Chapter 154: His Mask

Wu Jian rushed over to Hou Jingshu the moment she collapsed. Panic filled him as he rushed over, knelt beside her, and gently lifted the woman into his arms. Her face was pale like she had lost a lot of blood and her breathing was heavy. He couldn’t see anything else that was wrong with her. Had she been injured somewhere? He looked her over from head to toe but didn’t spot anything at first—not until he glimpsed the purple skin beneath her pant leg.

Wu Jian lifted up her pant leg and gasped. The veins in her leg were an intense purple so dark they were almost black. He pulled up more of her pant leg to show that the purple was spreading at a rapid pace.

“What the—”

“Looks like she’s been poisoned. You have to cut off the flow of blood so the poison doesn’t progress further,” Huǒ Shuchang said quickly.

Wu Jian snapped out of his shock, tore off Hou Jingshu’s pant leg, and used it as a tourniquet to cut off the flow of blood to and from her leg. He tied it right around mid-thigh.

How could this have happened? She had given no indication of being poisoned, so what—no. Wu Jian quickly thought back to the battle and remembered the moment mid-fight when she collapsed. That was when the giant Stinger had gone underground. It must have stung her with its stinger during that moment.

“What now? Do we have any medicine?” asked Wu Jian.

“I don’t think any of the antidote we have will help,” Huǒ Shuchang said with a sigh. “We can try, but we only have antidotes that can heal basic poisons. That magical beast was at the Human Limit Realm at the very least. A basic antidote isn’t gonna cut it.” He paused, then grimly said, “we might have to remove her leg.”

“I’d prefer we not do that,” Wu Jian bit his lip. “Can I suck the poison out?”

Huǒ Shuchang looked at him like he was stupid. “You can’t suck out poison. It’s already flowing through her bloodstream.”

“There has to be something I can do, though!”

“Look, I don’t want to be mean… but that might be the only thing that can save her. The longer you wait, the more the poison will affect her. You need to choose what to do before it’s too late.”

Wu Jian knew that, of course, but he didn’t want Hou Jingshu to lose a limb over this. But what else could he do? Damn it. If only there was a way to remove the poison safely without the need to cut off her limb?

Wait. Maybe he could remove the poison. Poison was a liquid, but it was also a physical substance. He could manipulate space to teleport objects, so why couldn’t he just teleport the poison out of her system.

“I’m going to try something,” Wu Jian said at last.

“I figured as much. I’ll keep watch,” Huǒ Shuchang said.

Huǒ Shuchang turned around and walked a short distance away. Wu Jian placed his hand on Hou Jingshu’s thigh and focused hard. He sent his chi into her body and focused on his perceptions. His brow furrowed as he felt the inner workings of her leg. He could sense the flow of blood through her veins, the chi fighting a losing battle against the poison, and the poison itself as it ravaged her leg.

He wanted to get rid of the poison, but the first question he needed to ask was how to do that. It was a liquid, which meant it had already spread through most of her leg. He couldn’t get it all in one go. Did that mean he could only siphon a little at a time? No, no. The longer it remained inside of her, the more damage it would do. He needed to do something bold and possibly reckless to remove as much of it as he could in one go.

“Okay… here we go.”

There were roughly 90 to 150 veins within the human leg. Wu Jian targeted each one, then created a small black hole inside of them. A black hole would remove everything, so he quickly turned them into a mesh net, then used his chi to direct the flow of blood in Hou Jingshu’s legs to move around the mesh. He simultaneously used the mesh to catch the poison and teleport it out of her body.

Sweat ran down his face and blood flowed from his nose as the entirety of his focus was on removing the poison.

Some of Hou Jingshu’s blood had also been infected, so he removed that as well. The poison that was removed soaked into the several not far from where they were. He couldn’t move it too far since his attention was split between many different tasks. He simply did not have the brain capacity to spare.

Wu Jian had no idea how much time had passed. His mind felt like it was being stressed to the breaking point. Yet everything he even contemplated stopping to rest, he would look at Hou Jingshu’s pale face. He couldn’t stop until all the poison was removed.

“Haaaah… haaaah… phew…” Wu Jian wiped the sweat from his face. “A-all done… now I just need to give her a Blood Replenishing Pill.”

Blood Replenishing Pills did exactly as their name suggested. They were tiny red pills that could be swallowed whole.

Hou Jingshu could clearly not swallow them herself right now. Wu Jian reached up to remove his mask, realized his mask was gone—probably broken—then popped the pills into his mouth, filled it with water, and pressed their mouths together. He used his chi to direct the pills and water into mouth and down her throat. She tried to cough them back up, but he massaged her throat to make them go down.

Hours seemed to pass as Wu Jian held Hou Jingshu in his arms and watched her, waiting to see if she would recover. Her complexion eventually gained a rosier hue and her breathing even out. It looked like she would be okay.

He sighed in relief. His heart had been hammering in his chest this whole time. Now that Hou Jingshu was finally safe, it felt like all the energy was draining from his body. It was like air escaping a balloon after someone popped a hole in it. His entire body sagged forward as he gripped the woman tighter and pressed his face to her hair.

“Looks like you saved her,” Huǒ Shuchang said. “I don’t know how, but that was some pretty impressive stuff. It normally takes a fifth-tier alchemy pill to remove a poison like that. Anyway, you look exhausted. I’m gonna set up camp so we can get the princess into a tent so she can rest.”

“Mmmm.”

Wu Jian didn’t have the energy to even answer Huǒ Shuchang. His friend seemed to realize this. The man summoned several tents from his storage ring and set them up. Wu Jian carried Hou Jingshu into one of them, set up a futon, and placed her inside of it. He summoned a spare mask to put back on over his face, then sat in silence and watched the woman as she slept. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight lest something bad happen to her.

***

Hou Jingshu dreamed that she was back at the Wu Clan estate. She knew that she was dreaming because her age when she looked at her reflection in the pond was of a sixteen year old woman instead of a twelve year old child.

I’ve never had a dream quite like this before.

Hou Jingshu had dreamed of the Wu Clan many times this past year, but they had always been nightmares. She dreamed of traveling back to the Wu Clan estate after hearing about their destruction, only to find the corpses of Wu Jian, Wu Meiying, and the others littering the ground. She dreamed of them coming back from the dead and accusing her of not being there to save them. Those were the kinds of dreams she often had.

This dream is so peaceful in comparison that I’m worried something terrible is going to happen soon.

With nothing else to do, Hou Jingshu wandered through the empty compound, her legs taking her to the place where she had spent the most time. Wu Jian’s building looked the same in her dreams as it used to in real life. The modest structure had dragon statues located on either end of the sloped roof. Lintel posts kept the roof, which extended far beyond the walls, aloft. It was a simple brown color, nothing special, but this place held many special memories for her.

The door to the building suddenly opened and a man stood in the entryway. Hou Jingshu felt tears gather in her eyes as the familiar face greeted her with a smile. He looked older, more mature, and stronger, but she would recognize his face anywhere.

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Wu Jian!

She rushed forward to embrace the man, leaping through the air as if to tackle him in a hug.

Wu Jian disappeared. Everything disappeared.

Hou Jingshu opened her eyes.

She sucked in a deep breath and looked around. The tan walls and ceiling of a tent greeted her. She closed her eyes again and pressed her forearm to them.

It had been a dream.

Just a dream.

But she wished it hadn’t. She wished it was real.

As she lay there, lamenting the dream for showing her what she wished for, the steady, rhythmic breathing of another person reached her ears. She snapped her eyes open and turned her head. A masked man lay not far from her. He was sleeping on the ground beside her futon, resting on his side and facing her way.

Hou Jingshu sat up. The first thing she did was check herself over. Nothing was out of place. Her pant leg was ripped, but aside from that, she seemed perfectly fine. She did wonder about the tear, though. She tried to recall what happened. They had fought against a giant Stinger, and toward the end, she had looked at Jian Wu’s face before… nothing. The world had gone dark shortly after that.

His face…

She crawled out from the covers and over to Jian Wu. His shoulders moved gently up and down. She sat back on her haunches and watched him for a moment, then gently reached out. Her finger brushed against the mask. Was it the same one he always wore? She had thought it broke during the battle. Had she just imagined that?

“Nnngggg…”

Hou Jingshu nearly shrieked as Jian Wu stirred. She jerked her hand back so fast that she fell backward. She struggled to back away as Jian Wu sat up and rolled his shoulders. He didn’t seem all there at first as his masked face tilted this way and that, but then he turned in her direction.

“Ah,” Hou Jingshu lost her breath. Her heart was pounding. She slowly sat up and tried to calm it, but she couldn’t. Even so, she felt like she needed to say something. “Um, good morning—iyah?!”

She could not contain her surprised scream as Jian Wu lunged forward and pulled her into his arms. Her head rested on his chest. The frantic beating of his heart made her own palpitate like mad.

“Um… uh…”

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he said, voice choking with emotion. His words made her hold her tongue. “I was so worried when you collapsed.”

“Mmm. I’m sorry,” Hou Jingshu said. It was all she could think to say. She was so confused. What was this feeling in her chest? “Um… could you please let go of me now?”

“Ah.”

Jian Wu released her and moved back several paces. He pressed his hands to the floor and bowed low.

“I’m sorry. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Oh, no. I’m not… uncomfortable. I just…”

Hou Jingshu trailed off. The problem with his hug wasn’t that she felt uncomfortable, but that she felt too comfortable. Well, her heart rate had skyrocketed, but she simply felt embarrassed. A part of her almost regretted saying anything. She didn’t think she would have minded staying in his arms… but that was exactly the problem. She felt guilty. Hou Jingshu loved Wu Jian, and she believed it was a betrayal of her feelings for him to feel this way about another man.

“Ahem.” She coughed into her hand and shoved those feelings deep inside of her. “Could you tell me what happened after I passed out?”

“Oh. Sure.”

Jian Wu straightened his spine, placed his hands on his thighs, and relayed what happened after the battle. Hou Jingshu had not even realized she’d been poisoned. Hearing about how he worked to save her made her finally calmed heart begin beating rapidly once more. She tried to stifle those feelings and listened until the end.

“I see. Thank you for saving me.”

“You needn’t thank me for that. I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you.”

Ugh… this guy.

Did he even realize what he was saying? Did he know what his words did to her? Hou Jingshu felt like her face might explode. There was so much blood rushing to it! Was he trying to see how hard she could blush? That didn’t seem to be the case, but that’s what made this worse. His words were so genuine that they touched her heart in ways she hadn’t felt in a long time.

The two sat there in awkward silence. Hou Jingshu tried hard to think of what she should say, but her mind kept coming up blank.

“Hey, you two.” The pair were interrupted from their musings when Huǒ Shuchang walked in. “I see you’re both awake. I’ve made breakfast, so get up… did something happen?”

“No, nothing happened.” Wu Jian stood up and held out his hand. “Come on, Jingshu. Let’s get something to eat.”

“Right.”

Hou Jingshu felt acute embarrassment as she placed her hand in his. She tried to stifle the exhilaration she felt at his touch. She so did not want him or Huǒ Shuchang to notice her fluctuating emotions.

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