Chapter 63 I Want You to Marry Me

It was very cold inside the cave. Cheng Ying felt her strength draining away. Enduring the excruciating pain from her broken bones, she laboriously took out a change of clothes from her parcel and put them on, only then did she feel a little warmer.

She took out some dry food from her crossbody bag, ate it, drank some water to replenish her strength, and then laboriously climbed to the cave wall, picked some moss, crushed it with her good right hand, and applied it to the back of her head, hands, and feet for simple hemostasis and bandaging. Then she leaned against the mailbag and gasped for breath.

Excessive blood loss, physical exhaustion, and alternating cold weather all tormented her nerves, making even the slightest movement extremely tiring.

She looked up at the light coming from the cave above her, and many things floated through her mind—past lives, present lives, and all the experiences she had gone through. They flashed through her mind like a revolving lantern, and time seemed to drag on endlessly.

She knew she was in bad shape. Ever since she woke up, her head had been spinning. This wasn't just a symptom of excessive blood loss, but also a sign of infection and fever. She felt cold all over, but her face was hot. When she touched it, she found she had a fever.

By this time, she was starting to regret becoming a mail carrier.

She chose to retire from the army and return to her hometown to take over her father's job as a postman mainly to fulfill her father's wish from his previous life, and to stay by her mother's and sister's side, to support them, and to prevent the Cheng family from bullying them again.

She also felt that, with her many years of military experience, she was fully capable of doing this job.

However, in just over three months since taking office, she has been seriously injured twice. The first time she fell off a mountain, and this time she fell into a cave. It seems as if God is playing a cruel joke on her, always trying to torment her life.

She never expected that simply delivering mail to the villagers in the mountains as a postman would put her life in danger.

She now has serious doubts about whether she can still work on the Ma'anshan postal route and continue as a postwoman.

Now, her biggest worry is that she fell into the cave and broke her arms and legs. She will have difficulty moving and will not be able to save herself. She doesn't know where Dahuang is or when someone will come to find her.

She is in a very bad condition and could faint at any moment. If someone passes by and calls her name but she doesn't hear it, she will miss the chance to be rescued.

As darkness fell, she wondered if there were snakes, other animals, or poisonous insects in the cave that might bite her to death.

Cheng Ying's mind was in a mess. She tried shouting for help a few times, desperately trying to stay conscious and wait for someone to rescue her.

However, due to excessive blood loss, coupled with a fever in her head and a gradual loss of body temperature, she could no longer bear it and fainted.

The night wind was icy cold. Cheng Ying looked at the small entrance to the basement, desperately trying to break free of her hand and foot chains, letting the chains rub her hands and feet until they bled, and crawled toward the entrance as if her life depended on it.

She had crawled less than a meter when Wei Muchen's fierce face appeared before her. He reached out and grabbed her neck, his eyes filled with malice as he asked, "Cheng Ying, you're trying to escape again? Do you think you can get away?"

Cheng Ying desperately tried to pry his hand away, struggling with all her might, her eyes filled with anger and stubbornness, and she managed to say with difficulty, "I'm going to escape. Even if I die, I'll die out there."

Wei Muchen scoffed and sneered, "You are my woman, and you will only ever be mine. If you try to escape once, I will catch you once; if you try twice, I will catch you twice; if you try to escape for the rest of your life, to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back! You will only ever be my woman for all eternity! Stop wasting your time here!"

After he finished speaking, he used his iron-like hand to pull her hair up and walk towards the blood-stained bed in the basement.

When Cheng Ying saw the bed, she trembled with fear and struggled desperately, trying to strangle Wei Mucheng and die with him.

But bound by chains and drugged, her struggles were ultimately futile.

Wei Muchen pulled on the iron chain and slammed her hard onto the bed. Cheng Ying was in so much pain that her hands and feet spasmed, and her back arched involuntarily.

It hurts so much, it hurts so much.

Cheng Ying kept howling in pain, tears streaming down her face as she grieved for her bad luck in marrying the wrong person.

"Cheng Ying, Cheng Ying..." Someone was calling her name. A chill ran down her spine as someone touched her forehead.

"Why are this person's hands so cold, like ice?" Cheng Ying thought to herself.

Her whole body was burning red, and she desperately needed something cold to cool down. She squinted and, like a cat, rubbed her flushed cheeks against the person's palm.

The man paused, as if hesitating about something, and then that clear, melodious voice, like a mountain spring, rang in her ears again, "Cheng Ying, wake up, wake up quickly."

Cheng Ying opened her eyes with difficulty. There was a ball of fire in front of her, so bright that she squinted uncomfortably.

She quickly opened her eyes again and saw a familiar face with long, narrow eyebrows, fair skin, and a handsome, alluring appearance.

It is Long Buxi.

He was wearing a dark blue Miao costume, with silver ornaments adorned with bells on his hands and feet. Against the firelight, he was raising his hand to help her up from the ground.

For some reason, the bell that had never rung before when I saw Long Buxi ringing was ringing non-stop at this moment.

The clear, ringing sound echoed throughout the cave, even without wind.

Hearing the bell ringing, Cheng Ying looked at Long Buxi groggily and asked, "What are you doing here? Am I delirious from the fever and dreaming about you?"

Long Buxi, who had been looking worried, smiled slightly upon hearing her words. She leaned close to her ear and whispered, "You dream about me? What am I doing in your dreams?"

The two were too close, and Cheng Ying could smell the unique blend of herbs and fir trees that belonged to Long Buxi, along with a hint of blood and soapberry—it smelled both pleasant and strange.

Cheng Ying couldn't help but think that her dream was too realistic; she could even smell Long Buxi's scent.

"Cheng Ying, what did you dream about me about?" Long Buxi asked again stubbornly when she didn't answer.

"What could I possibly dream about? I just thought you were pretty and touched your face," Cheng Ying mumbled incoherently.

However, it was this nonsense that made Long Buxi extremely happy.

He sat cross-legged beside her, stretched out his long, pale arms, and pulled Cheng Ying into his slender yet broad embrace, gently checking and touching her injured areas.

Cheng Ying winced in pain, her mind clearing up a bit as she realized that her pain wasn't an illusion, and that Long Buxi was real. He had come to find her, and she was still in his arms. She instinctively tried to stand up.

"Don't move." Long Buxi reached out and pressed down on her shoulder, his narrow eyes filled with an ambiguous threat. "If you want to die in this cave, I'll leave right now and leave you to fend for yourself here."

Cheng Ying was stunned; she had never seen Long Buxi look at her like that before.

In her memory, Long Buxi had always been a gentle, harmless, and smiling figure.

Although she had told her father about Long Buxi before and guessed that Long Buxi might be lying to her and that he might not really be a good person.

But at that time, it was just speculation, without any actual evidence.

Seeing Long Buxi's dark, cold, and unfathomable gaze, as if watching a dying prey struggle, she suddenly realized that this was Long Buxi's true nature.

Cold, ruthless, and unapproachable; his previous gentle and harmless demeanor was all an act.

Cheng Ying took a breath, remained still, and asked uncertainly, "What do you want to do?"

"What can I do? Let me check how badly you're injured."

Long Buxi reached out and tore open the fabric on her right leg and left arm, his cold, slender fingers gently touching the injured and fractured areas.

Cheng Ying had a high fever and her whole body was burning hot. When his cold fingers touched her burning skin, she couldn't help but shrink back. She then wisely moved her hands and feet away so that he could continue looking.

Long Buxi didn't react much when he saw her actions. He simply used the strip of cloth he had torn off to tie up her fractured area. "Your fracture is quite serious. You also have a wound on the back of your head. You have a fever and need immediate medical attention, otherwise your life will be in danger."

Cheng Ying nodded, "Please help me up and take me to the hospital."

Long Buxi turned his head to look at her, his eyes strange: "Cheng Ying, I've already saved you once, and I saved your father once, and you haven't repaid me yet. You're not going to ask me to save you for free again this time, are you?"

Cheng Ying immediately replied, "Whatever reward you want, I will definitely repay you within my power."

Long Buxi smiled. "You should know what I want."

Cheng Ying was stunned for a moment, "I don't know."

Long Buxi's face darkened, her eyes like water. "When you were little, you came to Pucang Village and said you wanted to marry me in front of my parents. My parents agreed, and I even gave you an engagement gift, which you accepted. We were meant to be together. I want you to marry me, stay in Pucang Village, and spend the rest of your life with me."

Cheng Ying was utterly shocked, thinking that her marriage to him was a complete fabrication! Neither she nor her father had any memory of it! And when had she ever received an engagement gift from him?

Suddenly she remembered that Long Buxi had once given her a sachet, saying it was for repelling insects. Could it be that thing?

Perhaps sensing what she was thinking, Long Buxi took out the azure blue sachet from her pocket, opened it in front of her, and took out a small lock of hair tied with a red string. "This is my token of love for you. I cut some of my hair, tied it with a red string, and put it in the sachet. According to our Miao custom, if you accept my token, it means you accept my feelings and are willing to marry me. You are now my fiancée."

His eyes gleamed with a strange obsession and madness, exactly the same expression Wei Muchen had when he forced Cheng Ying to do things she didn't want to do in his previous life.

Cheng Ying's heart skipped a beat, fear creeping over her. Instinctively, she slapped the sachet out of Long Buxi's hand, ignoring the pain in her body as she backed away, shouting, "I never said I wanted to marry you! You're lying to me! You said that sachet was for repelling insects, how was I supposed to know you put hair in it? If I had known you put something else in it, I would never have taken your sachet. Long Buxi, I will never marry you, and I will never go to Pucang Village with you to live!"

"Then you can just wait to die here." Long Buxi stood up and looked at her coldly. "Your dog has been eaten by those two bears, and the rain has washed away all traces around you. I went through a lot of trouble to find you. No one knows where you are now except me. If you don't marry me, you can just wait to become a corpse."

After he finished speaking, he climbed up to the cave entrance by using a rope made of vines on the cave wall. Then he pulled the whole vine away, and the cave quickly became quiet, leaving only Cheng Ying inside.