Shadow's Efforts Came to Nothing

Seeing Xie Xie's face swollen like that, Shadow knew the Ascension Platform was definitely out of the question.

The faint, crescent smile in her red eyes still lingered on the surface, like gold lines painted over glaze, but something deep in her gaze darkened abruptly—not sadness, but more like the tip of a whip that had been gathering force being seized and yanked back hard, biting into flesh.

She had originally planned to have Xie Xie complete his trip to the Ascension Platform today, then lure a Soul Beast into the space and have Yun Ying kill it so she could at least lap up a little leftover Soul Power. But now Xie Xie's left eye was swollen into a slit, his right eye drooped, his lips were flipped outward, and when he collapsed onto the sofa, his chin trembled nonstop. Forget the Ascension Platform—he would probably trip running across flat ground.

Shadow lowered her lashes.

That trace of ruthlessness faded swiftly, so swiftly that Yun Ying, who was lowering her head to pinch a fresh cotton ball, never looked up and naturally did not see it. By the time Yun Ying glanced at her again, Shadow had returned to the other side of the sofa, her hem smoothed flat, her red eyes curved into crescents, and her voice soft. "Then we'll talk about it in a few days. Let big brother recover properly."

She paused, her tone lifting at the end. "Yun Ying, I'm leaving. No need to see me out."

With that, she turned around. The collar of her cream-colored shirt stretched smooth in the afternoon light for an instant. She did not head for the entrance. Instead, she walked straight to the bedroom window—third floor, with the sheer curtain lifted halfway by the wind. Shadow hooked open the latch with her finger, pushed the window outward, swung one leg through, planted her toe on the air-conditioning unit outside, and kicked off.

Yun Ying's ears twitched. Looking up, she saw only the sheer curtain fall back into place. The window frame lightly tapped the wall, and plane-tree leaves swept past outside in the wind. Shadow was gone.

There were no footsteps in the hallway. No sound of the front door opening. It was as though she had never come in through the door in the first place.

Yun Ying stared at the window for two seconds, her throat bobbing as one clear thought rose in her heart: Who wanted to see you out?

She withdrew her gaze and pressed the cotton ball back onto the bruised swelling on Xie Xie's left cheekbone. The murky green medicine seeped along the swollen line. Xie Xie jerked again, and this time Yun Ying pressed his forehead with half a degree more force than before. "Jerk again and I'll poke your eyeball out." Yet her fingertips still held back their strength as she worked the medicine through the cotton ball and pushed it toward the corner of his eye.

Tears welled up again from the slit of Xie Xie's left eye. His half-drooping right eye could not even blink, his swollen lips pouted outward, and his throat gurgled for a while, like he had hot porridge in his mouth but still wanted to sing. Yun Ying caught part of it—

"Yun... Yun Ying... I, I... ugh..."

His lips were swollen, air leaked through his teeth, and the syllables stuck together into a mess. Yun Ying did not understand a word. She only saw the fingers of his right hand unconsciously clutching the sofa cover, his nails digging deeper, while his Adam's apple rolled as though he were swallowing glass.

She clicked her tongue, shook the cup of medicine, soaked the cotton ball again, and moved to the gray streak on his right cheekbone. She had paused over the bridge of his nose with her thumb earlier, and now she confirmed it: the gray mark was dry, not dried blood. It was just wall dust scraped off a utility pole. Xie Xie had used Soul Power to run without watching where he was going; his brain was half a beat slower than his legs. Typical.

"Stop mumbling," Yun Ying said. "Your mouth looks like a dumpling caught in a door. I can't be bothered guessing the filling."

Xie Xie panicked. His right hand released the sofa cover and gestured wildly in the air. His left hand tried to push himself up, but Yun Ying blocked him with her spear shaft across the sofa armrest and shoved him back down. He gestured rapidly: first pointing at his own face, then outside the window, then pressing his hands together by his ear, and finally giving a thumbs-up. Yun Ying stared for three seconds and roughly translated it as, "I really went to buy tickets, I hit a pole, I'll be fine after sleeping, I can do it."

"You can do shit." Yun Ying tossed the cotton ball back over the rim of the cup and stood. The Flame-Reaver Spear slid from her shoulder into her hand, and she planted its butt on the floor with a bang. She pulled out the storage ring at her waist with a flick of her knuckles. In her other hand, she held a communicator and dialed with her thumb.

The call rang twice before the other end picked up. Gu Yue's voice was even, as though pulled from the pages of a book. "Speak."

"Xie Xie's face is swollen like a steamed bun. That pill of yours isn't enough for external use. Send two more over. Ones that reduce swelling. Don't send poison pills."

Gu Yue was silent for half a second. The sound of a pen scratching across paper came from the background. "The one from last week would have made the swelling go down the same day if dissolved and applied externally. You didn't dissolve it?"

"I did. His skin's too thick. Half the swelling went down, and he's still puffed up."

"...Fine. Ten minutes."

"Don't use the door. Come through the window, so Xie Xie doesn't see your face and start jerking around again."

Gu Yue did not answer that. She simply hung up.

Yun Ying tossed the communicator back into her ring, pulled a chair beside the sofa, straddled it with the backrest facing forward, and rested both arms on it. The Flame-Reaver Spear stood propped against the table leg. She lowered her gaze to Xie Xie.

Xie Xie had stopped jerking around. He lay flat in the corner of the sofa, his neck swollen a whole size thicker, his chin trembling every now and then. The tears at the slit of his left eye had dried into shiny tracks, while red veins tangled in his right eye, as though it had been beaten into collapse but still stubbornly refused to close.

Yun Ying ran her tongue over her back teeth.

"Xie Xie."

Xie Xie's Adam's apple bobbed, and the slit of his left eye looked at her.

"The midterm exams are coming up," Yun Ying said. "Can you even get on the arena like this?"

Xie Xie immediately raised his right hand, gesturing and speaking unclearly at the same time. "Can. Can. Can." With his lips puffed out, every "can" sounded like "thump"—thump, thump, thump, three times—while he slapped his chest with his palm, making dull sounds. His face was so swollen that even the force of those chest slaps could not spread properly.

Yun Ying stared at him for three seconds.

Xie Xie added two more chest slaps. The slit of his left eye strained to open wider, while his right eye still drooped motionlessly. His swollen lips stuck outward, and he wore an utterly earnest expression that said, "I really can."

Yun Ying was so angry she laughed.

It was not a real laugh. It was the kind that came when Xie Xie's stupidity stoked her irritation, making it circle in her throat before escaping through her nose—a tug at the corner of her mouth without any curve in her eyes. All she could think was that this idiot was lying there like a steamed bun and still talking tough, his face swollen like a map while he gestured that he could get on the arena.

With her elbows pressed against the chair back, she leaned forward. Her voice squeezed out from between her teeth, carrying annoyance at Xie Xie's stupidity, lingering fear from how Shadow had silently stuffed cotton into his mouth earlier, and displeasure at the thought of his face becoming a target on the midterm arena:

"You can do shit. Lie back down!"

Xie Xie's raised hand froze in midair. The slit of his left eye blinked once, while the red veins at his drooping right eye did not move at all. His Adam's apple bobbed. He wanted to say, "I'm lying down, I'm lying down," but his mouth would not open. All that escaped his swollen lips was half an "Mm," and his arm slowly withdrew back onto the sofa.