut off all worldly attachments, and now you’ve gone vegetarian too. Next, are you going to start chanting scriptures?”

Hunting was a basic skill for the sons of nobility, so it was nothing unusual for Jiang Guan. He had no psychological burden about killing—catching rabbits or fish was easy enough. But having ingredients didn’t mean you could eat. The truly difficult part was cooking—plucking the rabbit, scaling the fish, gutting and cleaning them. That wasn’t something his tutors had ever taught him. The Young Master, who had never soiled his hands with such tasks, finally faltered.

He faltered.

He hooked his fingers around Xie Ying’s and gently swayed them, not even knowing what he wanted. Deep down, he understood that delaying like this was useless—he couldn’t possibly let a blind man handle the knife and gut the fish and rabbit himself. But in just two or three days, his blind trust in Xie Ying had grown to a degree that even he found unbelievable. He knew Xie Ying wasn’t all-powerful, yet he still couldn’t help wanting a bit of reassurance from him.

Even just a brief moment of weakness—having someone to rely on beside him gave him immense courage.

Just as he clenched his teeth and made up his mind that, no matter what, he couldn’t let his lifesaver end up eating grass with him like a monk, and was about to face the bloody reality—

Xie Ying held out his hand. “Give me the dagger. I’ll do it.”

Jiang Guan: ?

The shock in his gaze was so obvious that Xie Ying snorted and beckoned with his fingers. “Hand it over. Do you know what it means to live by your tools? It means you have to get used to using a dagger like a spoon from a young age. Even with my eyes closed, I’m more skilled than you.”

Jiang Guan suspected he was just making things up to comfort him, but Xie Ying rose with composed ease. “Bring your prey and go to the water. Don’t make a mess of blood everywhere.”

At the riverside stone bank, Jiang Guan brought over a flat stone and laid the rabbit and fish neatly upon it. Xie Ying knelt halfway, feeling out their rough shapes. The dagger spun once in his hand before he gripped it steadily. “Do you want to watch? If you can’t handle blood, step aside. Once I’ve finished cutting it up, you can take it to wash.”

Jiang Guan thought he couldn’t rely on a blind man every time—otherwise he’d be too useless. Gritting his teeth, he sat down beside Xie Ying, clearly intending to observe and learn.

With a precise stroke, Xie Ying cut through the fish’s gills and lifted it by the tail. “Then as your teacher, I’ll now instruct you in the essentials of dismemberment…”

Blood burst out. Jiang Guan fled in panic.

Amid the dust of his hasty retreat, Xie Ying lowered his gaze and calmly focused on preparing dinner, letting out a quiet, amused chuckle.

“Young Master.”

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