Li Qi felt a thread of "qi" forcibly squeezed out from his muscles and flesh. But the moment that thread of qi emerged, he immediately felt drained from head to toe.
"Li Qi, you're awake?!" Shen Shuibi's voice came from beside his ear.
She sounded anxious, yet there was also the feeling of finally letting out a breath.
Li Qi opened his eyes and found her clutching him tightly. Where their skin touched, he could feel something slick and soft. His own sweat had broken out in a greasy layer, yet it could not cling to Shen Shuibi at all. It was a strange sensation.
"Thank goodness, thank goodness... I almost thought you wouldn't wake up! Do you know, just now the yin qi of the underworld came creeping up, and it nearly dragged you away!" Seeing Li Qi awake, Shen Shuibi hurriedly climbed off him and tidied her already disheveled dress.
"The yin qi of the underworld... Then, thank you, Miss Shen." Li Qi was still weak and limp. He felt too feeble to move.
Still, he had woken up.
From Shen Shuibi's words, coupled with that strange dream from before, he immediately understood what that half-dreaming, half-waking illusion had truly been.
The reasoning was simple.
The yin qi of the underworld had wanted to drag him down. Most likely, he really had been about to die.
So Shen Shuibi had held him, using her Immaculate Body and its trait of being untouched by all evil to block those strands of yin qi for him, buying him time to save himself.
He truly should thank her. Otherwise, he probably really would have died this time.
Then... what was the situation now?
Li Qi forced himself upright from the ground.
Only then did he realize that he was in a