“Senior Sister, Chu Yue said you had a nightmare. What kind of nightmare scared you this badly?”
A familiar voice pulled Shen Yun Yuan back from her thoughts. When she came to her senses, she happened to meet the pitch-black eyes of the young man before her.
Those eyes overlapped with the cold eyes she had seen in that sea of blood. Seeing the young man reaching a hand toward her, Shen Yun Yuan instinctively raised her own. With a sharp “smack,” the sound rang out through the quiet sleeping hall.
Feeling the pain in her palm, Shen Yun Yuan did not realize what she had just done until she clearly saw the beautiful, delicate face before her.
Xie Zhao glanced at the hand that had not yet touched her forehead but had been slapped away, and said aggrievedly, “That hurt… Senior Sister.”
The young man’s words, carrying a hint of coquettishness, reached Shen Yun Yuan’s ears.
Shen Yun Yuan looked at the young man who had somehow come to stand before her. He appeared to be about sixteen or seventeen years old. His fair face held a healthy flush, and his eyes were black and deep. When he smiled, they curved like crescent moons; when he was silent, they were as stern as ice.
Because he had not yet fully grown into his features, Xie Zhao still looked somewhat immature at this moment, but he was astonishingly beautiful all the same.
The young man’s youthful, not-yet-fully-grown face overlapped with the cold and heartless handsome face he had worn in the dream. Shen Yun Yuan’s hands, hanging beneath her sleeves, involuntarily clenched into fists, and her breathing could not help but grow hurried.
“Senior Sister?”
Noticing that the girl’s formerly steady breathing had become rapid and that a flush was gradually spreading across her pale face, the young man seemed to sense something. He instinctively raised a hand and was about to untie the black ribbon wound around his wrist.
Shen Yun Yuan reached out and pressed down on his wrist, stopping him. “Don’t…”
The young man said, “Senior Sister, you need to drink…” Blood.
“I don’t need it!” Shen Yun Yuan refused, but because her voice was soft and weak, it carried no force.
Xie Zhao said nothing after hearing this. He merely gazed at her in silence. Only after confirming that she truly was all right did he slowly lower the hand he had intended to use to untie the ribbon.
Looking at the black ribbon wrapped around the young man’s left wrist, Shen Yun Yuan’s eyes seemed to have been scalded. She almost awkwardly turned them away.
That was the most secret and most unbearable secret in the hearts of the two of them.
Who could have imagined that she, the eldest daughter of Qingxuan Sect, was not only a useless cripple with damaged spiritual meridians, but also a sickly invalid who needed someone to serve as a medicinal primer, drinking blood every month to prolong her life?
And the young man before her was the medicinal primer that kept her alive!
“A-Zhao.”
“Senior Sister, I’m here!”
The moment he heard her call his name, the young man’s pitch-black eyes fixed tightly on her, seeming almost to shine.
Pressing her lips together, Shen Yun Yuan asked him, “Are you truly willing to be my medicinal primer forever, letting me drink your blood every month to prolong my life?”
“Senior Sister, I…”
Before the young man could finish, Shen Yun Yuan had already interrupted him. “A-Zhao, I want to hear the truth.”
Then she watched as the young man’s pitch-black eyes met hers, and he said solemnly, one word at a time, “To be Senior Sister’s medicinal primer and prolong Senior Sister’s life—Xie Zhao am perfectly willing.”
Shen Yun Yuan’s pupils abruptly contracted.
The young man spoke with complete seriousness, his dark pupils fixed intently on her. It was as though there were something else in those eyes that she could not understand.
Only when Shen Yun Yuan noticed the faint redness at the tips of his ears did she suddenly recall that dream.
All of his feelings for her were because she had taken his spiritual blood, because his spiritual blood was inside her body.
“Master saved my life. If Master had not saved me and brought me back to the sect, how could I have lived until now?
“When I first came to the sect, you were the one who always looked after me and cared about me. To A-Zhao, you, Master, Eldest Brother, and everyone in Qingxuan Sect are all family. How could I stand by and do nothing while my family suffered?”
“So, A-Zhao is very happy that he can help Senior Sister.”
No… No, that wasn’t it!
Listening to the young man’s sincere words from the bottom of his heart, Shen Yun Yuan’s eyes reddened as she fought to hold back her tears.
We are not your family. We do not deserve to be your family!
Once you learn the entire truth, you will destroy Qingxuan Sect without mercy, and then stab her to death with a single sword!
“Senior Sister, what’s wrong with you? Why did you suddenly bring this up?” Xie Zhao stared at the slightly reddened corners of the girl’s eyes, unable to keep from worrying. “Are you feeling unwell? I’ll go find Senior Brother Wujiu right now!”
Seeing that the young man was about to leave, Shen Yun Yuan hurriedly called out to stop him. “It isn’t because of my body.”
Xie Zhao asked, “Then is it because of the nightmare you just had?”
Shen Yun Yuan nodded.
The young man let out a sigh of relief.
“Senior Sister, dreams are all fake. They can’t be trusted. Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”
The young man’s earnest words reached Shen Yun Yuan’s ears. Meeting those shining black eyes before her, Shen Yun Yuan could not help thinking of the first time the two of them had met.
It had been the ninth year since she had been born into this cultivation world. Her father had brought home a young child from outside. The child was covered in blood from head to toe and looked utterly pitiful, but his eyes alone were astonishingly beautiful.
Because this was her second life, her mind was more mature than that of an ordinary child. In addition, her father was busy as the sect master, while her elder brother had matters of his own to attend to, so the task of caring for the young Xie Zhao fell to her.
Xie Zhao, who had just arrived at the unfamiliar place that was Qingxuan Sect, was not accustomed to it, but he did not show any signs of resistance.
He simply never spoke or interacted with anyone. His silence was frightening. Thus, at that time, she would seek him out every day to chat, even though she was merely talking by herself.
Shen Yun Yuan had often thought that the newly arrived Junior Brother must have found her very annoying.
Until one day, she had been delayed by something and failed to go see him. When she returned, she discovered that the young Xie Zhao was actually squatting outside the door of her sleeping hall, waiting for her.
He was tiny, dressed in the sect’s robes, and sitting at the doorway. It was the middle of winter, and the howling cold wind had blown his little face deathly pale.
She had been utterly shocked. She had never expected him to come looking for her, much less sit outside in the cold wind without knowing how long he had waited.
When she touched his ice-cold hand, she clearly felt his small body stiffen.
Shen Yun Yuan had thought he would push her hand away, but he did not. Instead, he gripped her hand tightly—very, very tightly…
She had learned Xie Zhao’s origins from her father. His parents had been nameless rogue cultivators who had been brutally murdered, dying right before the eyes of the young Xie Zhao.
It was precisely because he had personally watched both of his parents die before him that Xie Zhao had stopped speaking and begun suffering nightmares every day.
Whenever he was tormented by nightmares and unable to sleep day or night, she would always hold him, gently patting his trembling body as she comforted him:
“A-Zhao, be good. Don’t be afraid. Dreams are all fake. I’m here. I’ll always stay with you.”
Later, the silent young boy began to speak, and he grew increasingly attached to her.
Even her elder brother would often tease her, saying that Xie Zhao was the child husband her father had brought home for her.
Shen Yun Yuan had originally believed that her meeting with Xie Zhao was fate, but she had never expected it to have been deliberately arranged.
In the second year after Xie Zhao entered the sect, her body grew increasingly weak because she had been born with damaged spiritual meridians.
According to Elder Qiansheng, they had to find someone born with Pure Spiritual Meridians to serve as her medicinal primer, providing her with his spiritual blood every month as medicine. Only then could her damaged spiritual meridians be repaired and her life prolonged.
And as it happened, Elder Qiansheng had determined that the person who possessed Pure Spiritual Meridians was Xie Zhao.
Everything had been such a coincidence. Now that she thought about it, all of it had happened because her father had interfered.
Her father had known long ago that Xie Zhao’s spiritual blood was the only cure capable of prolonging her life. That was why he had brought Xie Zhao into Qingxuan Sect. From the very beginning, he had brought Xie Zhao into the sect as her medicinal primer.
It was simply that Shen Yun Yuan could not understand why her father would kill A-Zhao’s parents for this reason. The father she knew was absolutely not that kind of person!