He didn’t dwell on it long; he stood up and took in the view.
He stood on a mountain, though not one tall enough to really be called a mountain.
At least, he was higher up than any tree.
The golden rays of the sun were only an illusion; in truth, it was plain that a fierce winter stretched across this place.
The trees and the ground were swathed in pristine snow, and the wind was fresh but biting.
On the horizon rose mountains far higher than the one he stood on.
He wiped his face with his wet right hand, and his right sleeve soaked up not only tears but blood.
His left palm reacted to this new wind; it was completely covered in his own blood.
“A shame I didn’t wear a tie…
I’ll have to figure something out,” he couldn’t help but sigh.
A trail ran down this pseudo-mountain, and he started down it.
In barely two minutes he was already at ground level.
“It’ll be even more dangerous here than the cave.
I need to do at least something about this.”
He looked around; nothing but a lone, dense forest all around him.
There was nothing for it but to keep walking, and at that, apparently, he was already a master.
On top of the cut on his palm, a dull, steady ache set into his knee.
It was no longer that sweet pain; only a ragged, unpleasant one remained.
Limping on his left leg, he finally spotted a lone tree stump on the horizon and started toward it, sure of himself but in pain.
His left palm left a scarlet trail behind him.
At last he reached the stump and took off the jacket of his uniform, leaving only his shirt to guard his body against the cold.
With his right hand alone he held the jacket and searched for something.
Which, as it happened, didn’t take long.
When he found a seam, he sank his teeth into its edge like a wolf and bit down with all his strength.
His front teeth started to ache with the pressure too, but that could be held in check.
In the end, he managed to tear the edge of the seam open.
He laid the jacket on the stump and pinned it down with his left foot.
Gripping a piece of cloth by the torn seam, he pulled at it with everything he had.
His left leg, the one he’d set down to hold the jacket in place, hurt almost as fiercely as his palm, but it was a different kind of pain.
He pulled and pulled as the cloth tore further and further.
But then he toppled backward into the snow.
He sat straight up on his backside and looked at his progress.
“Tch!” he clicked his tongue quietly.
The cloth was torn only about forty percent of the way through, though he’d just spent half a minute in hell.
But he couldn’t settle himself that way again; now he needed to clear his head without physical force.
He couldn’t afford to lose a functioning limb or worsen the ones already hurt.
He couldn’t clench his fists till they bled, couldn’t slam his own leg with all his strength, couldn’t, but he didn’t need to, either.
He let out a breath, his face cold, the streak of blood still showing on his cheek.
“It’ll be less convenient, but it’s the better option.”
He lay down on his left side over the stump, pinning the jacket not just with his body but bracing his left shoulder into it so it wouldn’t shift.
He gripped the nearly half-torn seam again with his right hand and started pulling.
It was harder than holding it with his foot; he had to keep watch over his left hand so as not to clench it by accident.
But in any case, the process was less dangerous for his knee.
Another minute spent that way, and he tore the strip of cloth free at last, painlessly this time.
“The easy part’s behind me,” he said breathlessly.
He set the strip down on the last empty spot on the stump, took his jacket, and put it back on.
Even his jacket was already stained with blood.
The cold kept building, and so did the pain in his palm.
He’d come out of the cave at sunset, which was why he’d seen those beautiful but cold rays of the sun.
If he stayed this slow, he’d die of the cold sooner than of blood loss.
He leaned down over the stump, planting his left hand on it.
With his right he took up the strip of cloth still lying idle.
He laid the cloth over his fully bloodied left palm, then, from the back of the hand, gripped both ends of the cloth with his right and pulled a little.
Even though he pulled only the faintest bit, the pain was simply horrifying, as if the living skin around the cut were being spread open with a surgical retractor.
At that he narrowed his eyes, but in the same instant he kept his face cold.
With his right hand he set the two ends so that they formed an X, then tucked the right one into the lower triangular gap.
Kneeling, he lowered his head and caught with his teeth the right end already sitting in the lower triangle.
“Ha!
Two birds with one stone.”
This way he wouldn’t cry out, and it would be easier to cinch tight.
Gripping the left end in his right hand and the right in his teeth, he drew a deep breath, teeth clenched, and abruptly began pulling the two ends in opposite directions.
He had to hold himself in check so as not to jerk his hand back and break off the process.
The skin around the wound felt as if it were being spread wider still, as if torn.
He felt his eyeballs growing steadily wetter.
Against his will, a hot liquid ran from his eyes.
His teeth sank into the cloth, doing at last the work fated to them.
A scarlet tint appeared on the cloth, and the same scarlet liquid began to seep slowly out from under it.
But even as he felt the incredible pain, comparable to the skin around the wound being spread open — he didn’t close his eyes; wincing, he watched his left palm and kept control of the process.
At last he let go of the cloth, once he felt it cinch tight around his hand.
It had been only a moment, and yet his left hand was trembling.
“That’s the end of it…” he whispered under his breath.
He rose calmly, brought his hand to his chin again, and with an eerie smile said, “Now the most important part.”
Last time, right after this gesture, he’d fallen under a train, but this time things would be different.
He turned toward the forest, the same smile still on his face.
He took a calm step, ignoring the sharp pain in his knee entirely.
The crunch of snow beneath his feet grew ever more mesmerizing.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※
Crunch.
The crunch of snow beneath his feet grew ever more mundane.
A soft wisp of steam left his mouth, easily lost against the snow.
The cold wind, sharp as taut strings, bared ever more of its power over him.
Every so often he sniffled through his reddened nose, his hands pinkish, like a peach.
He’d been walking some thirteen minutes now, but the trail of blood that had followed him for six of them plainly did nothing to brighten his situation.
“I’m not insured against every situation.”
Though he’d tried to be an observer, it seemed he was now a piece in the world’s hands.
But he had no objection to that.
“If the world is the observer, and I’m the piece, then the world won’t have a single chance to move me,” he said with a smirk, his gaze on the dark sky.
Just then the wind cut the moment short, all but blowing him away, so mighty and icy that he had to brace himself against a swaying tree.
“A storm or—!”
Behind the very tree he’d had his back to — there was a clearing.
There was not a single tree in a fairly wide stretch.
And in the sky, blotting out the moonlight, hung the figure of a person.
He quickly snapped out of the momentary shock and watched the figure in the sky, his face indifferent.
“A girl?” he thought as he peered closer.
The girl’s figure began to descend from the sky as he watched.
“So it’s her, the one behind all this.” He wasn’t the least bit surprised that people could now fly.
As the figure descended, he could already make out her features.
“Long neat chestnut hair.”
When the girl finally descended onto the snow, she looked at him right away.
He wasn’t surprised by it, and took a step toward her.
They stood about fifteen meters apart, but as he walked the distance closed, until only two meters of empty space remained between them.
He laid his right hand on his chest and bowed so low that he could no longer see the green-eyed girl.
“Miss, could you help me?” he said in an even, calm voice.
“My name is Feng Qi.
At fifteen I was abducted, and forced to work as a slave, but now I’ve escaped, though I was wounded.”
There was no sense in inventing a name, so he’d chosen to blend the strongest lie with a sliver of truth.
Suddenly the girl began trying to stifle laughter, which put Feng Qi on his guard.
But what unsettled him more was the laugh itself: it was decidedly not a woman’s.
“Feng Qi, is it?
Ha.
And I’m Leng Yu,” said the young man, with his feminine face, still holding back laughter.
“Oh, do forgive me then, sir, it took me a moment to realize you’re a man, you’re just so beautiful!” Feng Qi replied as he scratched the back of his head.
He felt nothing.
He’d known he’d botched his read the moment he heard that laugh.
Yet even with that in mind, he maintained a smile as tender as a petal.
He hadn’t even been counting on a simple request working.
He could have begged on his knees if it would have gained him anything, but with what he currently knew, it was useless.
Leng Yu kept up that beautiful smile, eyes closed, his face still turned toward him.
Then, suddenly, his eyes opened and he finally spoke:
“You didn’t happen to escape from Lan Yue Village?”
The broad smile still showed on his face, yet his eyes held strange emotions, the kind that had no place in a young man.
Feng Qi let the smile fall from his face and said with bitterness, “Forgive me, sir, but I don’t know where I was being kept…
They had me working without pause, and in a position like that I didn’t dare ask any questions.”
“So I apologize, if that was important information!” Feng Qi said this and dropped straight to his knees, his head to the snow.
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” said Leng Yu.
“It worked,” the thought came to Feng Qi.
Leng Yu couldn’t see Feng Qi’s face, but he certainly wouldn’t have liked the smile flaunting itself beneath it, out of sight.
It was a dangerous question, even more dangerous than his clothing, unfamiliar to Leng Yu, but he’d managed to draw Leng Yu’s attention away from that thought.
His inner world hadn’t wavered after such humiliation; if it would help, he’d do everything he could.
“Well, since I don’t know whether you’re from Lan Yue, there’s no use in saving you,” Leng Yu declared to Feng Qi still lying in the snow.
“So that’s the introductions done,” Feng Qi whispered.
The moment Leng Yu turned and started off, Feng Qi immediately rose from his knees and rushed after him shouting, “Sir, please, wait!!”
As Leng Yu walked away, Feng Qi laid a hand on his shoulder, and in the same second the tip of a long blade was at Feng Qi’s throat, one that a moment before had sat sheathed at Leng Yu’s side.
“I already told you, saving you does me no good, no, none whatsoever,” Leng Yu said with that beautiful smile still on his face.
The tip of the blade nearly touched Feng Qi’s throat.
“Sir, please understand,” Feng Qi said as he waved both hands.
“I’m not trying to do you any harm!
If those people catch me, they’ll execute me without a moment’s delay!”
Blue and green gazes crossed.
“And just what do I gain by saving you?” Leng Yu asked with a smile.
“Your captors did me no wrong, and you’re nothing but a runaway slave, you’ve no way to repay me.”
At those words Feng Qi’s heart leapt; his face showed nothing of it, but within, a broad smile spread.
“So I’ll be going,” Leng Yu said, slowly sliding his blade back into its sheath and turning away.
“Still the same as ever!” Feng Qi exclaimed inwardly.
“Looks like the world hasn’t changed a bit!
But either way, this too is done.”
Leng Yu had already put a fair distance between them.
“Sir!
Then tell me, what is this?” Feng Qi called out with an eerie smile.
In his right hand sat a golden orb, a circle engraved on each of its cardinal sides.
It gave off a faint but beautiful golden light.
“You—?!” Leng Yu blurted, the smile falling from his face.
The eerie grin still flaunted itself across Feng Qi’s face.
The orb could be put in the mouth, but not swallowed.
Leng Yu started toward Feng Qi, his blade at the ready.
Feng Qi stopped him, raising his head and bringing his hand up to his mouth.
The orb touched his teeth as he opened his mouth.
Leng Yu froze at that, but the moment he came back to himself, he was rushing at Feng Qi.
“So that’s it…” Feng Qi thought.
Feng Qi opened his hand, and the orb dropped into his mouth.
Until now he’d had no information on how to use it, but Leng Yu’s reaction spoke for itself.
Crunch.
He clenched his jaw and, to his surprise, the dense, uncrushable orb split apart in his mouth.
The golden shell tasted like a glazed strawberry, but inside it was as though he were chewing very sweet cellophane.
The orb’s remnants clung to his teeth, leaving that unpleasant sweet-cellophane taste.
Feng Qi decided to look at Leng Yu — who just stood there like an idiot, staring at him, mouth hanging open.
Feng Qi swallowed the whole orb, only flecks of it left on his teeth.
“Well now wha— khah!
khah-khah!” Feng Qi covered his mouth with his right hand before he could finish, and broke into a cough.
The cough stopped as soon as it came, and he drew his hand back from his mouth, and saw blood on it.
But he had no pity for himself; if this was his trial, then he would pass it.
He looked at Leng Yu again, but the man was already advancing on him, slow, his blade drawn from its sheath.
His face was utterly serious.
“Sir, stop it please.
You’re really frightening me!” Feng Qi said as he backed away.
Now it all rode on luck alone: if the scales of the goddess Themis came down on his death, there would be nothing to be done about it.
But in the same instant Leng Yu vanished from Feng Qi’s sight, and he felt something cold in the upper part of his belly, as if a snowball had struck him on bare skin.
A second later he felt another jolt, only from the other direction.
He opened his mouth wide, and in that instant a dark scarlet liquid burst out of it.
Feng Qi dropped to his knees, his vision going dim; he looked to the place where it had felt like the snowball hit: there was his belly, and scarlet blood was running down from it.
Before him stood Leng Yu, motionless, as Feng Qi toppled onto his left side, a hellish, searing pain tearing through him.
In Leng Yu’s hand was his blade, the same liquid dripping from it as from Feng Qi’s own belly.
The taste of iron in his mouth and the hellish pain at the wound were only a passing phase; a couple of moments later, he felt an unbelievable burning inside his belly.
He couldn’t scream, couldn’t even breathe properly; he had to snatch short, quick breaths every half second.
Compared to this, the pain in his left palm had been mere child’s play.
Suddenly Leng Yu’s legs stirred, and he turned to go.
But something caught his left leg, and he glanced back.
He certainly hadn’t expected to see it — Feng Qi had seized his leg with his free right hand, and on his face sat an eerily ordinary smile.
“And this is done too…”
“Just who…
are you anyway?!”