They'd made it twenty miles through the darkness, before the hunters found them. Which was a good progress for people in their conditions, Mei's Yin was destabilizing again and the exertion accelerating her decline, while Longwei's ribs had gotten worse, from painful to genuinely dangerous, he could feel something grating with each breath.
They were resting in a small cave when the first hunter appeared at the entrance.
"End Of The Line, Little Phoenix." The man was young, probably in his mid-twenties with an arrogant posture. "The contract says to bring you alive, but it doesn't say... Intact. So make this easy and you keep all your limbs."
Mei rose, ice already forming around her hands. "Walk away, or... I killed Lin Heifeng and I'll kill you too."
"Please... Lin Heifeng was a half mad demonic cultivator running on borrowed time." The hunter drew his sword, a spirit grade embedded with Qi. "I'm a Silver Talon elite. Foundation Establishment Stage Seven and you're what? Barely holding Core Formation and your friend there isn't even a cultivator."
Two more hunters appeared behind him, flanking the cave entrance, cutting off any escape options.
"Last chance," the presumed leader said. "Surrender or suffer."
And without hesitation, Mei attacked.
Ice moved toward the leader, it was faster and sharper than what she'd shown against Lin Heifeng, but she was weaker now and he(the leader) was stronger. He deflected the attack with a mere casual sword swipe, the blade's Qi shattering her constructs.
"Disappointing." He advanced, sword raised. "I expected more from someone worth fifty thousand spirit stones."
The other two hunters moved to flank Mei. She spun, throwing ice in both directions but she couldn't cover all angles. One of them got behind her with blade pressing against her throat.
"Don't!" Longwei stepped forward. "She's worth nothing dead, you need her alive."
"We need her Breathing." the leader corrected. "Big difference." He nodded to his subordinate. "Bind her and kill the cripple, no one's paying for him."
The hunter behind Mei adjusted his grip and the one nearest Longwei raised his sword.
Think, Longwei commanded himself. Think, think...
The scripture's emergency techniques, things he'd read but never tried, never had occasion to use.
"In moments of extreme need, the body can exceed its limits. Yang energy, even in a damaged cultivator can surge in response to mortal threat. This surge is dangerous, as it risks burning what remains of the core but it can provide a moment of power."
A moment.
That was all he needed.
Longwei stopped thinking and REACHED down into his shattered core, past the ruins of his cultivation to the tiny spark that had grown through nights of contact with Mei. The nascent flame that represented his only hope.
He grabbed and pulled.
And a surge hit him like lightning.
Yang energy exploded through him raw and uncontrolled, tearing through pathways that hadn't carried power in weeks. His damaged core lit up.
And for one moment he was a cultivator again.
Longwei moved.
He didn't have technique or weapons, didn't have anything but a body full of desperate energy and a willingness to spend it.
His palm strike caught the nearest hunter in the chest.
The Yang energy discharged on impact not as a refined technique just raw force, heat and pressure concentrated into a single point. The hunter flew backward, chest caved in and he died before he even hit the ground.
The leader turned in shock.
"WHAT..."
Longwei was already moving. The second hunter had loosened his grip on Mei in surprise, Longwei grabbed the man's sword arm and twisted as he felt bones snap. The blade fell, he caught it and drove it through the hunter's throat in a single motion.
Two down, one more to go.
The leader turned his sword towards Longwei, but Mei was already free now and she threw an ice spear through the shoulder before he could even take a step. He screamed, stumbled and Longwei pierced his heart with the stolen blade.
Everywhere went Silent.
Three bodies, and blood steaming in the morning cold.
Longwei dropped the sword, his hands were shaking. The Yang surge was fading and leaving behind agony, his core felt like it was on fire and the nascent flame were still burning dangerously.
"Longwei." Mei caught him as he swayed. "What did you do?"
"Emergency technique." The words came out blurred. "Probably burned what little cultivation I had but it bought us time.."
"You could have destroyed yourself!"
"They were going to kill me anyway." He managed a weak smile. "At least this way, we got to choose."
His legs gave out.
Mei lowered him to the ground, cradling his head. Her face was tight with worry, an expression he'd never seen on her before.
"Don't you dare die on me," she said. "We had a deal. Partners, remember?"
"Not dying." Probably. "Just... need rest."
"You need more than rest, you need..." She trailed off, something shifting in her expression. "You need Yang energy to stabilize what's left of your core."
"Don't have any."
"No." Her voice got strange. "But I might."
Before he could ask what she meant, she kissed him.
Not gentle, not questioning this time. This was fierce and demanding, her mouth claiming his with an intensity that shocked even him despite his fading consciousness.
And with the kiss came energy.
Not Yin... or not only Yin but something else. A warmth that had no place in an ice cultivator, flowing from her into him.
Her fire, he realized. The phoenix bloodline, from the Yang that was sealed away.
She was giving him her buried fire.
The energy was pouring into his core, wrapping around the dimming spark, feeding it. Not much, she couldn't access much through the seal, but just enough. The spark stabilized and strengthened, it became something that might actually survive.
Mei pulled back... Gasping.
"What was that?" Longwei managed.
"I don't know." She was shaking. "I felt your core collapsing and I just... reached and found the fire they sealed away and pushed it toward you."
"That's not supposed to be possible."
"Well... none of this is supposed to be possible." She chuckled wildly. "Crippled cultivators don't kill Foundation Establishment hunters, and Ice cultivators don't give Yang energy. Partners don't actually save each other."
She leaned her forehead against his.
"But here we are."
Here they were.
In a cave full of corpses, both of them barely alive with more hunters probably on the way. Logically, they should be terrified.
But Longwei found himself smiling instead.
"We're getting better at this," he said.
"At what? Almost dying?"
"At surviving together."
Mei's breath was warm against his face, her eyes were closed.
"We need to move," she said. "More will come."
"I know."
But neither moved.
"Five minutes," Mei said finally. "Five minutes then we run again."
"Five minutes."
She curled against him with her head on his chest, careful of his ribs. Her body was cool but not cold, and Her heartbeat was steady.
Five minutes of peace in a world that wanted them dead.
It was enough.
They would move again when the five minutes ended.
Longwei's body was in pain but the Yang infusion were stabilizing him enough to walk and Mei wasn't much better, the energy she'd given had cost her, draining reserves she couldn't afford to lose.
But they were alive, for now.
But somewhere ahead, there had to be safety.
"There's a place," Mei said as they walked. "A valley, about three days north with natural energy convergence, Yin and Yang in balance. If we can reach it, we can hide and recover and Maybe..."
"Maybe actually cultivate properly?" He gave her a wink.
"Maybe." She glanced with a smile. "But It's isolated and hidden, no one's used it in centuries."
"How do you know about it?"
"Lee told me." Her voice softened. "He said if things ever got too bad, if I ever needed to run I should look for The Valley of Harmonious Rest. He'd read about it in an old texts and thought it might be a place where someone like me could survive."
A gift from the dead.
"Three days," Longwei said.
"Three days."
Few minutes later, they started the walk north, a work to maybe salvation.
Behind them, the sun rose over bloody bodies and ahead, uncertainty waited and between them, something was changing.
Not love, not yet... maybe not ever.
But partnership, definitely. Trust, maybe. Understanding, growing.
But deep down, Longwei knew it was a partnership of necessity. For revenge.