Chapter 22
Amid the chaos that was still unfolding—where outside the tavern, hysterical screams began to erupt from every corner of the city as the Cancer plague spread like fire across dry grass, killing one by one, two by two, a hundred by a hundred, unstoppable—Ling Xu's body, which had returned to its human form, lay limp atop a pile of rubble.
Her robe was in tatters, her white hair soaked with blood and sweat, her chest rising and falling with short, ragged breaths like someone who had just finished running a thousand li.
Yet even in her weakness, she still had the strength to extend her hand.
Not to attack, not to ask for help, but to grasp Huan Zheng's wrist—still bound in chains—and with the last bit of strength that came from who knows where, she shot upward, breaking through the shattered ceiling of the tavern, piercing through the cold seawater, through the waves, through the clouds, through the atmosphere of that ocean city, continuing to fly and fly and fly—carrying Huan Zheng like an eagle carrying its prey, not caring that her wings were broken, not caring that her chest was shattered, not caring that every second she flew was a miracle that could never happen twice.
Huan Zheng could not speak—he could only grip Ling Xu's hand in return, a cold hand, a blood-soaked hand, a hand that was still warm even though its owner already seemed halfway to death.
And in his heart, for the first time in decades, he prayed—not to the Gods, because he knew the Gods had already lost, had died, and were useless, but to the universe, to fate, to anything that might be listening.
"Don't let her die. Don't let her die because of my mistake. Don't let me live in this world alone again."
And the universe—whether because it heard him, or by coincidence, or because this story was not yet finished—granted his prayer.
Ling Xu fell right at the mouth of a cave located on a remote cliff, far from the ocean city still consumed by the Cancer plague, far from the screams and explosions and blood.
And there, inside the dark, cold, and silent cave, the two battered bodies lay side by side—their breaths slow, weak, sometimes seeming to stop before starting again, like two candles on the verge of extinguishing at the end of an overly long night, yet still burning, still enduring, still refusing to die—at least for tonight.
The days inside the cave felt like time itself had stopped ticking.
There was no sun, no moon, no measurable shift between day and night—only darkness that sometimes grew dimly lit and sometimes pitch black depending on whether marine plankton happened to drift past the cave's mouth or not.
And within that darkness, Huan Zheng dreamed—not an ordinary dream that came and went like the wind, but a dream that felt as real as the wound in his ribs, a dream that made him wake in cold sweat even though the cave's temperature was bone-chilling.
In his dream, he stood in the middle of a burning grassland, flames towering around him.
And before him, divided into two sides that could not be reached at the same time, were two groups of people.
On the left side were blurred faces—he could not see their features clearly, only their auras that he recognized, auras that had once been warm, once been close, once been the reason he endured the longest battle of his life.
And on the right side—Ling Xu.
The girl with white hair streaked with vein-like colors stood calmly, her robe torn, her eyes weary, yet she did not beg, did not lament—she only looked at Huan Zheng as if asking a question.
"Who will you choose?"
And from beyond the flames, a formless voice rumbled like thunder from the center of the earth.
"You can only choose one side, Huan Zheng. The left is your past—those you once protected, those you fought for with everything you had, who in the end slowly dragged you into the snare you built yourself, until your name stood as a defendant and was sentenced to death in the Supreme Court of Humanity. The right is your future—a girl drenched in blood for defending you, a Young Master you once underestimated, a being who has no reason to save you other than that she could not bear to see you die alone."
Huan Zheng opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out—only ash drifting into his throat.
And when he tried to step forward, his legs felt rooted in the burning ground, and the flames began to crawl up his robe, to his chest, to his face—and he awoke with a scream that never made it out of his mouth.
Huan Zheng's eyes opened slowly, like two rusted doors pushed by exhausted hands—the damp, dark ceiling of the cave greeted him with a coldness that had become a familiar companion over the past few days.
Beside him, he heard the sound of slow, steady breathing—the breathing of someone sleeping far too soundly for a body covered in wounds.
He tried to sit up, but his head felt like it had been struck by an iron hammer wrapped in fog—dizzy, spinning, as if he had just downed ten bottles of liquor at once after abstaining for a year.
"My head… feels like it's splitting..." he muttered as he rubbed his temple with his right hand.
Then he shook his head—slowly, carefully, like someone trying to dislodge a spider nesting in his hair—and the dizziness eased slightly, not gone completely, but enough for him to see his surroundings more clearly.
In the corner of the cave, he saw piles of bandages—not one or two pieces, but dozens, perhaps even hundreds, scattered like dry leaves blown into a corner and never swept away.
Some of them were still clean, plain white without a single stain, but most were already dirty—not with fresh crimson blood, but with dried blood that had turned dark brown, like damp soil after the rain has stopped.
"These bandages…"
Huan Zheng frowned, then looked down at his own body.
There, under the dim light entering from the cave's mouth, he saw his left arm neatly wrapped—clean bandaging, tight but not overly so, the ends folded carefully like someone experienced in tending wounds for many years.
He checked his chest, his stomach, his thighs, his calves—everything was injured, everything wrapped, everything treated with a level of precision that almost made him smile—if only he had not immediately realized something that killed that smile before it could be born.
Ling Xu lay on the other side of the cave, her small body curled like a fetus sleeping in the womb—her white, vein-patterned hair scattered across the cold stone like mist fallen to the ground.
Her chest rose and fell with slow but steady breaths—steady in a strange way, like someone too exhausted to dream, too empty to feel fear.
But in Ling Xu's hands—in both of her palms that faced upward, her fingers loosely curled like a withering flower—Huan Zheng saw stacks of clean bandages, still neatly rolled, still ready to be used, yet never used.
Dozens of rolls lay upon her palms like offerings that never reached the altar, like prayers spoken but never heard—and Huan Zheng felt his chest tighten.
Not because of the Cancer plague, for he did not have it—
But because of something far simpler, and far more painful.
Guilt.
To be continued…