Zhang Qiling
He had chased the figure that had been watching them for a while now, knowing almost from the start that they were been followed all the way to their last resting place. As the stranger never attempted to get too close, he had ignore it, as they had more pressing matter to take care off, but now that he/she had dare to come close to Wu Xie, as the muddy footsteps suggested, he was not going to let it run free anymore.
Anything that could compromise Wu Xie's safety was his top priority to resolve, even when it meant leave Wu Xie's side for a while, if that ensures keeping him out of any external danger. Tomb raiding was not a safe business and he still remember the time Wu Xie was kidnapped by that foreign and was left into a bamboo cage in the forest.
That image still haunt him at times, be left alone, hungry and thirsty, feverish, weak and helpless, which was the reason he wasn't too fond of Ning and only help her before because it would help him find some answers about his missing past. However, after kissing with Wu Xie, even his lost memories had taken a second place in his mind, thus the reason he was chasing a stranger instead of keep moving to find the Queen Mother's Palace.
At some point, the figure clocked in muddy clothes finally stopped and turned to reveal herself to him.
"You are..." Qiling whisper in surprise, recognizing the face behind the mud.
"I'm glad some of your memories had returned. Do you remember me now?" The woman in front of him asked and he assented.
"Chen Wenjin." He said in hush.
"Good. Indeed I am Chen Wenjin... long time no see, Zhang Qiling." She told him.
"Why are you here?" He asked.
"I can tell you, but it will take a while to explain it all, will you listen to my story, while leaving Wu Xie alone?" She asked back.
"Are you after Wu Xie?" He asked in return.
"Not really. I have my own reasons to be here, but my story is connected to yours and that young man as well."
"Then I will listen." Qiling concluded and Wenjin smiled.
"Of course you will..." He was unable to resist both, knowing about his missing past, nor about anything that involved San Xing's nephew and of that, Wenjin was well aware of it.
"Alright then, let me tell you the story from the very start..." She said as she sat over a rock and Qiling did the same, ready to hear a long story that could finally give him some answers.
Wu Xie
The morning came and Xiaoge was still missing, which keep Wu Xie worry, yet he knew Xiaoge was more than capable to defend himself. He had promise he will not disappear on him again, so he could only believe that Xiaoge had chased the man too far and will take a while to come back to him again.
"Tianzhen, if you are that worry, I can help you look for him. Losing a lover to a stranger can't be easy to take." Pangzi said, which irritate Wu Xie more.
"I have not lose a lover, Xiaoge is a one army man on his own, he should be fine, just delayed." Wu Xie said.
"Yeah, right..." Pangzi whisper.
"Pan Zi, you can send a signal to my Uncle? We can see if we had any response as we wait for Xiaoge. It still worth the shot." Wu Xie asked, in order to distract himself from Zhang Qiling's prolonged absence.
"Alright... if Master San Xing see the smoke, he will definitely respond back. Let's hope he is close enough to see it." Pan Zi said as he threw a smoke tablet into the still burning fire, releasing a yellow smoke into the air in a long column that went up to the sky.
They all looked around to see if there was indeed a response from any direction, but after a minute, there was none to be seen anywhere.
"Tianzhen, I have been wondering about this for a while, but had your uncle abandon you?" Pangzi asked teasingly, but honestly Wu Xie was not in the mood for jokes, so he was going to curse him a few times when he saw something else rise into the sky. Red smoke.
"Look there!" Wu Xie exclaimed as he pointed into the direction of the red smoke in the distance.
"Finally a response!" Pangzi yelled and Wu Xie smiled.
"But the smoke is red." Pan Zi said in worry.
"What does that mean?" Wu Xie asked.
"It means that they are in danger ahead of us. We must go help them as soon as possible." Pan Zi said.
"What about Xiaoge?" Wu Xie asked with anxiety.
"If he is close, he should be able to see the smoke too and join us later. We can leave a note on his backpack, just in case..." Pan Zi said and after a few seconds of hesitation, Wu Xie took out the notebook on his own backpack and wrote a note to Xiaoge, as he leave him more rations inside his bag, just in case, then they rushed to the direction of the smoke, hoping to close the distance before the end of the day.
Somewhere else in between, another couple was trapped between two sets of smokes, one red and the other yellow with the red one ahead of them and the yellow still behind.
"What now? Which one should we head to?" Asked Xiao Hua, as he looked to both sides.
"One should belong to Wu San Xing, the other I have no idea, maybe is Ning's group. Nevertheless, one thing is certain, the one in red means they are in danger." Xiazi responded.
"And we are closer to the red one, let's go help. If it is San Xing, then we don't need to look further and if it is Ning, then we may reunite with Wu Xie." Xiao Hua summarize.
"Then we don't lose either way, let's go." Xiazi said, then they walked ahead with the same urgency the ones behind them did.
Close to the yellow smoke, two others stood looking up the sky, watching the red smoke rise up the top of the trees in the far distance.
"A smoke signal and it's not from your camp." Wenjin said to the man at her side.
"Wu San Xing, I need to go." Xiaoge said as he moved a step forward.
"Wait... I have told you everything and now you too should be conscious of the thing that may be mixed with them."
"Whatever It is out there, I know is not Wu Xie."
"What about the others?"
"I don't think so. They care for Wu Xie the same as me."
"That's not a guarantee."
"It is for me. I won't let Wu Xie face dangers on his own." Qiling said quite resolved and dashed ahead, to their camp from where yellow smoke was burning. When reaching it, he squatted down to take his backpack, which was the only thing that remained in their little camp now.
Immediately, he checked the content of the bag and found it fuller than he had left it and with a note. Wu Xie was making sure he had enough food left to be on his own for a while if he needed it to, which make him smile. It was precisely Wu Xie's kindness and care that had make him fall for him so hard.
"We spot a red smoke signal coming from my Uncle's camp, we went ahead to help. Please be safe, don't rush too much. Don't get hurt, we are fine." The note said in Wu Xie's hurried hand writing.
"I'm coming Wu Xie, you stay safe until then." Qiling whisper to himself, as he rushed after them.
As Xiaoge went after them, Wu Xie's group was facing their own troubles, been chased by poisonous moths they encounter as they try to reach San Xing's camp.
"Keep running!" Wu Xie yelled, as they were still chased by the hundreds of moths that looked like a dark cloud coming upon them at any second. Then, Pangzi spotted a big statue and they run into it and thrown themselves inside it mouth and away from the flying insects as they went down into the hard ground.
"Danm it, that hurts! Why these things always happen to us?" Pangzi asked as he painted.
"Why you ask? You know I have the worse rotten luck..." Wu Xie said as he try to stand, unconsciously touching a trap. Immediately, a blade raise from somewhere in the floor, then a lot of them followed and it was only instinct what saved Wu Xie from been stabbed, the same as Pan Zi and Pangzi, who almost fell backwards to a blade, if Pan Zi had not catch him in time.
"Damn it Tianzhen, just what did you touched this time? I was almost turned into roasted meat skewers!" Pangzi yelled and Wu Xie looked down, to see what he had trigger.
"That's a pressure sensor... anything that falls into this will activate the trap and be killed..." Pan Zi concluded.
"That's right... at least we didn't fall into it the first time." Pangzi said and Wu Xie looked around.
"This seems to be an altar made by the Queen Mother's followers to worship her." Wu Xie told them.
"And they were kind enough to point the way out. Lucky us, huh?" Pangzi said and Wu Xie looked around suspiciously.
"Nothing about an altar is that simple... there is dry blood all over the floor..." Wu Xie said.
"But no bones anywhere..." Pan Zi said as he illuminate the floor.
"True, that's odd." Pangzi thought.
"Anyway, that statue there is our way out, but is too high. Can we jump or climb it somehow?" Pan Zi asked.
"I think there is something else to this... is too high from this side. If we attempt to jump, we will fall down to our deaths." Wu Xie said.
"Then what do you suggest?" Pangzi asked, but in that precise moment, the huge block of stone begin to move into the direction of the pit, at the end of the altar.
"Watch out!" Pan Zi yelled and the tree of them went into action, trying their best to stop the block from moving forwards.
"Now we know why there aren't any bones!" Pangzi yelled.
"Push! Just push with all your might!" Wu Xie yelled and they did, but it was all for nothing.
"This isn't working!" Pangzi.
"What about throwing a rope to the statue?" Wu Xie.
"There is nothing to hook it and even if we did, it may fall down." Pan Zi.
"Then what?" Pangzi.
"If we climb this thing, we will be on the same high as the statue, then we can jump..." Wu Xie suggested.
"Alright, that's really our only option now, Climb it!" Pan Zi urged then and bit by bit they did, until they reached the top of the block safely and just in time, because the block stopped just at the border and from there they could see what was at the bottom of the pit. A nest of poisonous snakes, ready to kill.
"If we fall there, is a death sentence..."
"I think that at this level we can jump more easily." Pan Zi said.
"Okay, let's try it?" Wu Xie stood up, but at that very same time, the block moved backwards and Wu Xie was pulled down by gravity, almost falling, if Pangzi and Pan Zi had not grab him in time.
"What's wrong with this thing? Why is it going back?" Pangzi asked as the held into the stone border for support.
"This is basically a gigantic human coin pusher. We must use it to our advantage in the very moment it stop again at the border. After that, we only had a short time to jump." Pan Zi said and Wu Xie agree.
"I will go first." Wu Xie offer.
"No, let me try first. I am more skilled, then I will help you and Pangzi from the other side." Pan Zi said.
"Okay. Let's give it a try." Wu Xie agree and as soon as the block stopped once again at the border, Pan Zi jumped, safely reaching the side of the statue.
"It worked and is an easy jump..." He said from the other side and after turning the statue, a door was open above them.
"Alright! That's our way out, my turn!" Pangzi said and he jumped too without a problem.
"Come on Tianzhen!" Pangzi, then urged him.
"Don't be nervous and don't look down! Just do as I said and jump when I tell you." Pan Zi suggested.
"Okay."
"At the count of three... one... two... three!" Wu Xie was ready to jump and he impulse himself to do so, but as he had said before, his luck was really the worse, so when he was about to jump, the stone block started to move again, unbalancing him instead and thus make him fall backwards.
Both Pangzi and Pan Zi yelled after him in horror as they saw him fall too far for them to grab him and as Wu Xie fall, he only thought that Xiaoge was going to lose his connection to their world again and he will end up taken away by the snakes to share the same fate Ah Ning did before him.
It was so ironic, to die from poison when they had faced worse dangers inside tombs. At the end he was going to die before his Uncle San, Er Bai and his parents, leaving his family without a heir... but then again, even if he was not falling down to his certain death and with his relationship in full bloom with Xiaoge, that possibility was still none existent, as he was not a cheater, nor the kind of man that will have sex with a woman just to produce an heir when his heart was so fully given to Zhang Qiling.
"I'm sorry..." Wu Xie whisper to his Qiling, as he closed his eyes, but when he was certain that he was going to die, his fall was halted halfway by a strong arm on his waist, as a pair of legs that intertwined with his to keep him in place.
The move that pull him chest with chest with his rescuer, make Wu Xie be face to face with none other than his knight in black armor, Zhang Qiling in the flesh.
"Xioage!" Wu Xie hold him, at the same time Qiling impulse himself to go back up in one go, as both Pangzi and Pan Zi watched the impossible rescue in the hands of the nearest to a god man, that was now also his lover.
"I should had known. He always show when Wu Xie is in mortal danger." Pangzi said as he looked up, relieved he didn't had to witness another death by snake poison.
"Is a good thing they are together, otherwise Master Xiao San would had die a long time ago."
"A match made in heaven... now, do you think they will remember us? I bet Wu Xie is kissing Xiaoge in a frenzy right now after such a scare."
"We can give then some time... then we can always start yelling." Pangzi laughed.
"Right... two minutes and then we start yelling."
"Deal." Pan Zi agree.
Outside the altar, Qiling was half devouring Wu Xie, as the other two had imagine. He had follow their trace and find they had jump down a trap. He was going to go in as well, when a stone piece moved on the ground, revealing another entrance.
He barely had time to tied a rope to a near tree, when he looked down to see the exact moment Wu Xie was about to jump and failed when the block he was standing in receded. He had jumped down without a second thought and just in time to catch Wu Xie halfway his fall, then pull him back up to safety.
Wu Xie had hugged him, but at that moment his heart had been so full of fear that he could only kiss Wu Xie to ensure he was still with him and that he had come just a second later, he would had lose Wu Xie to snakes too, which would had undo him on the spot if it had come to happen.
"Wu Xie... Wu Xie..." He whisper against Wu Xie's lips.
"I'm sorry... It was too close again." Wu Xie whisper once they parted.
"Please live for me... I had nothing else." Qiling whisper back, as he put his forehead over Wu Xie's, gently caressing his face.
"Xiaoge... don't said that, you have a lot more than me." But Qiling shock his head in negative, then kiss Wu Xie again, until they hear some yells coming from below.
"Let's rescue them first... then we talk." Wu Xie said and Qiling agree. He trusted Wu Xie and his friends. His instincts had never failed him before, so he had no reason to doubt it now. Wenjin could observed them from the side if she wanted to, but he was not going to leave Wu Xie's side again, or he was risking losing him at some point, which he no longer could take it.
"I will bring them up. Rest for a bit." Qiling said to Wu Xie and he sat on the ground, as Qiling pull out Pan Zi, then Pangzi. Not too far, Wenjin was watching the rescue in resignation.
"Lovesick fool..." She whisper, yet there was nothing else she could do if Zhang Qiling was unwilling to part with his lover. She just needed to keep watching them until they reached the Palace. Then she was going to tell the Wu family heir all the trues that have been keeping from him for so long. It was about time, the two kids knew about the lies they have live in and make their own choices.
AN: The story will diverge a little from here, because I will not separate Wu Xie from Xiaoge again. Thanks for reading and see you back next time. 😁❤❤❤