“Brother Xian! Yan-ge has a fever!” Morning arrived amidst Lin Min’s gentle tugging.
Xian Chengyue opened his eyes, propping himself up on one arm, and turned to look at Su Yan lying beside him. Su Yan’s wound was still oozing blood, his entire body drenched in cold sweat, yet his face was flushed bright red. Xian Chengyue reached out and pressed the back of his hand against Su Yan’s forehead.
Even without a thermometer, a simple touch told him the temperature was definitely above 38 degrees Celsius.
In the real world, a fever wasn’t a major issue; if medicine didn’t work, you got an injection, and if that failed, you got an IV drip. As long as it didn’t drag on to ultra-high temperatures, it wouldn’t be fatal.
But things were different here.
If someone got injured in the underworld, they would still be completely fine once they got out missing limbs and all wouldn’t matter. However, dying in the underworld meant you were truly dead.
Wiping away her tears, Lin Min asked Xian Chengyue, “Brother Xian, what should we do?”
Xian Chengyue wasn’t particularly inclined to care. Pulling Su Yan back alive was already the limit of his benevolence.
As for whether Su Yan could pull through, that was his own affair.
Lin Min, however, didn’t think that way. She got out of bed, put on her shoes, and said to Xian Chengyue, “Brother Xian, look at him. I’ll head back right now.”
She said earnestly, “I’m a nursing major. Even though I’m only a freshman, I’ll go think of a way.”
Uncharacteristically free of stutters, Lin Min faced no rejection from Xian Chengyue. A young girl, full of vitality and energy now that her shattered courage had returned, she couldn’t wait to do something for someone else. Yet, this village was so poor and small; what could she possibly do?
Only Xian Chengyue and Su Yan remained in the room now. However, considering Su Yan was still fast asleep, it was virtually equivalent to just Xian Chengyue being there alone. Looking at Su Yan’s face, Xian Chengyue recalled how Su Yan had told him to leave the previous night.
Sincerity or pretense, he could tell the difference.
Earlier, Su Yan had uttered so many flowery words that Xian Chengyue hadn’t paid them any mind. Everyone had a mouth; what they said with it didn’t necessarily match what they thought in their heads.
Only last night had Su Yan spoken the truth.
He had genuinely given up his own life.
And yet he had been able to calmly let Xian Chengyue go, entirely devoid of any will to survive.
This person was quite strange.
Xian Chengyue went out to fetch a bucket of well water, lifted the damp cloth from Su Yan’s forehead, re-soaked it in the well water, wrung it semi-dry, and pressed it back on. Then, he went to check the wound on Su Yan’s foot.
Time had been limited last night, so Lin Min had only applied the simplest bandaging. She hadn’t dared to fetch water after dark, leaving the wound to be cleaned only by wiping with a cloth.
If he could pull through even under these conditions, it would be a testament to Su Yan’s stubborn luck.
By midday, Lin Min finally returned. The moment her foot stepped across the threshold, a sudden clap of thunder rolled outside, and a torrential downpour instantly poured down. The rain was terrifyingly heavy, as if all the accumulated rain of the past few days were trying to let loose and vent in one go.
Startled by the thunder, Lin Min almost dropped the things in her arms, managing to hold on only because she clutched them so tightly.
Before Xian Chengyue could ask, Lin Min squatted down on the floor and began explaining on her own: “I went to ask at the village chief’s house. There’s a barefoot doctor in the village who has hemostatic medicine; you grind it into a paste and apply it. But the fever reducers are just ordinary cold medicine, I don’t know if they’ll work, but right now there’s no other choice.”
She touched her neck. The platinum necklace with a teardrop-shaped ruby pendant that used to hang there was gone, having ultimately been traded for a handful of herbs that would be dirt-cheap in the real world, along with a battered clay pot and some firewood for the bottom.
Without wasting time, Lin Min set to work. She started a fire, slowly decocted the medicine, and ground up some hemostatic herbs using stones picked up from outside.
Xian Chengyue glanced at the medicinal ingredients; none of them were wrong. Back when he used to gather herbs with his grandfather as a child, he had learned what each plant was used for, though his knowledge was limited to the most common varieties. He had never studied medicine, nor did he know how to write prescriptions.
His maternal grandfather had personally handwritten dozens of medical recipe books, but because there was no successor, they had eventually been locked away in a cabinet by his mother, who said that if she couldn’t find a suitable person to give them to in the future, she would just donate them to a traditional Chinese medicine hospital, provided they were willing to take them and didn’t find them lacking.
Lin Min didn’t ask Xian Chengyue for help. She went ahead to clean Su Yan’s wound, apply the medicine, rewrap the bandage, and then waited for the fever medicine to finish brewing.
Sitting by the bedside, Lin Min looked at Xian Chengyue, who was seated on the chair by the window, and suddenly asked, “Brother Xian, if it rains today, we really have to fix our window, right?”
Otherwise, what would happen if the rain blew inside?
Xian Chengyue nodded. “Once the rain lightens up a bit, I’ll go look for materials to patch the window.”
“Sorry to trouble you, Brother Xian,” Lin Min said.
Xian Chengyue let out an “M-hm.” He watched as Lin Min fed the brewed medicine to Su Yan, but Su Yan’s teeth were clenched so tightly that nothing would go down. Lin Min looked at Xian Chengyue with a pleading expression.
Xian Chengyue walked over and effortlessly pinched Su Yan’s jaw open. Originally, he had been prepared to simply dislocate Su Yan’s jaw, but realizing the man was already teetering on the edge of the gates of hell, he decided against adding insult to injury.
Slowly, spoonful by spoonful, Lin Min managed to feed the medicine to Su Yan.
Once the medicine was administered, all they could do was leave it to Su Yan’s own stubborn resilience.
Today was the final day; tomorrow, the village chief would come to collect the offerings. Unsure of the exact timing of the sacrifice, Lin Min felt a lingering sense of unease, as if she had missed something important yet couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
The rain outside showed no sign of abating, falling in a way that left people feeling irritable and restless.
As the downpour eased slightly, Xian Chengyue stepped outside. He went straight to the house of the auntie who had treated him to peanuts. She lived alone; according to her, her son had gone to work as a long-term laborer at an oil mill in town, her husband had died young, and her maiden family was in another village.
The auntie was quite amiable as well. Not only did she boil a pot of water for Xian Chengyue to bathe, but she also gave him some scrap wooden boards and iron nails she had lying around the house.
“Just nail them on,” the auntie said with a warm chuckle as she watched Xian Chengyue drying his hair, handing him a cup of hot tea at the same time. Though called tea, it was actually just dried honeysuckle tossed with a few tea leaves.
Xian Chengyue wasn’t in any rush to leave. He sat in the room chatting with the auntie, though the majority of the time the auntie did the talking while Xian Chengyue simply listened.
“This rain will stop tomorrow,” the auntie said, tilting her neck to look out the window with a smile. “It’s always like this, it rains right around the time of the sacrifice.”
Xian Chengyue asked, “Sacrifice to whom?”
The auntie paused, seemingly caught off guard by the question. She sighed softly: “Who else is there to sacrifice to?”
She answered with a rhetorical question, offering no definitive explanation, only adding, “I’ve hung a coir raincoat by the wall; bring it back and return it to me tomorrow. Drop by and sit for a while whenever you have time, auntie is always free.”
She walked Xian Chengyue to the door, leaning against the doorframe and watching his retreating figure vanish into the rain with a very gentle gaze.
Only when Xian Chengyue was completely out of sight did she turn back inside.
Her room was very small, featuring only a two-inch square window that left the space dim and gloomy even on clear days.
Yet in this cramped room stood a wooden high platform. Pulling back a curtain, she stared at the memorial tablet resting upon it. She reached out, took the tablet down, and meticulously wiped it clean with a pristine cloth.
A flash of lightning split the sky, casting a stark white glare across her face. That habitually kind and benevolent expression collapsed: the corners of her mouth sagged downward, the flesh on her cheeks drooped, and she narrowed her eyes, gripping the memorial tablet tightly.
Because of the continuous rainstorm, the sky grew even darker, blurring the boundary between day and night. The moment Xian Chengyue re-entered the house, he took off the coir raincoat and hung it on the wall. The room was thick with a heavy medicinal odor.
“Brother Xian.” The man’s voice sounded somewhat feeble compared to before.
Xian Chengyue looked over. Su Yan had turned his head to look at him; his face was flushed with fever, but his eyes were startlingly bright.
Xian Chengyue gave a slight nod in acknowledgment.
Lin Min chimed in happily, “Yan-ge just woke up. Oh, right, Brother Xian, Chen Wei came by earlier, saying he had something to tell you.”
“Brother Xian,” Su Yan called out to him again.
Xian Chengyue looked at him, and Su Yan whispered, “Come talk to me for a bit.”
“Talk about what?” Xian Chengyue frowned.
Su Yan said weakly, “Anything is fine. Lin Min has been exhausted for so long, let her catch up on some sleep.”
Having slept for barely three hours the previous night, Lin Min was indeed completely worn out. Unbothered by the pungent medicinal smell, she tucked herself into the quilt and said to Xian Chengyue and Su Yan, “You guys chat. I’ll be able to sleep, my sleep quality is super good.”
She was a considerate little girl.
Xian Chengyue sat down beside Su Yan and raised an eyebrow. “Go ahead.”
Su Yan’s voice was so soft it was almost negligible, his tone very hoarse and low, deeply hypnotic.
“Brother Xian, thank you.” Despite his lack of strength, he somehow managed to convey a profound sense of solemn gratitude.
Xian Chengyue pressed his lips together. “Just a small favor.”
Su Yan gave a light cough. “To you it’s a small favor, but to me, it’s my life.”
He gazed at Xian Chengyue’s profile, trying to figure out what circumstances would actually provoke a distinct expression on Xian Chengyue’s face. Ever since he first met him, he had wanted to tear open that unshakeable, poised exterior to see what was truly inside.
Xian Chengyue looked back at Su Yan with a calmness bordering on indifference.
Su Yan met his gaze.
“Stop lying,” Xian Chengyue said flatly, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.
Those pitch-black eyes of Xian Chengyue seemed capable of piercing straight through anyone’s soul.
Su Yan reined in his forced smile and looked away. “No one has ever cared about me. My family and friends no matter how nice they sound on the surface, whenever I run into trouble, they can’t wait for me to fail so they can step on me.”
He spoke quite naturally, as if recounting a simple story. “Sometimes I even feel like a person like me living or not living makes no real difference.”
“No matter how much money you have, what you can’t get, you still can’t get. There’s never anyone who will treat me well without expecting anything in return.”
He blinked, seemingly touched by his own words, though he fought back tears.
“That’s why I said, Brother Xian, while it was a small favor to you, it means the world to me.”
“It sounds a bit cheesy, though.” He smiled. “Brother Xian, please don’t look down on me.”
Xian Chengyue listened quietly to the end without offering any remarks.
After a moment, he picked up the wooden boards and nails, walked over to the window, and spoke with his back turned to Su Yan: “As you like.”
Lying in bed out of Xian Chengyue’s line of sight, Su Yan wore a subtle smile.
He felt fully qualified to compete for an Oscar.
While he was secretly feeling rather pleased with himself despite the pain, he heard Xian Chengyue say: “You’d better get better soon.”
“Otherwise, when the sacrifice comes, you’re going to die.”
Su Yan’s smile froze on his face.
As soon as Xian Chengyue finished nailing the window shut and confirmed it was completely airtight, he placed the hammer on the table, took a long stride, and headed toward the door.
Su Yan hurriedly turned his head to ask, “Brother Xian, it’s getting dark, where are you going?”
Xian Chengyue: “To check on Chen Wei.”
Su Yan: “…”
His performance just now hadn’t managed to stop Xian Chengyue’s steps at all!