A light breeze carried the smell of sweat and earth to him. Liu Yan had his eyes closed, his breathing shallow. He opened his eyes slightly when someone pushed aside the curtain of vines and ivy. It was Xinxin.
His heart skipped a beat when he recognized her. Then his head slumped back down onto his chest. Xinxin sat down next to him, lifted his head, and tried to push something between his lips, but he didn't have enough strength.
Then she tried to open his mouth with her fingers, but the small, round fruit rolled out of his mouth and onto the floor. Xinxin reached for his hand, then his throat. She struggled to find his pulse, her own breath quickening and brushing against him.
Xinxin's body was warm, pulsing with life, and Liu Yan wanted to hold on to it. But his fingers were numb, as was the rest of his body. He could barely move. Only the fluttering of his eyelids showed that he was still alive.
"I hope you won't hold this against me, Your Highness," Xinxin mumbled.
Liu Yan could barely hear her anymore when suddenly his head was jerked up and something warm and rough touched his lips.
He felt warmth that quickly turned into heat, an electric sensation that pierced his body. Xinxin pressed her lips to his.
She used her tongue to force its way through his limp lips. Liu Yan instinctively opened them wider. Her breath brushed his cheek, the warmth of her hands penetrated his cool skin and ignited a spark of will to live in him.
His fingertips twitched as her tongue carried something into his mouth. She sought his, almost gently placed the half-chewed fruit inside, and then pushed it deeper into his throat.
Liu Yan swallowed and coughed. But Xinxin didn't stop. She only broke away briefly to chew the hard shell of another berry before lifting his head again and transferring it into his mouth with a kiss.
Liu Yan had his eyes half open so he could watch Xinxin's face. She kept her eyes tightly closed, a heated blush had settled on her cheeks, and the red fruit juice from the berry had left a trail across her lips and chin.
Another electric impulse shot through his body. Liu Yan's hands flew up and clung to her. His breathing quickened, he swallowed the fruit, but did not let Xinxin escape and now penetrated her mouth with his tongue.
She tried to push him away, but his grip clung to her. As if the warmth she gave him ensured his survival, he demanded more.
One impulse after another pulsed through his body in waves. Driving away the cold and the pain and the lethargy. Nevertheless, his body was still too weak. They separated, panting and breathing rapidly.
"Liu Yan," Xinxin's voice sounded hoarse and rough. She bit into another fruit and pushed it into his mouth with her fingers.
"Eat!" she urged him, turning her bright red head away from him. Liu Yan chewed the berry.
"You started it," he teased her. Xinxin didn't even glance at him, staring stubbornly outside. The darkness lifted and dawn began to break.
"That was close," she remarked.
Liu Yan leaned against the tree and looked at Xinxin from the side. She had come back. Something stung violently in his heart.
It cramped up as if to warn him. As the sun slowly shone through the branches that the Zhao brothers had thinned with their swords, some sunlight also fell on Xinxin.
Her hair was a dark brown shade that shimmered in the sun. Her eyes were alert, her body tense. If she ever betrayed him, left him alone, he would burn her and the whole corrupt world with her, he vowed.
"Can you keep running?" Xinxin asked, looking at him with her big eyes.
Liu Yan raised an eyebrow. Had she finally gotten to the point of addressing him informally?
Her cheeks were still slightly reddened and her lips stained red from the berry. His gaze slid from her eyes to her lips, over her neck to his hands. He nodded.
One after another, they crawled out of the hollow tree trunk. Zhao Yuan and Zhao Yuehao had done a thorough job.
The flowers on the trees and roots had been torn out, a trail of black blood ran down the bark and seeped into the ground.
"How long does it take cultists like Yuan and Yuehao to recover after a fight with a demon like Jingzi?" Liu Yan asked.
He actually felt better. Better than he had felt in years, in fact. He felt strong, his pain and fatigue ebbing away. His senses became sharper. He could see everything clearly and hear the small animals rustling in the undergrowth.
The air smelled cold, clear, and faintly of incense sticks. He was cold and not sweating. He felt calm and actually capable of running to the end of the world. Xinxin shrugged.
"Maybe three days," she replied. "Why?"
"I heard that they plan to come back to look for the demon," Liu Yan replied. Xinxin frowned.
"Jingzi is dead," she remarked, eyeing Liu Yan. He allowed it and stood up straight so she could get a good look at him. When her eyes met his, she quickly looked away. He laughed.
"I promise not to hold a grudge," he said. Xinxin's ears turned red and she mumbled something he couldn't understand.
"The demon," he began. Xinxin exhaled deeply and walked ahead.
"Ultimately, you did exactly what comes naturally to you," she began. "You absorbed her bad karma. Although I have to admit, it was scary," she added.
Liu Yan had no trouble keeping up with her, and so they clearly made faster progress than the previous day.
"Are you afraid of me now?" Liu Yan asked. Xinxin turned around briefly. She looked at him, then smiled.
"No!"
Liu Yan admitted that he had secretly wished she would have said yes. But Xinxin was strange anyway. She didn't hate him, even though everyone else did, and now she wasn't afraid?
That didn't mean others wouldn't be afraid of him. He walked a few steps behind Xinxin and focused his qi, just as she had shown him with the talismans.
A cloud of suspended black shadow mixed with red wisps of mist. Like blood bubbling up in water, it flowed from his fingertips. A proud smile spread across his lips.
Thanks to the berry, he had overcome the violent fever and could summon the power he had absorbed. But that wouldn't be enough. Even in their exhausted state, the Zhao brothers had been able to defeat the mirror demon.
With their power alone, he would not frighten them, let alone terrify them. He lowered his hand.
"Until Yuan and Yuehao have recovered, we should put as much distance between us and this forest as possible," Xinxin gasped, grabbing a low-hanging branch to pull herself up.
The forest was uneven and littered with overgrown roots, undergrowth, and rocks.
Around noon, they finally reached the edge of the forest and saw smoke rising in the distance.
"Probably a farmstead, we could ask if we can rest there," Xinxin suggested.
"Do you think they would just let two strangers into their house?"
remarked Liu Yan skeptically as they walked down the gentle slope.
As a curse-bound, he had never been welcome anywhere; people avoided him purely out of instinct. Xinxin picked some wild flowers along the way and stuffed them into her bag with the rest of the berries.
"I told you I have experience in medicine, didn't I?
Let's pretend we're traveling healers. They're welcome everywhere, and there are hardly any people who don't have one ailment or another," she suggested.
Liu Yan wasn't convinced, but he let her take the lead. She seemed to have much more experience traveling the open world than he did. His curiosity grew.
What were these mysterious circumstances? What had happened between the death of her teacher and her rescue from the river? Sure, the learned Tao had been able to teach her a lot about medicine, and he had probably often been called to sick people.
But a man like him had probably stayed permanently in one house and had not traveled through the country. Xinxin herself said that she had holed up in that house for a while after his death.
Nor could she have acquired her knowledge of qi, meridians, and cultivation from dusty books alone. She had too much practical knowledge for that.
They reached the old farmstead. A few pigs and chickens greeted them loudly as they passed through the makeshift, self-built gate.
Xinxin looked around in all directions. There was an open-air kitchen, and a tub stood in the courtyard. The house was a crooked building made of clay, straw, and a little wood. A shed and various stables were scattered around.
A horse was tied to a stick and looked at them indifferently. Rice was drying on a table that could easily have seated three men.
"Someone definitely lives here," Xinxin whispered. She stepped up to the door and knocked on the board, which swayed menacingly.
Liu Yan looked around skeptically. The farmstead almost reminded him of the part of the cold palace he had lived in.
Heavy footsteps could be heard, and the door swung open.
An elderly gentleman looked Xinxin up and down disparagingly. Liu Yan stepped forward so that the old man would notice him too, and kept a watchful eye on him.
"Good afternoon," Xinxin greeted the old man. "My name is..." She hesitated briefly. "Ye Chan, and this is my husband, Ye Meng," she finally said.
Liu Yan raised an eyebrow. He understood why they didn't reveal their real names. But if she wanted him to be her husband, she would have to make a little more effort.
"What do you want?" the old man barked unkindly. Liu Yan looked at the old man coldly, but Xinxin remained friendly.
"We are traveling healers and are looking for a safe place to rest," she explained to him.
"You want me to share my rice with a couple of quacks who make claims," the man grumbled. Liu Yan turned to leave again.
"Xiangsheng, how about I give you something to ease your pain, and then we'll talk again?"
In the evening, they sat outside the kitchen next to a small fire. The old man had a brew made from the plants Xinxin had picked and the berries in front of him. It had worked.
Xinxin had whispered conspiratorially to Liu Yan that she had only concocted a drug, but at least the old man would feel better now and they wouldn't have to sleep outdoors.
For real medicine, she would need more herbs, roots, and other ingredients.
"If you want to leave the country, you should take the ship that leaves in two days," the man remarked, shoveling porridge into his mouth.
Liu Yan didn't even glance at the man, concentrating fully on eating his hot, freshly cooked rice porridge, which was refined with a few dried fruits.
Xinxin had insisted that they eat something light, not only so as not to burden the man, but also because she wasn't entirely convinced that Liu Yan was already feeling well enough.
"A ship?" Xinxin asked. The old man nodded.
"Yes, there are many who flee from the borderlands.
The emperor doesn't care about these farmers. He only cares about the borders that are of strategic importance to him. Many villages have been raided and burned for decades. So people prefer to flee," he said.
Xinxin nodded in agreement. Liu Yan remembered her telling him how her village had also been raided by looters.
"Take the old horse. He may not look like it, but he'll get you to the harbor on time and he knows the way home by himself," the old man suggested.
He was like a different person. The painkiller Xinxin had given him must have worked wonders. Xinxin thanked him.
"Be glad you're traveling with your husband; it's dangerous for women these days. I hope he can fight better than he looks!"
Xinxin choked on her rice porridge. Liu Yan gave the man a cold look.
Xinxin did the dishes while Liu Yan sat nearby and watched her. The old man had already gone to bed.
"Why did you say we were married?" asked Liu Yan. Xinxin scrubbed the bowls clean.
"Because it's easier that way. Otherwise, people would bombard us with questions, and there would be gossip if a man and a woman traveled together and weren't married or related," she explained, drying her hands on her dress.
"I thought you didn't care what other people thought of you," he remarked.
"I don't," Xinxin said, sitting down next to him.
"But this little lie makes our journey a lot easier, believe me. I'm not asking you to fulfill your marital duties," she laughed.
Then she nudged him and indicated that she was going to lie down too.
Liu Yan watched her as she disappeared inside the house. He thought about the kiss, and suddenly marital duties no longer seemed as repulsive and abusive as they had before.
He tilted his head back and watched the stars. He thought of Zhao Huan and Li Wangxi. Would Xinxin sound the same if he kissed her like that? He shook his head and dismissed the thought.
He let the black and red shadows flow from his fingertips and watched them dance around him, stretching upward and licking his skin above his fingertips. The feeling was electrifying, awakening his spirits.
He got up and went into the house as well. The fire outside provided enough light through the open door. He saw the old man lying on his bed, while Xinxin lay on a pile of straw.
Liu Yan walked over to the man who was snoring peacefully. He raised his hand and ran it a few inches above the man's body.
The black shadows twitched, detached themselves, and swept over the man's clothes and skin. He flinched, furrowed his brow, and breathed heavily. He was obviously in pain.
Liu Yan watched his game curiously and let even more of his power flow into the man. When the man lit up and clawed at the lake, a hand suddenly rested on his.
He looked up. Xinxin had crouched down next to him, looking at him with her dark eyes and shaking her head gently.
"No," she whispered. "He didn't do anything to you and isn't responsible for your suffering!"
Liu Yan looked at her briefly. Then he tilted his head and let the black shadows disappear. The man visibly relaxed again and breathed a sigh of relief. Xinxin took Liu Yan's hand and rested her cheek on it.
"I understand that there are people you want to take revenge on. But randomly attacking others won't undo the suffering you've endured, it won't make it any less terrible," she said quietly and led him away from the old man. She sat him down on the straw and sat down next to him without letting go of his hand.
"Let's run away first. No matter where, just away. I'm not asking you to forget, but don't take your anger out on innocent people, okay?" she asked.
Liu Yan looked at her intertwined fingers, feeling the warmth flowing from her into him. It reached his heart and warmed him from within.
He leaned down toward her so that their faces were only a few inches apart and looked deep into her eyes. There was no fear, no disgust. She returned his gaze just as openly, their breath mingling, and Liu Yan suppressed the urge to kiss her again. Finally, he nodded.
"Good!" he said tonelessly and lay down. Xinxin lay down next to him and for a while they just lay there. With their hands clasped together, they stared into the darkness above them.