A Long Night

A Long Night

Someone had slipped into this room while he was away?

Not only that, they had witnessed the entire process of him sneaking into the Luo Family residence. In an instant, a huge word—"danger"—sprang into Xia Fan's mind.

But he soon realized that the voice sounded somewhat familiar.

After a brief standoff, Xia Fan tried taking out his tinderbox and reaching toward the candleholder beside the table.

The other party did not stop him.

The candle flared to life, its wavering flame driving away the darkness and revealing the visitor's appearance.

It was the Fox Demon who had visited his window on both of the past two days.

This time, she was no longer looking down at him from above. Instead, she sat leaning against the wall, her tail curled into a ball, making her seem much smaller.

And much closer.

At once, Xia Fan's heart, which had been hanging high in the sky, dropped back to the ground.

"What the hell? Could you not suddenly speak up behind someone's back when there's nothing wrong? Do you know you could scare someone to death like that?"

"So you can be afraid too." She curled her lips, seemingly mocking him.

"Of course. My surname isn't Ji, so naturally I can be afraid." Xia Fan replied irritably, though something felt strange in his heart—compared to her previous ridicule, her words now seemed to carry a little less of that barbed, sarcastic tone.

Wait, what was wrong with him? Could it be that he was no longer used to it when she did not mock him?

"Why wouldn't someone surnamed Ji be afraid?"

"Because programmers didn't write it."

"What... is a programmer?"

"That is... no, forget it." Xia Fan realized he had no talent for telling bad jokes. At the same time, he noticed that her complexion was clearly somewhat pale, and even her voice had grown weaker—this was also why he had not immediately recognized her at first. "What happened? Are you sick?"

Then he caught a faint scent of blood.

"If it were only sickness, that would be nice..." The Fox Demon forced a smile. Just as she was about to brace herself against the wall and stand, her expression suddenly changed—Xia Fan had strode to her side, bent down, and loomed over her like a shadow.

In that instant, the thought of making a desperate final stand leaped into her mind, along with guilt and apology toward "Master."

Yet Xia Fan merely pressed his hand against the wall behind her.

"This is... blood."

He looked at the trace of scarlet on his fingertips and frowned. "You're injured."

"I—"

The moment she spoke, Xia Fan interrupted her. "Let me see." Then, without allowing any argument, he pulled apart the hands she held over her chest.

She resisted, but her strength was negligible.

When he saw the red-and-black mess across her chest and abdomen, Xia Fan could not help sucking in a breath.

Though he could not see the wound itself, the amount of blood loss had clearly exceeded normal levels. Some of the blood had already congealed into clumps of black clotting, which meant she had not been injured only moments ago.

After hesitating, he used a little force and tore open the clothes below, which hung like a wet rag.

She involuntarily clenched her teeth, as though enduring tremendous pain.

A savage wound, half an arm long, immediately appeared before his eyes. At its deepest point, he could even vaguely see her intestines.

This once again confirmed that the woman was no human.

For an ordinary person, such a wound would at most allow them to hold on for three or four hours. More commonly, they would go into shock from the excruciating pain on the spot. Without immediate first aid, there was an eighty or ninety percent chance they would never wake again.

Of course, in an ancient era lacking medical technology, holding on longer would still be useless—having one's belly split open was itself a death sentence.

"When were you hurt?"

"That isn't important..." The Fox Demon tried to push him away, but failed. "Listen to me..."

"All right, within the last day at most." Xia Fan swept his gaze around the room and found no bloodstains. "There's no fresh bleeding. Has the internal bleeding already stopped? In any case, I've never been a doctor, not even a veterinarian. I can only try my best."

With that, he scooped her up and turned to place her back on the bed.

"Wait, you... what are you doing?"

"Do I even need to say it? I'm saving your life."

An ordinary person would surely have no hope left, but the fact that she had lasted until now on the strength of her self-healing alone was enough to show how tenacious her vitality was. He knew nothing about surgery, and even if he did, he had no modern equipment to use. The only thing left for him was the most basic emergency treatment. As the saying went, it was often the last straw that broke the camel's back. Turn it around, and if that straw were removed, perhaps a sliver of life could be reclaimed.

In other words, at a time like this, doing anything was better than doing nothing.

Xia Fan first went to the inn's main hall and asked for hot water—usually, the kitchen would keep a stove burning at all times to meet the guests' various needs. Besides, observing Spirit Fire generally required going out at night, so his request was not particularly strange.

However, when he took out a needle and thread for mending clothes and asked for them to be boiled in the pot as well, stressing that the water had to reach a full boil, he still drew an odd look from the inn's Xiao Er.

Fortunately, a "service fee" of one tael of silver immediately made the latter beam from ear to ear, repeatedly promising to do as asked.

Next, he took out braised beef and gave it to Xiao Er, asking him to mince it up and add it to some porridge before bringing it over. A late-night meal was standard service at an inn, so the latter naturally agreed to that as well.

Once he had these prepared items, Xia Fan returned to his room and began his emergency treatment.

The filthy clothes undoubtedly had to be completely changed, and the dirty blood around the wound was also a potential source of infection. At such a time, she was unexpectedly quiet. She neither questioned him nor resisted, merely watching him motionlessly as though resigned to her fate.

After repeatedly wiping her clean with hot water, he picked up the needle and thread and said quietly, "This may hurt a lot."

"Can I... scream?" Her lips moved faintly as she asked weakly.

"No. Hold it in."

Xia Fan took a deep breath and drove in the first stitch.

Her body visibly trembled.

This was undoubtedly a long and painful process. Stitching up a wound without anesthetic could fairly be called torture. Incense of Bewilderment might have eased the pain and soothed the mind, but he had no way to suture her while burning it.

"Human, are you saving me... or deliberately taking revenge on me?" the woman asked, drenched in sweat. "I... have never heard of... such a treatment."

"The skin has tension. It's difficult for it to heal on its own. Stitching it not only shortens the healing period, but more importantly, prevents germs from invading the body. Also, my name is Xia Fan."

Xia Fan was not doing much better himself. Sewing up a wound sounded easy but was hard in practice. Leaving aside how difficult it was to repeatedly pierce the wound with a tiny sewing needle, merely pinching the slippery skin coated in blood was enough to make his scalp tingle. At first, he had wanted to make the stitches as neat and attractive as possible, but before long, it became enough as long as he could sew it shut, no matter where he drove the needle. This invisibly further increased the patient's pain. Under the double pressure, there was not a drop less sweat on his forehead than on hers.

The Fox Demon stared at him for a long while before speaking again. "...Li."

"What?" He did not react at first.

"My name."

After saying that, she shut her eyes tightly and no longer paid attention to Xia Fan's movements, as though leaving whatever came next entirely to him.

It took Xia Fan a full half hour to finish the stitching—what secretly amazed him was that throughout the process, she never let out a single cry. Even when her tightly clenched nails pierced her palms and the sweat seeping out soaked a patch of the bedsheet, she never made a sound.

The final step was applying medicine and bandaging. Though the medicine was made from natural herbs, medical halls used it to stop bleeding and reduce inflammation, so it ought to have at least some effect.

After finishing all this, Xia Fan felt strangely drained. Ever since he had learned Yinqi Ruti, he had not experienced such a feeling in a long time.

But now was not yet the time to rest.

He went to find Xiao Er again and obtained a set of clean bedsheets and clothes, then changed the Fox Demon into them. Keeping things clean and fresh was the most crucial part of healing. Even frequently changing bandages and close-fitting clothes could greatly reduce the chance of infection.

By the time all the treatment was finally done, the sky on the horizon had gradually begun to pale.

Only then could he sit at the bedside and feed her porridge, one spoonful at a time.

"Don't you want to know... how I was injured?" Li could not help asking softly.

"I do, but can we talk about it later?" Xia Fan's hands did not stop. "I'm guessing that story is going to be a long one."

"...If I start from the beginning, it truly isn't short."

"Then tell me after you finish eating and wake up." He shrugged. "You only held on until now because of one last breath. I reckon it'll disperse soon. The first rest after a serious injury is crucial. Don't fight against your body. I've done everything I can. As for how much it'll help, heaven knows. It'll probably depend mostly on your own healing ability."

"You... don't hate demons?"

"I don't hate you." Xia Fan smiled. "Didn't you say it yourself? There are many kinds of demons. I don't have to like every human, either."

Just as he had said, after she finished the porridge, dizziness swept over her like the tide, making Li drowsy. This exhaustion even surpassed the pain of her wound, leaving her unable to resist it.

But it seemed that she no longer needed to resist.

Even now, Li still felt as if none of this was real. Before coming here, she had prepared herself for every possibility—including his attitude changing drastically, him reporting her to the Bureau of Military Affairs, or being cruelly treated, and so on. She did not know what price she would have to pay to make him patiently listen to the story about "Master," but no matter what, she had never expected things to unfold like this—

No questions about the reason. No demands.

He had extended a helping hand almost immediately.

He had not even allowed her to refuse.

Li had never believed in kindness without cause. Everything people did involved seeking profit or some scheme, and Xia Fan should be no exception. By his own account, he wanted to understand demons through her. Her only doubt was whether that bit of benefit was worth him doing so much. After all, beyond that, she truly could not think of anything else she had to use as bargaining chips.

Her consciousness gradually blurred, just as it had on the day she was injured.

But this time, she no longer resisted.

In her hazy vision, a figure stood close before her. A situation that should have made her all the more guarded now somehow made her feel at ease.

Amid a peace she had not felt in a long time, she closed her eyes.