“What do you think?” Qi Wuyang asked, his expression a half-smile.
The frigid wind, carrying snowflakes, whipped into his sleeve and stung the bloody wound on the back of his hand. It should have been painful, but he didn’t seem to care. A scratch like this hardly warranted any medication.
“You were injured saving me,” Xu Songhe stammered, “so it’s my fault… I…”
“If someone hadn’t hidden my true form,” he interrupted, “how could a mere nobody like you have wounded me?”
This again. Why won’t he believe me?
“That… that has nothing to do with me. Really!” Xu Songhe waved her hands urgently, her face turning even paler. “I’m not lying, I swear! Young Master, please, think about it—by the time I entered the cave, the snow was already ankle-deep. That means the barrier was broken long before then, definitely before it started snowing, before I ever arrived…”
But before she could finish, Qi Wuyang’s gaze had already drifted away, focused on something else entirely.
How boring, he thought. I’ve never met anyone so cowardly.
A few threats were all it took to make her so terrified she couldn’t even speak coherently. But unfortunately for her, he was too lazy to listen to her endless explanations.
Seeing him close his eyes, Xu Songhe paused and fell silent.
She turned her head, her gaze falling on his profile, and remained motionless.
The image of the youth’s stunningly beautiful and bewitching figure flashing past her in the wind and snow that day had been etched into her mind.
Suddenly, Xu Songhe felt a pang of pity for him.
He had said he had no home, no family, yet his enemies kept coming for him one after another. He might have been able to handle it before, but now… his ability to protect himself had probably been severely weakened.
“What are you looking at?”
His voice cut through the silence. Xu Songhe turned and met his gaze.
Under her stare, Qi Wuyang curved his lips into a smile. “Don’t you want money? If you take my head to the Flowing Cloud Sect, they’ll give you endless wealth and honor.”
She froze, her expression turning blank.
What is he talking about? she wondered. I can’t understand a single word he’s saying.
He thought he understood what she was thinking. A faint smile touched his lips.
“I’m just a mortal now,” he said softly. “Escaping here drained my remaining spiritual power. If you want to make your move, now is the time.”
Drained spiritual power… Was he trying to tell her something?
Xu Songhe hesitated for a moment, then cautiously reached out to touch his injured hand.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re injured,” she said, her gaze fixed on his hand. “Look, it’s still bleeding. If you don’t treat it now, it’ll get infected in this weather.”
She didn’t just talk; she quickly pulled out the herbs she had gathered earlier, secretly glad she’d picked a few extra before the avalanche.
Qi Wuyang lowered his gaze, his eyes falling on her earnest face. She held his wrist gently. As her fingers touched his skin, he couldn’t tell which was colder—the sticky herbal paste or her fingertips.
“There,” Xu Songhe said, looking up at him, her eyes shimmering. “Doesn’t it feel better?”
“You can’t use this hand for the next few days,” she added. “And don’t let it get wet, or the medicine will go to waste.”
Qi Wuyang frowned slightly. As he withdrew his hand, his wide sleeve unexpectedly brushed across her face.
The cold, sticky residue on the back of his hand, mixed with the faint scent of herbs, felt utterly alien to him. In his memory, ever since his mother died, he had never used medicine for his injuries. No one ever told him to rest when wounded, let alone for a scratch this insignificant.
“What’s wrong? Does it hurt?”
Seeing his strong reaction, Xu Songhe assumed she had been too rough while applying the medicine.
“You were bleeding, so it’s normal for it to hurt,” she explained quickly. “Just rest for a few days, and it will heal.”
He didn’t answer. He only turned his wrist over to examine the sticky green liquid on his skin.
A gust of wind swept snow across their faces. Xu Songhe rubbed the goosebumps on her arms and quickly covered her mouth, letting out a loud sneeze.
“S-so cold,” she shivered.
Her clothes were covered in tears from the earlier struggle, and she could barely speak clearly. “Wait here for a moment. I’ll find some wood to start a fire.”
She turned and trudged through the snow, leaving a trail of deep footprints behind her.
“Are you sure?”
“What?”
Xu Songhe paused and looked back at him, completely bewildered.
“Now you have only two choices,” he said, his eyes crinkling as a gentle smile touched his lips. “Either stay here and freeze to death, or go out and be killed by a demon. Although, if you’re lucky enough, you might even escape from its stomach.”
“…”
So I just have to die once?
Xu Songhe didn’t dare move another step. He didn’t look entirely trustworthy, but she also didn’t think he was deliberately lying to her.
She crouched down, breathed warm air onto her hands, and rubbed them together. Her eyelashes were damp, and a misty film covered her eyes. “Maybe… we should find a place with people first?”
Before he could answer, the snow beneath her feet suddenly shifted. A white shape darted through the drifts before plunging headfirst into a thicket.
Xu Songhe turned. A snow-white rabbit had appeared in her line of sight. Its head was stuck in the bushes, leaving only its rump exposed as its hind legs kicked frantically, shaking a shower of leaves from the branches.
She walked over, gently pulled the rabbit from the brush, and cupped it in her hands.
There were red bloodstains on the rabbit’s leg. Xu Songhe’s expression softened. She carefully took the remaining herbal juice and dabbed it on the wound.
“It’s a good thing the wound isn’t serious,” she said, gently stroking the rabbit’s fur. Its red eyes, like two buttons sewn onto its face, stared back at her without blinking.
The soft fluff tickled her hands, and her heart melted. “Little rabbit, why are you out here? Are you cold, just like me?”
A soft scoff came from behind her. “Keep asking, and maybe it’ll learn to answer you before it freezes to death.”
Xu Songhe chuckled, realizing how silly she must have looked talking to a rabbit.
[Congratulations, Host! Favorability +10. Current Favorability: 10%.]
Suddenly, a mechanical voice rang out in her mind, followed by a surge of disbelief and joy that coursed through her body.
What’s happening? I didn’t do anything! How did it just jump by ten points?
Xu Songhe looked up, studying the man who stood above her, trying to find an answer on his impassive face. Her eyes remained fixed on him, but her hands kept moving, gently petting the rabbit’s soft fur.
[Congratulations, Host! Favorability +5.]
Xu Songhe: ??
She looked down at the rabbit in her arms.
The favorability meter hadn’t budged at all this whole time. She’d only applied some medicine and petted it a couple of times—why was it suddenly going up for no reason?
Could it be… that he likes rabbits?
The thought flashed through her mind.
Xu Songhe grasped the rabbit’s front legs and lifted it above her head, holding it out to him. “Young Master, it wants you to pet it.”
Qi Wuyang’s frown deepened, his expression a mix of confusion and disgust. He immediately took a half-step back.
When he didn’t respond after a long moment, Xu Songhe moved the rabbit slightly to the side, revealing her own pretty face behind it.
She blinked, confused. “Young Master, do you not like it?”
“…I don’t,” he said, his face darkening as if terrified the rabbit’s fur might touch him.
“Get it away from me.”
He doesn’t like it? Then why did the favorability meter…
The rabbit kicked its legs in her hand.
Thinking it wanted to be set down, Xu Songhe quickly opened her palm, but the little creature just curled up again, its entire body shivering as if it were freezing.
She hurriedly cupped it against her chest, looking imploringly at Qi Wuyang. “Young Master, can we please take it with us? I promise it won’t touch you.”
Qi Wuyang’s smile was laced with sarcasm. “I have no objections, of course. But with your boundless compassion, Miss, what’s to stop you from starting a whole menagerie if we run into some cats and dogs along the way?”
She didn’t hear much else. She only caught the words “no objections” and beamed, hugging the rabbit. “Young Master, let’s go,” she said, her eyes curving into crescents.
…We?
How dare she just assume we’re on the same side?
Qi Wuyang didn’t respond. But as he turned to leave, he heard the pitter-patter of footsteps behind him. She was following him, casually walking by his side, her voice a constant chatter.
“Young Master, where do we have to go to find your true body?”
“How should I know?”
The footsteps behind him grew uneven. Occasionally, splashes of snow flew up, barely reaching his ankles. He stopped and turned to see her shoes sinking into the snow.
Each time she pulled a foot out, she wobbled precariously before stomping down again.
She walks like a clumsy fawn, he thought. How ridiculous.
He had no intention of helping. Instead, he stood there, amusedly calculating exactly when she would fall.
“Oh—”
Xu Songhe looked down at her stuck foot and threw her arms out for balance.
Frustrated, she looked up at him for help. “I can’t move. Can you pull me out?”
But before he could even react, a strong hand reached out from nowhere, grabbed her shoulder, and yanked her completely free.
Who had saved her? Could there really be other travelers in a place so desolate that even wild animals were scarce?
Xu Songhe turned her head in surprise and immediately saw the hand resting on her shoulder.
It was a withered, wrinkled hand. Its owner had a skeletal face, a frail body, and short, thin legs.
The old man smiled as she stared. His eyes nearly disappeared into the folds of his skin.
“Young traveler, what are you doing in a place like this?” He released her and stroked a nonexistent beard. “Are you lost?”
Xu Songhe snapped back to her senses and quickly bowed. “Sir, thank you for your help. My… friend and I are lost.”
She glanced back at Qi Wuyang before continuing, “Could you tell us where the nearest market is?”
The old man’s gaze shifted from her face to the young man behind her.
A faint, imperceptible smile touched Qi Wuyang’s lips. His dark eyes held a calculating glint, as if the man before him weren’t a living person at all, but a lifeless piece of withered wood.
No matter how many skins he changes into, his smile is always the same, she thought.
Venomous.