Chapter 12

Yu ZhiJue was crouching motionlessly in a corner, both hands tightly clenched, his long hair dishevelled from the fight earlier, dripping wet and plastered all across his face. The moment he noticed Ling Xia, he was like a startled, tiny wolf cub, his small body curling up into a ball. Behind his messy hair, a pair of eyes filled with vigilance and suspicion peered past, and with each of his breaths being extremely short yet heavy, he was evidently still in a state of immense nervousness and high-strung tension.

Ling Xia felt his heart constrict. Slowly and cautiously, he approached while soothing in a gentle voice, "Don't be nervous… Ah'Jue, you did very well. You saved me and XiaoHu…" He repeated such words again and again, hunching over and looking sincerely and serenely at Yu ZhiJue's face.

Yu ZhiJue replied hoarsely, "Is that right? So he died…"

At this moment, while recalling that peculiar sensation of being stabbed, Yu ZhiJue felt his palm throbbing and twitching irrepressibly; he didn't know whether to label it as agonizing or frightening, but perhaps it was more nauseating than anything else. That repulsive sensation relentlessly replayed itself in his mind, tormenting him like an endless, recurring nightmare…

Ling Xia inched closer, fixing his gaze on Yu ZhiJue, and said, "l know that he wanted to kill us, and that's why you did nothing wrong… Your hand was injured earlier; let me take a look."

Yu ZhiJue slowly and hesitantly extended his hand, and when Ling Xia carefully held it in his palms, he immediately perceived how ice-cold Yu ZhiJue's shivering body was.

Due to Yu ZhiJue's constitution, the bleeding from his palm had gradually lessened, but the wound still appeared gruesome. Ling Xia couldn't bear to even look at it, his heart stinging as he sharply sucked in a breath.

"Ah'Jue, let's go back inside the cavern, okay? Your wound needs to be treated," Ling Xia softly advised. Seeing that Yu ZhiJue wasn't responding, he gradually moved closer, then wrapped his arms around Yu ZhiJue's shoulders, enveloping the other in his embrace.

Yu ZhiJue's body stiffened, subconsciously reeling in avoidance, but Ling Xia stubbornly glued his own warmer figure to the boy. He gently rubbed Yu ZhiJue's back over and over, stopping only when he felt the stretched-taut muscles were no longer as tense, and with the gentlest of movements, he picked the boy up.

The body of a child was very light, and to the best of his abilities, Ling Xia tried to hold him in a way that would make him feel secure, with an arm wrapped around Yu ZhiJue's waist and the other supporting his weight from under his bottom. He hugged Yu ZhiJue with the same care as handling an infant, and then slowly walked back into the cave.

Yu ZhiJue had never been so intimate with anyone like this before. With his face pressed against Ling Xia's chest, he could almost hear the other's robust yet somewhat chaotic heartbeat. He felt a flicker of doubt: why was Ling Xia's heart racing so fast, and how could the inflection of his words be so gentle yet possess such persuasive power?

He tightly grasped Ling Xia's shoulder with his uninjured left hand, intending to tell the other to put him down and that there was no way he'd be unnerved just from killing an enemy. But in the end, he didn't say a thing, only gazing numbly at Ling Xia's ear, so lost in thought that even when Ling Xia put him down, it took him a moment before he realized.

Ling Xia looked at the cavern that had returned to its former state of darkness, preparing to pick up some dry kindling and remake the fire right away. Except, just as he turned around to move, the hem of his shirt was grabbed, and Yu ZhiJue's hoarse voice sounded, "Where are you going?"

"Your clothes are wet, and they need to be dried as fast as possible. Also, I'm going to try and find some medicine…" Ling Xia was quite startled by the other's actions, and using a tone as soft and kind as he possibly could, he promised, "I'll be back very soon."

Yu ZhiJue hesitated for a beat, but little by little, he loosened his grip. Ling Xia released a breath of air, then bent over and stroked his moist hair. "Good boy."

Naturally, the three of them didn't have anything in place of gauze, but since that Shang Yan had a storage bag, there should definitely be medicine inside!

Ling Xia hurriedly approached Shang Yan's corpse, making a conscious effort to block any thoughts. Restraining his terror and panic, he flipped the body over and tugged the storage bag off his waist. While doing so, he couldn't help but shudder at the touch of the other's icy cold, pallid skin, soaked by the rain.

Having acquired what he had set out for, he exhaled deeply and briskly left the scene. As fast as he could, he reignited the fire and sat back down next to Yu ZhiJue, finally thawing his frozen body.

There were quite a few things inside the storage bag. Ling Xia didn't know which were used for healing injuries, but seeing the different pills and ointments, Yu ZhiJue promptly recognized the commonly used healing salve and pointed it out in a scratchy voice, "It's this one."

Ling Xia carefully and delicately applied the salve for Yu ZhiJue, then, using a clean cotton cloth, bandaged up the wound. With a faintly aching heart, he lowered his head and saw Yu ZhiJue's long, wet eyelashes lightly tremble, and due to blood loss, both his cheeks and lips appeared somewhat ashen and frail.

"I'm going to take a look at how XiaoHu is," Ling Xia murmured as he rubbed the top of Yu ZhiJue's head again.

Actually, he wasn't that worried about Song XiaoHu; there was absolutely no way Song XiaoHu's cheat-like physique would lose out against a single lightning attack. In contrast, he was much more worried about Yu ZhiJue since mental damage was a lot more detrimental and serious than physical injury.

Right now, Yu ZhiJue wasn't clad in his usual air of obstinacy, and the dependence and trust in his clear, black eyes were in plain sight as he stared fixedly at Ling Xia, not blinking even once.

Witnessing this, Ling Xia felt his heart thud, and he couldn't help but soothe, "I'll be back very quickly."

In spite of the searing temperature and faint sparks of electricity surrounding him, Song XiaoHu's breathing remained steady. Ling Xia was a bit astonished; in the novel, the lightning-elemental energy in Song XiaoHu's body was only triggered after he was struck by lightning on one occasion. Could it be that the attack by Shang Yan's lightning-attribute magic tool caused this awakening to happen ahead of time?

After putting down this worry, Ling Xia immediately returned to Yu ZhiJue's side, took his injured hand while letting the other lean against his shoulder, and suggested in a calming tone, "You need to rest a bit. Sleep; I'll wake you up later."

As if this voice had a hypnotic effect, Yu ZhiJue obediently closed his eyes. Yet, as he dozed between the boundaries of sleep and consciousness, he felt someone pick his body up before gently placing it on the ground. A jolt of panic ran through his heart—what was Ling Xia planning to do? It couldn't be that he was going to throw away Song XiaoHu and himself, and leave?

Even so, he did not open his eyes, only tightly biting his bottom lip as his heartbeat instantaneously became wild and erratic.

He heard Ling Xia's deliberately slowed footsteps walk outside, surprisingly stopping a short distance past the mouth of the cave, and after that came the sound of digging… He suddenly understood.

Ling Xia had left because he thought Yu ZhiJue had already fallen asleep. He had to summon every ounce of his courage for this, because when all was said and done, something like helping to hide the body of someone your family's child killed really wasn't any sort of happy or pleasant undertaking!

Nevertheless, he fully comprehended the weight of Shang Yan's status as the governor's favoured disciple in YunXiao City. If it became known that he died by Yu ZhiJue's hands, the three of them could only await their turn for a game of chess with the King of Hell!

Contrary to the storm earlier, the rain was now gradually subsiding. Ling Xia found two pieces of sharp rocks and, holding one in each hand, started to vigorously dig into the ground. Due to the rain, it wasn't a difficult task since the water and earth had mixed together, but his body was soon covered in mud, filthy beyond belief. He was afraid of startling Yu ZhiJue if he made too loud a noise; therefore, his speed wasn't very fast.

After he dug out a hole large enough to bury a single person, he gathered all of his nerves and walked back towards Shang Yan, dragging the body over. There, he disposed of the body and all the accompanying articles—the dagger, the storage bag, as well as Yu ZhiJue's knife—everything was thrown into the hole.

Biting his lips, he mechanically shoved and piled back the earth, and only until the corpse disappeared under the mud and water and the surrounding area became flat did he finally stop.

He clutched his head, panting heavily as he quietly hunched over, dropping to the ground and silently shedding tears. A tsunami-like wave of nausea washed over him, but in the end, he wasn't able to throw up a single thing.

Fucking hell! What was with this feeling of guilt, like that of a murderer?

He staunchly wiped away his tears, and using a nearby puddle of water, he washed off the mud on his hands and body, walking back into the cavern only after he made sure he was clean.

Yu ZhiJue and Song XiaoHu were both quietly lying on the ground, the fire close to burning out. Listening to their breathing, the two of them seemed to be sleeping very peacefully, and Ling Xia felt relieved at once. Hurriedly, he added more wood to the fire, sitting in front of the flames and shivering as he waited for his clothes to dry.

They had a 10-hour deadline… And no matter how you look at it, almost four of those hours have passed by now.

He let out a deep sigh. Ahh, fuck!