Chapter 23
He moved closer to Ling Xu's body, his hands trembling slightly from weakness—because he had not eaten for days, because his wounds were still fresh beneath the bandages—and reached for the girl's wrist, turning it over slowly.
And there, on Ling Xu's forearm, he saw wounds that had not been bandaged.
The wounds were not wide, not gaping, not bleeding fresh blood—only long scratches that had begun to dry, their edges reddish from inflammation, wounds that should have been cleaned and wrapped hours ago, yet were left as they were, exposed to the cold and damp air of the cave, as if their owner had decided that her own health was not a priority, that the bandages she possessed were more valuable if used for someone else.
Ling Xu awoke not because of sound, not because of light, but because of an unfamiliar warmth on her wrist—a warmth that did not come from her own cold body, but from another person's palm carefully wrapping her wounds with slow, gentle movements, like someone arranging flowers upon a grave.
She opened her eyes slowly, and before her, Huan Zheng was kneeling.
Not kneeling like someone sitting at ease, but kneeling like a sinner before an altar, his forehead nearly touching the cold cave floor, his hands stretched beside his head, trembling, damp with sweat—or perhaps tears, Ling Xu could not tell in the dim light filtering in from the cave's mouth.
"Miss Poison… Ling Xu…."
Huan Zheng's voice came out like a whimper, like a groan, like the voice of someone who had just realized he had made a mistake that could never be undone with words.
"Forgive me… forgive me…."
And then he prostrated himself—truly prostrated, his forehead touching the ground, his shoulders rising and falling with sobs he could no longer hold back, his cries not erupting as loud wails, but as trembling vibrations that seemed to echo through the cave floor, the stone walls, the cold air that suddenly felt heavier than before.
"I almost killed us both… I almost blew everything apart… because of my ego, because of my foolishness, because I was too lazy to see that you were right from the beginning…"
He sobbed, his words breaking apart like water flowing between jagged rocks.
"Don't hate me… don't leave me here… I know I don't deserve to ask anything from you, but I can't… I can't lose the only person who still cares about me in this world…."
Ling Xu did not answer immediately.
She only looked at the man before her—the man she had always known as a lazy figure who was never serious, who yawned at the wrong moments, who slept atop an ox cart while snoring loudly and made her want to throw stones at him every morning—now kneeling before her with tears streaming down cheeks that had always seemed indifferent.
And for a moment, Ling Xu felt something strange in her chest.
Not resentment, for she was already too tired to resent.
Not victory, for no one had won here.
But a warmth that was both gentle and painful at once, like swallowing a bitter medicine that unexpectedly heals wounds within.
"Huan Zheng," she called softly, her voice still hoarse from a dry throat, "I already know."
Huan Zheng lifted his head, his red, tear-filled eyes looking at Ling Xu with an expression caught between hope and fear, like a child who had just been caught stealing sweets and was waiting for punishment.
"Know… know what?"
Ling Xu did not answer with words.
She simply extended her left hand—the hand that had just been wrapped by Huan Zheng with the clean white bandages—and with fingers still slightly trembling, she touched Huan Zheng's right wrist, then slowly turned it over, revealing the inner side of that wrist.
There, embedded upon it, were three faintly glowing emblems in the darkness—three emblems shaped like interlocking wheels, with engravings far too intricate to be crafted by ordinary human hands, with a soft pulsing light like three hearts beating in different rhythms yet strangely in harmony.
"I found them while tending your wounds," Ling Xu said, her voice flat, but her eyes could not leave those three emblems—emblems that, from the moment she first saw them, from the moment she accidentally touched them while cleaning Huan Zheng's arm, had never stopped making noise, never stopped calling, never stopped whispering in her mind like wind rustling through dry leaves.
"They call out… every night… every time I'm about to fall asleep… I hear those voices."
She closed her eyes briefly, letting the memory of those whispers flood her awareness—the voice of a red-haired woman calling, "The Lazy One… where are you, The Lazy One…," the voice of a dark-haired man who remained silent yet whose presence felt like a collapsing mountain, and the clearest, loudest voice she could not ignore—the one calling, "Huan Zheng… Huan Zheng… return… we are waiting for you…"
And every time the name "Lazy one" was spoken, every time the emblems on Huan Zheng's wrist pulsed brighter, Ling Xu saw Huan Zheng's eyes—closed in unconsciousness, shut in exhaustion—tremble slightly, as if he were dreaming of a past he could not leave behind, of people he could not forget, of an identity he had buried beneath a mask of laziness and indifference.
"You are the Lazy One, Huan Zheng," Ling Xu continued, her eyes now open, staring directly into his still-wet gaze.
"You are number two among the three Wheels of Cultivation."
Fhuuuh!
Days turned into weeks within that silent cave, and in the stretches of time that could not be measured without the rising and setting of the sun, Ling Xu and Huan Zheng sat cross-legged upon a flat stone slick with dew, speaking about the future in tones that were strangely light—like two siblings planning a journey, not two beings who had just survived death.
"Do you remember our agreement, Huan Zheng?" Ling Xu asked as she adjusted the bandage on her arm that had begun to dry, her voice soft yet clear in the narrow cave.
"I will be your master until I reach First-Level Bright Sky. That is the foundational stage of the Heavenly Axis realm. When that time comes, you are free. You can go wherever you want, do whatever you like, become a lazy man who sleeps on an ox cart for the rest of your life without anyone having the right to question you."
Huan Zheng, who was leaning against the cave wall with half-closed eyes, smiled faintly—a smile no longer as bitter as it had been days ago, yet not fully warm either, a trace of heaviness still lingering like coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup.
"You're still at Eighteenth Level of the Singular Star, Miss Poison," he replied, his tone still lazy, but carrying something different—something softer, more careful, like someone who had just realized that his words could wound.
"Eight hundred thousand fragments in your chest. Still far from the Supernatural Star, let alone Bright Sky. But…"
He opened his eyes, looking at Ling Xu with an unexpectedly serious gaze.
To be continued…