During the days that followed, Jiang Guan went into the mountains every day looking for prey. His skill improved steadily, and under expert instruction he even learned how to steal bird eggs, catch loaches, and raid squirrel nests.
With such vast wilderness offering endless opportunities, Jiang Guan seemed on the verge of becoming a petty tyrant of the mountains. Xie Ying’s worries consequently evolved from Can he survive outside, find food, and return safely? to If he keeps bullying everything in the forest, are the wild animals eventually going to retaliate?
Some things should never be thought about too much. The moment that idea passed through Xie Ying’s head, a strong wind rose outside. Countless leaves and branches roared and rustled. The earthy smell of soil filled the air. Far beyond the cave, faint thunder rolled inside the clouds.
The small degree of clarity Xie Ying’s vision had regained over the past two days faded back into dim grayness. This time, however, he knew his body was not responsible.
Summer weather changed without warning. Heavy rain was coming. He pushed himself upright. Thanks to several days of memorizing his surroundings, he could now walk to the cave entrance without the scabbard. A cold wind carried needle-fine droplets against his face, which remained still and cool as water.
Jiang Guan was somewhere out in the mountains. Could he return before the rain intensified? What if the storm trapped him? Would he find somewhere to shelter? Would the idiot stand beneath a tree and get struck by lightning?
Xie Ying was not idly cursing him. Their previous chain of desperate escapes, collapsing caverns, and repeated cliff-diving had left him almost superstitiously anxious about Jiang Guan’s luck—especially whenever pure chance and Heaven’s will were involved.
Had it been anyone else, Xie Ying himself would have considered the worry overly sentimental. Applied to Jiang Guan, however, it became a perfectly reasonable case of “once bitten by a snake, fearing ropes for ten years.” What had happened before was simply too absurd. It had made superstition difficult to resist.
Rain poured over the vast mountains, almost drowning every other sound beneath Heaven.
Xie Ying stood silently at the cave entrance. Anxiety smoldered inside him like a slow fire. His reason hissed and melted away under the heat. Wind and rain did little to cool it. Nothing showed on his face. But his hand had already tightened around the scabbard.
Splash! Splash-splash!
Xie Ying’s ears twitched. He had just caught the sound of footsteps striking puddles when a gust of air different from the surrounding wind rushed toward him.
Jiang Guan appeared through the rain, holding a huge leaf over his head with one hand and a bundle wrapped in leaves with the other. He was soaked completely through. Water clung to his eyelashes. Through the curtain of rain he could barely make out Xie Ying’s shadowed figure. With both hands occupied, he simply hurried forward and used his own body to briefly shield Xie Ying from the rain and wind.
“You’re back?”
Before Xie Ying could reach him, his hand was intercepted.
Jiang Guan tossed away the leaf, caught Xie Ying’s hand, and dragged him into the dry cave—nearly flinging the unsuspecting blind man off his feet in the process. Then he quickly wrote:
Why are you standing in the rain?
The strokes were firm. Almost accusatory. But even angry, Jiang Guan resembled a small animal batting someone with the soft, furry part of a paw while keeping every claw and fang safely hidden. He possessed no real intimidation whatsoever.
“You’re soaked from head to toe and you’re questioning me?” Xie Ying ignored the accusation, traced upward along Jiang Guan’s wet wrist, and turned the matter back on him. “Was there nowhere to shelter in the mountains? Running through rain like this—what if you slipped and fell?”
His words and tone sounded severe. Jiang Guan blinked water from his lashes and looked at Xie Ying through the haze. At the knitted brows. Pressed lips. Rigid expression. Tiny droplets hanging from the ends of his pale hair. Jiang Guan smiled silently.
Xie Ying could not see the smile, but somehow detected it anyway. He said coldly, “You’re still laughing? Is this funny? If you fell into some miserable corner where no one could hear you even if you screamed, I—”
Four characters cut the reprimand cleanly in half.
Written into his dry palm together with traces of water:
Afraid you’d worry.
Jiang Guan wrote them as solemnly as though carving an inscription that would hang above a doorway for a hundred years.
Xie Ying: “…”
He drew a deep breath. “If you’re afraid I’ll worry, then stop risking your life. Go inside and make a fire before you catch cold. Are you trying to change from a mountain spirit into a river god?”
Jiang Guan retaliated by shaking his head like a drenched dog. Water sprayed everywhere. Xie Ying was completely unprepared and nearly shoved him into the cave wall. He stopped himself halfway. “Fine. As long as lightning doesn’t strike you, we’ll blame everything else on your brain being flooded.” He sighed. “Young Master, can you behave seriously for once? Stop playing around.” Before he had finished, Jiang Guan stumbled and fell against him. Xie Ying caught him with one shoulder and gave a knowing snort. “Serves you right. Dizzy now, aren’t you?”
Jiang Guan: “…”
After one storm, it felt as though one and a half people had been soaked. They sat beside the fire to warm themselves. Jiang Guan wore Xie Ying’s outer robe and slowly drank hot water from a bamboo tube with a little perilla added to dispel the chill. Xie Ying listened to the rain outside. A trace of worry remained between his brows, so faint that one almost could not see it.
Jiang Guan touched his hand.
What’s wrong?
“The rain is heavy,” Xie Ying said. “Hopefully it won’t last too long.”
Jiang Guan looked around, estimated their supplies, and wrote:
Food for two days. Firewood for one.
Xie Ying frowned. “That isn’t my greatest concern. I’m more worried about these cursed Yanyuan mountains. What if the rain triggers another landslide—”
Jiang Guan immediately covered his mouth.
Please.
Stop speaking.
Stop summoning disasters.
His hand had been warmed by the bamboo tube and carried a faint, fresh smell of bamboo. Perhaps they had become too accustomed to touching one another. Xie Ying did not pull away. He merely caught Jiang Guan’s wrist lightly and lowered his hand. “You’re the one who asked, and now you won’t let me answer.” His tone was faintly helpless. “Either way, stay alert tonight. If anything seems wrong, run immediately.”
Jiang Guan squeezed his hand firmly.
Don’t worry. Even if I have to carry you, I’ll take you with me.
Xie Ying was baffled. “What are you doing? Trying to arm-wrestle?”
Jiang Guan: “…”
Now Jiang Guan truly began to worry. After all, floods carried floating logs away before anything else. Perhaps he should simply tie Xie Ying to his belt.
For the previous two nights, probably because of his injuries, Xie Ying had slept very deeply. Although there had occasionally been noises outside, he rarely woke. Tonight was different. The rain came and went. His vigilance was already high. His extremely sharp hearing left him incapable of sleeping.
He settled his mind, closed his eyes, and rested while listening to Jiang Guan’s even breathing nearby. After an unknown period, the wind changed from a low growl to a violent howl. A blinding flash split the sky. Then thunder exploded directly overhead like a whip cracking beside the ear.
The entire cave trembled. Dust fell from cracks in the stone. Even lying down, Xie Ying felt the earth shake. Unable to sleep anyway, he rolled over and sat up, gazing anxiously toward the entrance through his blurred vision.
Lightning flashed repeatedly. Thunder rolled in waves, sometimes near and sometimes distant, crashing over the enormous mountain landscape. The echoes lasted so long one could almost wonder whether the cave itself might collapse beneath them.
Strangest of all, Jiang Guan had not woken.
Even with thunder exploding overhead, he remained asleep.
His breathing, however, grew rapidly uneven. It sounded as though something were squeezing his throat. He gasped desperately for air. His limbs twitched uncontrollably, as though trapped inside some nightmare.
Afraid that Jiang Guan might actually suffocate himself in his sleep, Xie Ying moved closer to wake him.
Jiang Guan suddenly released one short, sharp cry. His entire body locked for an instant. Then, like a living fish thrown into boiling water, he sprang from their crude bedding, dizzy and disoriented, staggered in the direction opposite Xie Ying, and fell heavily.
A scream.
Some people born deaf and mute could still produce sounds even though they could not form proper speech. Jiang Guan was not one of them. He was the kind of mute who could produce no voice at all. Even while hanging over the edge of a cliff between life and death, he had never made such a clear sound.
Xie Ying froze. The hand he had reached out remained suspended in the air. Before he could understand how Jiang Guan had suddenly produced a sound, he heard the heavy impact of the fall. “Jiang Guan? What’s wrong?”
Normally, the slightest call would bring Jiang Guan immediately to his side. This time there was no response.
He remained several steps away. His breathing came in uneven, shaking gasps. The panting carried a sharp, uncontrollable wheeze, like a broken bellows about to collapse. The terror of his dream continued fighting for possession of his limbs. Jiang Guan stared at that long hand—and saw another hand coming down toward him. Closing around his throat. Tightening.
Outside, thunder roared and rain poured. The world seemed to be torn apart and drowned beneath the storm. Deafening rain swallowed his tiny struggles and every attempt to cry for help. Lightning threw the figure into stark relief against the pale wall and burned it deep into his terrified eyes.
His bloodless, freezing fingers clutched his own throat. Yet he could still feel remembered warmth there. Why couldn’t he breathe? Why, no matter how desperately he struggled, could he produce no sound?
Why could no one hear him? Why could no one notice him? Why could no one… save him?
“…Jiang Guan?”
“Xiao Guan!”
A sharp voice suddenly pierced through the roaring rain like a needle. Jiang Guan jerked his head upward. He could no longer distinguish dream from reality. All he saw was the hand that had seemed to hover above his throat turning over. Palm upward. Open. Relaxed. Harmless. An invitation.
The young voice was clear. Every word steady and unhurried. It carried a force that soothed instinctively.
“Come here.”
That hand was different from the hand in his memory. Its bones were distinct. The fingers were long and strong. But it was not cold. It did not remain permanently tense. It carried the faint scent of weathered steel. It patiently held his fingertips and waited while he slowly wrote whatever he wished to say.
Jiang Guan recognized the thin calluses. He recognized the lines of that palm. He remembered blood running along the hand and outlining the veins on its back.
The hand that had strangled him in the rain had been cold. The hand covered in blood before him had come to save him.
The terror in Jiang Guan’s eyes finally loosened. A faint trace of life returned. His gaze stopped clinging to the hand as though possessed. Slowly, trembling, he raised his eyes toward the young man kneeling several steps away.
Xie Ying’s expression was calm. He showed no alarm at Jiang Guan’s violent awakening. No interrogation. No disgust. No suspicion. His unfocused gaze remained directed steadily toward him. In the unstable firelight, it even seemed gentle.
Of course, that was mostly because he could not see. And because Xie Ying thought that if a delicate Young Master who was too frightened to kill a fish happened to fear thunder or suffer a nightmare, that was entirely reasonable.
“Xiao Guan,” he said. “Come here.”
As if waking from a dream, Jiang Guan scrambled to his feet and stumbled toward the one person in the world he did not need to fear.
Xie Ying opened his arms at exactly the right moment.
Jiang Guan fell entirely into them. The unlucky boy trembled all over. Heat seeped through their clothes into Xie Ying’s chest.
Too much heat.
Xie Ying wanted to check his forehead. Jiang Guan was holding him too tightly. So Xie Ying caught the back of his neck, raised his head slightly, and pressed their foreheads together. “Your hands are ice cold and your forehead is burning. You have a fever, idiot.”
Jiang Guan weakly buried his face against Xie Ying’s shoulder again. His nose pressed into the cool softness of Xie Ying’s hair. Like someone clutching a warm quilt on a winter night, he gradually calmed within that indescribable steadiness.
“Did you cry?” Xie Ying allowed him to cling and continued smoothing his back. “A high fever can cause convulsions and nightmares. None of it is real. Don’t be afraid.”
Perhaps from instinctive self-protection, Jiang Guan did not want to answer. He did not want to remember any part of the dream. Instead, he rubbed his dry eyes against Xie Ying’s cheek to prove that he had not cried.
Xie Ying gave a soft, brief laugh, perhaps ticklish and perhaps amused. “You’re burning like a furnace. Lie down and sleep.”
Once his tension loosened, the weakness in Jiang Guan’s limbs returned. But he refused to let go. He shook his head faintly and clung tighter, like a piece of warm half-melted sugar—or harmless swamp mud—holding Xie Ying firmly in place.
Xie Ying sighed. “In midsummer you want me to hold a furnace? Aren’t you afraid I’ll die of heatstroke?”
Outside, rain poured and thunder roared. Yet once Jiang Guan calmed down, the frightening storm somehow became almost soothing. Sleepiness overtook him. He tried pulling Xie Ying down onto the straw bed.
Xie Ying did not move.
Xie Ying: “…”
Has the fever actually cooked his brain?
Am I truly going to indulge this?
Xie Ying asked himself. Yes, he was blind and his movements were limited. But that did not mean he needed someone sharing his bed. Jiang Guan had only a mild fever. Why exactly did they need to sleep while embracing?
At that moment, Jiang Guan shifted slightly. Remaining in one posture had apparently become painful. The movement pulled at the place where he had fallen earlier. A tiny, aggrieved sound escaped against Xie Ying’s shoulder.
Xie Ying: “…”
Earlier he had appeared perfectly calm. In truth, Xie Ying had been tense as well. He had not known how much Jiang Guan trusted him. Jiang Guan’s instinctive reaction had now answered very clearly.
Xie Ying could resist deliberate coaxing. Unthinking closeness and dependence were considerably harder to refuse. Instinctive reactions came before calculation. They were therefore the hardest thing to defend against.
“Fine. I surrender.”
He helped Jiang Guan lie down. The arm around his waist dragged him with it, and Xie Ying fell beside him. A pitiful blind man who could not even resist properly had no choice but to allow Jiang Guan to catch his wrist. Their fingers slowly threaded together. Ten fingers interlocked. Only then did Jiang Guan wrap himself contentedly around Xie Ying and fall asleep.
Xie Ying: “…”
The next morning, the rain had passed and the sky was clear. Bright blue heavens and blazing sunlight proved that Xie Ying was not, in fact, a jinx. Jiang Guan had tossed and turned for half the night and slept until noon. When he woke, his arms were empty. Xie Ying’s outer robe had been spread over him.
He sat up abruptly, still faintly dizzy, and looked around. To his surprise, Xie Ying was not meditating. He had somehow acquired a length of bamboo and was slowly carving it with a small knife.
Back at the Ten Aspects Sect’s main altar, Xie Ying had already taken the sword and had never bothered thoroughly searching the second guard. He had stripped off only the man’s clothes. There had been no real weapon inside the guard’s sleeve pouch. Only a decorative little knife. Useless for cutting wood. Useless for hunting. Perfect for passing the time.
Hearing movement, Xie Ying raised his head precisely toward Jiang Guan. Somehow, it felt as if he could already “see” him.
“You’re awake?” His voice was casual. “Go drink the water in the bamboo tube.”
Inside was hot water infused with a little perilla, mild enough to drink. Jiang Guan crouched beside him with the bamboo cup and watched his hands.
For someone literally working blind, Xie Ying was astonishingly skilled. A small bamboo whistle had already taken shape.
Xie Ying smoothed the rough edges, brushed away the shavings, and held it out. “Try it.”
Jiang Guan took the whistle and blew.
A sharp note pierced the mountains. The echo rolled through the valley. Birds erupted from the surrounding trees.
Xie Ying tilted his head. “Just woke up and already so energetic, Young Master.”
Jiang Guan had startled himself as well. He immediately shrank closer to Xie Ying and pressed his palm in confusion.
Xie Ying explained, “Carry it whenever you go out. If you meet danger, blow it. I’ll hear and come find you.”
Their joined hands trembled faintly. The little whistle clearly pleased him.
Jiang Guan smiled and wrote:
You can’t see. How will you find me?
Xie Ying could tell from the wording alone that Jiang Guan was acting somewhat spoiled. He answered patiently, “I can follow the sound. You’ll simply have to keep blowing it.”
Jiang Guan wrote again:
What if you find me but can’t beat them?
Xie Ying answered without hesitation.
“Then we die together.”
Jiang Guan: “…”
How could a person say something so ominous and make it sound like a vow of love? Why did “living and dying together” come from his mouth with the same casualness as “if there are no peaches, pears are fine”?
Jiang Guan’s eyes smiled, while the corners of his lips pulled downward as though he might cry again. Still dissatisfied, he wrote:
Do you say that to everyone?
Of course not.
Xie Ying was an assassin. Not a Bodhisattva. Saving someone at risk to his own life did not mean he owed the stranger limitless care afterward.
In circumstances like theirs, mutual dependence was the only route to survival. But whether that dependence remained polite and distant or became true trust depended entirely upon whether two people’s temperaments suited one another.
Someone who had desperately tried to break free of Xie Ying’s hand rather than drag him down to die had also offered awkward sincerity, vivid laughter, and equally vivid tears.
The extra patience and indulgence Xie Ying showed Jiang Guan had taken root long before he consciously noticed it.
After all—
Xie Ying’s heart was flesh.
Not stone.
He withdrew the hand that had been tickled by the writing and said casually, “You wrote too fast. I didn’t understand.”
Jiang Guan: ?
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