Chapter 16: The Fire in the Cave, the Last Tenderness
The valley returned to dead silence, leaving only the thick smell of blood and the wailing cries in the wind.
Chen Ye stood among the corpses, like a Shura statue cast in blood. The excruciating pain in his body surged like a tide, crashing through his nearly broken nerves. The arrow piercing his thigh pierced his heart and lungs with every movement, and the wound in his back shoulder left his entire right arm numb and brittle.
But he couldn't fall down.
Because he still had to confirm one thing, Chen Ye's gaze slowly turned to Su Qinghan, and then he gently placed the index and middle fingers of his right hand on Su Qinghan's neck, feeling her pulse, which was weak but still beating.
She is still alive.
This realization, like a faint warm current, injected into his frozen will and allowed him to squeeze out a little strength again.
He had to take her away. This was Prince Ning's killing ground. God knew if they would send someone back to investigate. It was not a good place to stay for long.
Su Qinghan lay on the ground, her eyes closed, tears and fear still lingering on her long lashes. Her dress, now stained with dirt, grass, and his blood, resembled a pear blossom ravaged by a violent storm.
Shen Ye stretched out his uninjured right hand, wanting to touch her cheek, wanting to feel her face, to confirm whether she was just unconscious. But halfway through, he saw his blood-stained fingers and stopped abruptly.
He was afraid of dirtying her.
This thought is so strange, so inappropriate, and yet so real.
He withdrew his hand, bent down in an almost clumsy posture, and carefully picked up Su Qinghan horizontally.
"Well……"
The entire weight of his body rested on his injured thigh and waist. The excruciating pain blinded him, and he nearly collapsed to his knees. He gritted his teeth, suppressed a muffled groan deep in his throat, and forcibly regained his balance.
The body in his arms was lighter than he had imagined, yet it felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.
This weight is his only concern in this life.
He held her in his arms, turned around, and without even glancing at the sea of corpses and blood behind him, he identified the direction and staggered towards the dense forest deep in the valley.
His fleeting movements were now reduced to the most awkward stealth. He could no longer land silently, relying on an assassin's instinct for terrain, choosing the most concealed and rugged route, slowly erasing the two men's traces from this bloody stage.
He walked for an unknown amount of time, perhaps an hour, perhaps just half an incense stick's worth. Time had lost its meaning to Shen Ye, his consciousness bouncing back and forth between lucidity and blurriness. The only thing holding him back was the soft, gentle body in his arms and her weak, steady breathing.
Finally, he found an inconspicuous cave entrance under a steep rock wall covered with vines.
The entrance was small, barely wide enough for a person to pass through while bending over. It was surrounded by thorns and rocks, clearly a rare find. The wind from inside carried a cool, earthy scent.
This is it.
Chen Ye, holding Su Qinghan, struggled to squeeze in sideways. The cave was pitch black, but the space was much more spacious than the entrance appeared. He gently placed Su Qinghan on a relatively flat, dry surface, then slid down against the cold stone wall, gasping for breath as if all his bones had been pulled out.
In the darkness, all he could hear was his heavy breathing, the frantic beating of his heart, and the "tick-tick" sound of blood dripping from the wound and seeping into the dry soil.
He knew how dire his condition was. Three penetrating wounds and excessive blood loss meant that even a Daluo Jinxian would be unable to save him if he didn't receive treatment.
His survival instinct and the rationality trained by Tianji Pavilion were urging him to treat his wounds immediately.
However, he only took a breath for a moment and then turned his gaze to Su Qinghan who was lying quietly beside him.
She is more fragile than herself.
She had been injured before, her internal energy depleted, and she was frightened. Now she was unconscious, like a defenseless lamb. If she caught a cold in this cold cave, the consequences would be disastrous.
Shen Ye struggled to pull out a tinder and a small piece of tinder wrapped in oilcloth from his pocket. These were the essential items he always carried with him. He found some relatively dry branches and leaves in the cave and skillfully built a small bonfire.
The orange-red flames instantly dispelled the darkness and coldness in the cave, and also illuminated the faces of the two people.
The flames danced, the light and shadows swayed. Su Qinghan's face was pale, almost transparent, his brows tightly furrowed, as if he was also enduring great pain in his dream.
Chen Ye stared at her face, and the frozen lake in his heart, which had been suppressed by the "Lightless Heart Sutra" for more than ten years, was quietly cracking.
He forced himself to look away and began to examine her injuries.
He carefully tore open the fabric on her shoulders and arms, where she had been slashed by the soldiers. Fortunately, they were not too deep, but because they were not treated in time, the wounds were already red and swollen.
The most troublesome thing was her last knife wound. Although the cut was not big, the wound was treated rather roughly and was now showing signs of inflammation.
Chen Ye pulled a delicate white jade vial from his bag. This was the "Jiu Ning Ointment," a top-tier wound remedy specially supplied by the Tianji Pavilion. It had miraculous properties, including regenerating tissue, stopping bleeding, removing rot and reducing inflammation. Even the Tianji Pavilion's ace assassins could only receive one small bottle of this ointment each year. It was incredibly precious, a life-saving gift.
Without any hesitation, he unscrewed the bottle cap, carefully picked out some ointment with a clean branch, and gently and evenly applied it to every wound of Su Qinghan.
His movements were so gentle that he didn't seem like an assassin with blood on his hands. The hands that could accurately slit the enemy's throat in an instant now carried a clumsy piety that he himself was unaware of.
When his fingertips accidentally touched her cold skin, a strange electric current shot up from his fingertips and instantly spread throughout his body. Shen Ye's body suddenly stiffened and he even missed a beat.
He had never been so close to anyone before.
His life is filled with only cold swords and even colder corpses.
Her skin was soft and delicate, with a fragility and warmth that belonged to life. This touch was more vivid and profound than the pain of any wound on his body.
He withdrew his hand hastily, as if he had been burned.
The atmosphere in the cave suddenly became somewhat tense. The flames burned, making a soft crackling sound, reflecting a rare, fleeting look of bewilderment on his handsome face.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He told himself that this was just a rescue, just like the disguise, infiltration, and assassination in the mission, it was just a necessary behavior.
But he couldn't deceive his own heart.
He reached out his hand again, this time with even more gentle movements. He treated all of her external injuries, then tore off a few relatively clean strips of cloth from his blood-soaked undershirt and carefully bandaged her wounds.
After doing all this, he took off his outer robe and gently covered Su Qinghan with it. The cave in late autumn was extremely cold at night, and she was weak at the moment, so she absolutely couldn't catch a cold again.
Looking at Su Qinghan wrapped in his outer robe, curled up by the fire, his breathing gradually became steady, and his tightly furrowed brows relaxed, Chen Ye's heart, which had been hanging in the air, finally slowly settled down.
He succeeded.
He rescued her.
An unprecedented sense of satisfaction and exhaustion hit him at the same time like a landslide and tsunami.
It was not until this moment that he finally had the energy to pay attention to his injuries.
Looking down, the scene was horrific.
The wound on his left arm, pierced by the short knife, had been torn apart by the intense fighting, leaving the bone visible. The cut on his right shoulder, inflicted by the long knife, burned with burning pain. And his back was covered in countless cuts.
The most deadly were the two arrows on the back shoulder and left thigh.
The arrow was still deeply embedded in his flesh, and every breath rippled through his nerves, bringing waves of piercing pain. Blood had already stained his dark blue uniform a dark purple-black, clinging to his skin with a sticky, icy cold.
He knew that he had to pull out the arrow immediately, otherwise, if the wound became infected, he would be beyond help.
He first looked at the arrow stuck in his thigh, reached out, grasped the shaft, and tried to pull it out.
“Huh…”
The intense pain instantly made him gasp, and stars flashed before his eyes. It felt as if all his strength had been drained away by the pain. Sweat poured out from his forehead, nose, and back, soaking his clothes in an instant.
No, the arrow has a barb.
Pulling it out forcefully will only bring out large chunks of flesh and blood, causing secondary tearing, which will then cause continuous bleeding and lead to death faster.
The skin and flesh around the wound must be cut open before the arrow can be removed.
This is a simple truth, but executing it requires tremendous courage and perseverance. Especially when you are alone and without anesthesia, it is tantamount to torture.
Chen Ye panted and pulled out a sharp dagger from his boot. This was his backup weapon, but now, he wanted to use it on himself.
He warmed the edge of the dagger over the fire for a simple disinfection. Then, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, aimed at the flesh around the arrow, and cut it hard!
“Hmm!”
A suppressed groan of pain escaped from between his clenched teeth. His body trembled violently from the excruciating pain, veins popping out on his forehead, and his face turned pale as gold paper in an instant.
He felt that his consciousness was being swallowed by boundless pain, as if he was about to fall into an eternal dark abyss.
He couldn't pass out.
Once you pass out, you will never wake up again.
He snapped his eyes open and forced his gaze towards the sleeping figure beside the fire.
Su Qinghan...
He looked at her, at her peaceful sleeping face, at her body covered with his outer robe. That white figure, in the flickering firelight, seemed to have become a brand, deeply engraved in the depths of his soul.
He remembered her cold eyes when they first met in Yangzhou.
I recalled the brief confrontation and tacit understanding between the two in the dilapidated temple in Luoyang.
I remembered her lying in a pool of blood, her desperate and sad eyes.
Why did he save her?
The creed of Tianji Pavilion and the principle of mission supremacy became vague and unimportant at this moment.
He only knew that when he saw she was in danger, his body, his sword, reacted faster than his brain.
He wanted her to live.
He wanted to see a different look in her cold eyes again.
He wanted to...
So, this is the emotion that belongs to the "dark night" beyond the "candle shadow"?
The human nature that was suppressed by the "Heart Sutra of No Light" and regarded by him as weakness and burden, at this moment, became his only power to fight against death.
A gleam of determination flashed in his eyes. Without hesitation, he grasped the arrow shaft and pulled it out suddenly!
“Puff!”
The arrowhead, along with a large piece of flesh, was pulled out of the thigh with force.
"ah--!"
Unable to contain himself any longer, Chen Ye let out a deep, beast-like roar. He fell backward, slamming heavily to the ground, his body twitching violently. The world before him spun, leaving only countless swirling spots of light.
Blood gushed out of the wound like a flood.
He used up his last bit of strength to take out the bottle of "Jiu Ning Ointment" from his arms. Without bothering to apply it carefully, he randomly pressed most of the bottle of ointment on the wound, and then strangled it tightly with a cloth strip.
After doing all this, all his strength was exhausted.
He didn't even have the energy to deal with the other arrow lodged in his back shoulder.
His consciousness was rapidly fading. The firelight before him grew increasingly blurry and distant. The outline of the cave wall and Su Qinghan's figure melted into a chaotic mass of color.
He tried hard to look at her again.
He wanted to remember what she looked like.
What if... this is the last time we see each other.
He struggled, turned his body towards her, and stretched out his hand, as if trying to grab something. But in the end, the hand only paused weakly in mid-air before falling heavily.
Inside the cave, the bonfire was still burning quietly.
On one side of the fire was Su Qinghan, who was neatly dressed and breathing steadily.
On the other side, there was Shen Ye lying in a pool of blood, his life or death unknown.
One light, one dark.
One life, one death.
Their fates, in this small cave, were tightly intertwined in the most tragic yet tender way. And what awaited them upon waking would be an even more unpredictable tomorrow.
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