Yun Ji wasn’t actually that important to him.
Shen Yinshuo thought.
She was merely an uncut jade, a temporary pastime for him. It would be a waste not to polish her a little.
After all, she only had three months to live.
Three months – no matter how talented she was, no matter how hard she cultivated, she could never escape the clutches of those people outside.
How powerful they were! They could chase him to every corner of the world.
They possessed Divine Artifacts he had never seen before, capable of pulling him down from his divine status overnight.
Even though he had worked hard for hundreds of years for this, all his efforts could easily turn to bubbles.
Wei Sheng seemed to genuinely believe Yun Ji could escape.
How was that possible?
None of them could escape.
They had already lost, with no chance of turning the tables. He couldn’t win – he had accepted his fate.
His future was to be imprisoned here forever, enduring the humiliation from the Feng family forever.
Actually, when he thought about it, it wasn’t that hard to accept.
There wasn’t much difference between a good death and a miserable life – one meant the body died, the other meant the spirit died.
When he saw Yun Ji collapse, Shen Yinshuo still thought this way.
But his hand instinctively reached out to support her, his body leaning toward her.
She shouldn’t have fallen so lightly.
How could she fall so lightly?
If she had been given a normal path to follow, she would definitely have been exceptional, destined to reach the most glorious heights, becoming someone others could only admire from afar.
Her talent was even better than his. She possessed the purest Sword Bone, a treasure coveted by countless villains.
Her spirit hadn’t died yet, her body still had a chance of recovery – she was still a living person.
Yet she collapsed just like that.
At the same time, the Blood Soul Nails piercing him activated, the curse patterns burning along his wounds all the way to his Soul. Intense pain instantly paralyzed his entire body.
Muscles spasmed, consciousness blurred, even his eyes couldn’t focus.
He hung his head weakly, and in his dim, hazy vision, the flowing blood appeared exceptionally bright.
He watched silently.
He could only watch.
What it was like outside, Yun Ji didn’t know, but he and Wei Sheng did.
The Guard hadn’t returned on time – most likely, he was already dead.
Whether there was a Guard or not didn’t matter to them. What suppressed them most in this Death Row Prison wasn’t the Guard – the Guard’s only role was to watch them.
But it mattered to Yun Ji.
For now, she was just an ordinary person suffering from severe poisoning.
If she went without food for even a day, she would become weak. Even before starvation could kill her, the poison in her body would backlash first.
On the night they discovered the Guard hadn’t appeared all day, while Yun Ji was asleep, Wei Sheng summoned those reassembled hands and fed her his own blood.
Watching Wei Sheng’s careful manner, and recalling his usual grumbling attitude, Shen Yinshuo couldn’t help but feel puzzled:
“Didn’t you hate her?”
Before he and Wei Sheng entered this Death Row Prison, they had actually met once.
At that time, Wei Sheng had already been cut off from all escape routes, surrounded by Feng Liannuo’s people.
He was still the youngest elder of the Sword Sect then, and hadn’t paid much attention to this Demon Lord who had reached a dead end.
When he flew past on his sword, he had only glanced at Wei Sheng.
Who would have thought that not long after, he would also be imprisoned here.
But even though they were imprisoned together, he and Wei Sheng weren’t the same kind of people, so he had never communicated with Wei Sheng.
Wei Sheng seemed to dislike him quite a bit too.
Before Yun Ji arrived, although this death row prison held four people, none of them had ever spoken to each other, completely unfamiliar with one another.
Hearing his question, Wei Sheng didn’t answer immediately. After a long while, he finally muttered:
“I’m taking care of my own… none of your business.”
He: ?
What was that unclear phrase Wei Sheng mumbled? With his sharp hearing, he actually couldn’t make it out!
But before he could ask again, Wei Sheng spoke more impatiently: “My blood has special properties, it can satisfy hunger. Although it doesn’t have the power to revive the dead or regenerate flesh, it should be enough to sustain Yun Ji for some time.”
Then why had Yun Ji collapsed by the third day?
Wei Sheng seemed to share his confusion, as he kept calling Yun Ji’s name repeatedly.
His voice was panicked and trembling, his expression stiff as he rigidly shouted Yun Ji’s name:
“Yun Ji! Why has the poison taken effect so quickly? Wake up! Yun Ji, wake up!”
He continued letting blood from both his hands, but even when the torn wounds could no longer produce a single drop of blood, Yun Ji showed no signs of improvement.
This shouldn’t be happening. Yun Ji should have been able to survive much longer.
His cold, purplish hands tightly grasped Yun Ji’s, yet he couldn’t stop the loss of body warmth.
“Don’t do this.” He finally couldn’t contain his emotions, speaking through choked sobs. “How can you abandon me back into the darkness again?”
Having met her, how could he possibly return to that state.
Just thinking about the boundless loneliness, the hopeless eternity, terrified him beyond measure.
Shen Yinshuo didn’t understand why Wei Sheng was crying.
He was struggling to free one of his hands from the nails.
Perhaps he had lost his mind – blood gushed out wildly, and compared to the rage brought by inner demons, he seemed more like he had fallen into some obsession.
His chest splattered blood from the struggle, only to be slammed back against the stone wall by the magical art on the Blood Soul Nails.
He was worthless.
His heart had long turned to ashes.
Then why was he feeling so unwilling now?
He should have at least supported her.
Supported this noisy, rule-breaking, overly naive person who had at least called him master.
Supported that version of himself who, though now swallowed by despair, had once been glorious and proud.
The Blood Soul Nails couldn’t be broken by his strength alone.
Even at death’s door, no matter how unwillingly he struggled, what couldn’t be broken remained unbroken.
They only had despair.
Just as they were sinking into silence inch by inch, returning to that complete darkness of hopelessness as before, they suddenly heard a sound.
The sound of a heartbeat.
Yun Ji’s heart was still beating. Though growing weaker, the sound remained clear, lightly vibrating through the air, reaching their ears.
She was still alive.
Fighting.
Just like she always did.
Wei Sheng reacted before him, moving while muttering to himself as he controlled his hands:
“If drinking blood isn’t enough, would my flesh work instead?”
Hope is something invisible, yet it might truly exist.
Since they had nothing left to lose anyway, why not stake their lives and try harder?
In that moment, he seemed to feel his own nailed heart beat faintly.
“Can I help?”
An unfamiliar voice suddenly spoke.
The voice was pleasant – not only because it appeared at the right time, but because the voice itself was as clean and beautiful as a clear spring.
He strained to look toward the source of the voice, but his vision remained blurred. Wei Sheng couldn’t turn his head, nor could he see behind him.
Fortunately, the speaker soon wriggled closer to Yun Ji’s side:
“I have some methods that could save her. May I help?”