As close as brothers
The fog rose faster than expected, and before we even reached the cave where we were temporarily staying, we were already enveloped in a white mist.
There was already some distance between Meng Yan and Yue Lang, and with the fog obscuring her view, she easily lost sight of the person in front of her.
Unable to discern her surroundings or guess Yue Lang's whereabouts, Meng Yan stood rooted to the spot, her brows furrowed. A sense of bewilderment and anxiety made her purse her lips.
I wonder when that person will realize someone is missing from behind.
However, even if he took a few steps and immediately realized that finding another person in a world of pure white light would be very difficult.
Trying her best to calm her breathing, Meng Yan was prepared to venture into the misty forest alone. She randomly chose a direction and was about to set off when someone poked her arm a few times.
A ball of fire emerged from behind through the fog, and the boy's figure gradually became clear. The smile that usually graced his face vanished, and only when he stood in front of Meng Yan did he put on a rather unpleasant expression.
Meng Yan looked at him innocently and pointed to the white figure around him, whose direction was hard to discern.
"Let's do it again, but this time you can't lose me." He said seriously. Meng Yan thought he was going to add some harsh words to threaten her, but she heard him humming softly in front of her: "If you lose me again, I'll come back to find you again."
She couldn't quite describe her feelings, but she followed Yue Lang into the white mist.
Yue Lang stopped several times along the way, whether to confirm her location or to say something, but in the end he just looked at her without moving a word.
After walking a few more steps, he suddenly squatted down, as if searching for something on the ground.
Meng Yan was like a moth drawn to the light; when the light stopped moving, she lost her way.
Time was as long as it took her to fire the crossbow, yet it also passed in an instant.
Yue Lang wiped something on his sleeve, then turned around and handed it to her. She took the other end; it was a flat tree branch.
He had just wiped the dirt off its surface.
"Hold on tight? Hold on tight, I'm leaving."
Yue Lang used his left hand to hold the talisman and his right hand to hold the tree branch, controlling his steps to a size that she could keep up with.
“I have a natural sense of direction and have never gotten lost.” He seemed to know what Meng Yan was thinking and answered her question when she was bored on the road.
"The forest is deep and foggy with heavy miasma. Once we reach the cave tonight, we shouldn't come out. We can't see any flowers or plants anyway. We should rest for a while and wait until the sun comes out tomorrow and the fog has cleared up before setting off."
He was talking to a child as if he were negotiating with him. Meng Yan's thoughts were exactly like that, and since she couldn't express them at the moment, following behind him was just a way of acquiescing.
With the branches, the two moved much more easily, and the moonlight peeked through the leaves, greeting them just before they entered the cave.
The cave was cool and dark, with protruding and sunken stone walls. Further in, you could even see a pool of water. Fortunately, the space was large enough and there were no troublesome insects or beasts living there.
Yue Lang led Meng Yan into the cave and then left, leaving her with a talisman for company. A little while later, he came back in carrying a twig.
The forest was damp, and fog had fallen at night; no matter how dry the branches were, they couldn't be ignited in a short time.
Meng Yan sat quietly against the wall, tired but not sleepy, so I decided to help him with a little something.
"You just rest. I've burned down houses before, let alone just a few pieces of wood."
There was also a hint of pride in his words.
She intended to spread out the dry branches, burn off the moisture with talisman paper, and then try to light them. However, Yue Lang suddenly pulled out a handful of talisman paper, shook it three times, and it all caught fire. She then threw it all onto the pile of dry branches.
The dry branches crackled and popped, and soon a fire broke out, the flames illuminating the entire cave in a fiery glow, and the two men's view suddenly opened up.
Meng Yan looked up at Yue Lang and found him staring intently at her.
He pointed to the blazing fire in the middle and explained to her, "The talisman paper is not enough to just see the way. Since I've already drawn it, I might as well add a few more strokes. If I throw it into the water, it will flicker a few times before going out."
Unexpectedly, this person was not only a real Taoist priest, but also someone with genuine knowledge.
Meng Yan sat down by the fire. Amid the crackling sound of the firewood roasting, she took out two white flour cakes, put one in her mouth, and handed the other to Yue Lang.
"Is there food?" The light in the boy's eyes was genuine; he was truly hungry.
Yue Lang almost reverently accepted the gift that had descended from the opposite side with both hands, and began to eat heartily, looking as if he were enjoying a delicacy, or as if he hadn't eaten for many days.
Between bites of his pancake, he didn't forget to greet Meng Yan: "You even bring food with you when you go out."
“Yeah, I’ve never brought any.” He had already answered the question no one had asked beforehand. “If there’s a building, I go to the building; if there’s no building, I go to the stall. If I have nothing, I eat whatever I see.”
"It's not all eaten raw. There's fire involved, but the taste isn't very good."
He unusually blended wealth and poverty, which made Meng Yan feel a little pity. His sect must be very tough; he almost shed tears while eating crumbly cold pancakes.
After the meal, his energy was replenished, and his mind was no longer tense due to adapting to the environment. Meng Yan leaned against a slightly flat stone wall, listened to the sound of the fire, and slowly closed his eyes.
Just before she fell asleep, she vaguely heard someone speaking, "Sleep peacefully, I'm watching over you."
Consciousness seemed to cling to the clouds, gradually spreading outwards with the movement of the clouds, leaving behind a calm and shadowless sky.
.
I slept without any dreams.
When he woke up again, all the bones in his body were stiff and scattered. Meng Yan closed his eyes and struggled for a while before he could barely move.
The fire was reduced to flaming talismans, and the branches turned to ash and lay on the ground. Outside the cave, the sky was already bright, and a ray of light shone down from the traces of last night's moonlight.
The entrance to the cave was blocked by a block on the ground; the only way out was to step over Yue Lang.
He was sleeping soundly; even when light moved across his eyes, he merely turned over, adjusted his sleeping position, and became quiet again.
Meng Yan sat down beside him, observing the scene outside the cave, judging the path they had taken last night and the direction they should go today, and waiting patiently for the person on the ground to wake up.
The sunlight slanted slightly, but he still showed no signs of waking up. His expression was very peaceful, as if he were lying on a soft quilt instead of scattered pebbles.
After waiting for a while, Meng Yan checked whether the mechanisms he carried were intact, the remaining dry food and water on his body, and some miscellaneous items that he did not use often.
She found a small porcelain bottle inside, containing the antidote her senior brother had given her before she left. Shaking it a couple of times, she could hear the pills making a soft sound as they collided with the bottle.
I obviously don't need it, but this guy is lying on the ground...
Could the poison have already taken effect?
Meng Yan struggled to her feet, but her legs were numb from sitting in the corner for too long, so she had no choice but to stumble and run towards Yue Lang.
She awkwardly uncorked the bottle, poured it out several times, and finally managed to knock out a pea-sized black pill. As she reached out to feed it to Yue Lang, she hesitated and withdrew her hand.
My senior didn't explain the usage and dosage, so let's assume it's for oral administration. How many pills should I take at once? Will taking too many have any other effects?
Meng Yan, who had never used medicine alone in the wild before, was unusually puzzled.
But the next moment, still clinging to the beautiful pursuit that being able to eat is a blessing, she insisted on putting a few more pills in her hand, gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and smeared them on Yue Lang's face.
With a "hmm?" sound, her arm was firmly grabbed. She tried to break free twice but failed, so she opened her eyes instead.
Yue Lang grabbed her arm and sat up from the ground, trying to figure out what had happened in a blur.
His gaze swept across the scene, and he scrambled to make sense of everything he saw: Meng Yan was sitting close to him, her arm was firmly held by him, and she seemed to be holding something in her hand. Not far away were the mechanical contraptions she carried with her, including crossbows, needles, and kites that he recognized.
Oh, there was a white porcelain bottle lying between him and Meng Yan, the stopper was overturned to the side, and the bottle seemed to be empty.
The exceptionally intelligent Yue Lang pondered for a moment and quickly deduced the general idea.
"I understand, I understand everything." He released Meng Yan's arm and crawled and scrambled to the other side of the cave entrance, his face filled with endless sorrow and pain.
Although I don't understand what he suddenly realized, it's good that he's awake.
Meng Yan lowered his arm and rubbed it, then put the pills back into the porcelain bottle in front of him.
“Miss Yan, we have known each other for a while, and we even escaped from the jaws of death together last night. I thought our relationship was as close as brothers. Why would you take advantage of my vulnerability and try to kill me?”
Meng Yan: "?" Her hands, which were tidying up, stopped in her tracks when he questioned her, unsure whether to stop or continue.
After a moment, she put down the bottle she hadn't yet capped and asked him, stroke by stroke, "Are you... half asleep?"
"No, I was a little dazed just now, but I'm perfectly clear-headed now." His tone was unfriendly, as if he were a little aggrieved. "You plan to take advantage of my sleep to feed me the drug. If I die from poisoning in my sleep, you can just walk away. If I realize what's happening after taking the drug and see your actions in time, you'll use all your traps to stab me through, and then leave as planned."
"But you didn't expect that I would wake up before you could give me the medicine, disrupting all your plans and catching you red-handed."
What's going on here? Meng Yan frowned and relaxed, his expression shifting back and forth, ultimately unsure of how to look at him.
"I didn't know you before... Later I tried to control myself and not talk in front of you, but I never thought we would still end up like this."
The disbelief and regret in his words stung Meng Yan little by little. It turned out that the reason he didn't say much during this meeting was because of himself.
But none of the others are correct!
She was walking along the roadside when she encountered someone who was fast asleep. Thinking that she was happy to help others and save lives, she took out all the antidote her senior brother had given her and prepared to feed it to him. However, before she could even take the medicine, the person suddenly came back to life and even took a bite of her with a pitiful look.
Meng Yan's fingers moved back and forth between the two of them. After calming down, the gestures she made were so fast that they left afterimages. With Yue Lang's half-understanding and certainty, she picked up the medicine bottle and threw it at him.
You wouldn't understand even if I explained it to you in gibberish, so go check your medicine yourself.
She no longer cared about the man's actions and thoughts behind her, walked straight to her pile of mechanisms, squatted down, and placed them back on her body one by one, leaving him with a silent back view.
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