Wu Yin stepped forward, his gaze sweeping across the dungeon: “Those who can still move, drag the wounded away.” He issued the command, the perpetual smile finally leaving his face, replaced by the gravity befitting a sect master.
Drawing a steel folding fan from his sleeve, Wu Yin stepped forward slowly, each step creating pressure, drawing all the mysterious man’s attention to himself. Meanwhile, those who could still move took the opportunity to drag away the immobilized bodies on the ground.
“Jade Silkworm, you’re being disobedient again.”
A subtle fragrance wafted from Wu Yin’s fan. Li Shuang watched quietly as the mysterious man’s eyes fixed intently on Wu Yin after the fragrance spread, his demeanor seemingly calmer than before. But as Wu Yin drew closer, suddenly, those dark red eyes flickered with movement.
As a soldier, Li Shuang had the keenest sense for such killing intent. She immediately shouted: “Look out!”
But it was too late. The iron chain embedded in the wall suddenly moved, whipping back toward Wu Yin’s body!
Wu Yin’s eyes shifted, his form flashing as he dodged away. However, he hadn’t anticipated that someone had just helped a wounded person stand up nearby. The retracting chain violently swept toward them.
Such force would certainly kill if it struck them.
Wu Yin threw his steel folding fan directly, barely deflecting the chain’s momentum, though it still couldn’t stop the chain’s horizontal sweep.
At that moment, there came a clear “zing” as an eight-sided sword was drawn imposingly from its scabbard. Li Shuang leaped into the air, her sword tip piercing through the center of the outermost chain, driving straight down with the blade embedding into the stone floor.
Li Shuang stepped on the sword handle, forcing it more than a chi into the ground, like an iron nail fixing the chain in place. This not only saved the two people but also restrained the left hand of the berserk Gu vessel.
“Oh, General Li, excellent move!” Wu Yin leisurely applauded from the side.
Li Shuang couldn’t be bothered to look at him, stepping along the chain directly toward that person. Seeing this, Wu Yin opened his mouth to stop her, but before he could speak, the man’s other hand suddenly moved. Another chain rose from the ground with a “huala” sound, wrapping around Li Shuang’s waist and pulling her toward him. His hand immediately seized her throat.
Li Shuang’s face instantly turned purple-blue.
Just as Li Shuang was about to have her neck broken, Wu Yin realized his steel fan had been knocked away by the chain earlier. Without a weapon, even he dared not approach carelessly. He could only shout anxiously: “Try calling his name to wake him!”
The Jade Silkworm Gu recognized Li Shuang as its master, but now, having been away from its master too long, it had become wild and violent, unable to recognize people or situations. Others’ calls would have no effect, but Li Shuang’s voice might work.
However… Li Shuang’s mind was blank.
Name?
She didn’t even know his name, nor his background even now. Her memories of him consisted only of that mysterious black face mask, those clear eyes that always reflected her image, his eternally burning chest, and that red mark on his chest…
Red… mark?
Jin’an had one too.
Suddenly, as Li Shuang felt breathing becoming extremely difficult and all sounds growing distant, a thread of connection formed in her mind at a strange speed, clearly linking everything together.
The red mark on his chest, the man who only appeared at night, the small boy who was always mysteriously dependent on her, along with the inexplicably leaked military camp information, and the “revived” old woman who left the dungeon searching for someone in the military camp…
There couldn’t be two Jade Silkworm Gu in this world.
He was…
“…Jin’an?”
The broken sound squeezed out from her throat, so difficult and faint that it vanished like a flash in the pan. But this nearly inaudible, hoarse voice made those dark red eyes suddenly tremble.
Jin’an’s entire body froze, his fingers loosening their grip, the force on Li Shuang’s neck disappearing. Li Shuang immediately fell to the ground like a rag doll.
She clutched her throat, breathing laboriously, each breath taking all her strength, and each breath bringing searing pain that burned from her throat into her chest cavity. She could barely support her head.
Jin’an stood rigid beside Li Shuang, the dark red in his eyes slowly receding, though they remained bloodshot. Only in those pitch-black pupils did a slight reflection of Li Shuang appear.
She curled up on the ground, her breathing though hoarse, was frighteningly loud, like the sound of a horse-head fiddle being pulled, mixed with muffled coughs, painfully difficult to hear.
Jin’an didn’t move, just staring at her, his expression somewhat dazed.
Seeing this, Wu Yin couldn’t gauge Jin’an’s condition. After all, he had just used deceptive tactics to lure others close before attacking them. The current calm didn’t mean there was no danger. But he had to ensure Li Shuang’s safety—not only was she the only one who might control Jin’an, but with fifty thousand troops waiting to burn the mountain below Southern Long Mountain, he had to keep Li Shuang alive.
She was severely injured by Jin’an and needed treatment. Today, he had to take her away first.
Wu Yin moved, and Jin’an didn’t notice him, still staring at Li Shuang, those beast-like eyes showing no emotion.
Wu Yin found his steel fan that had been knocked aside earlier. With a flick of his hand, the steel fan opened, and three steel needles flew through the air, heading straight for Jin’an’s heart.
Facing danger, Jin’an’s body seemed to dodge instinctively. He stepped back, sidestepped, and turned his head, avoiding all three needles. But when he turned back, he heard a “ka” sound.
The iron door had been locked from outside, and Li Shuang on the ground had disappeared.
The chains on his neck and feet still restricted him from moving within a limited range.
He pulled at the chains, walking to the closest point to the iron door that he could reach. There was a wire mesh on the door with fine steel wires, allowing him to vaguely see the situation outside.
“Call the medicine woman!” Wu Yin’s voice outside carried traces of urgency.
Jin’an saw Wu Yin carrying the woman in red armor with silver trim, climbing the steps outside one by one, quickly disappearing from his field of vision.
Anxiety.
Uncontrollable anxiety in his heart, along with inexplicable helplessness and fear.
He paced in place, dragging the chains that scraped against the ground with clattering sounds. The dark red in his eyes had completely receded, and the flame marks on his body slowly contracted toward his chest.
His fingertips still held that person’s scent.
He raised his hand, finding two or three long strands of hair wrapped around his fingertips, the hair entwined with lingering warmth. This sensation felt strangely nostalgic to him. He wanted to see that person again, to stay by her side. Jin’an paced restlessly in place, craning his neck to look outside, even though he could no longer see anything.
But he could still smell her scent, still nearby, very close to him, not far away.
Jin’an held those few strands of hair, persistently gazing out through the iron mesh. Compared to his previous frenzy, his current anxiety more resembled the grievance and pleading of one left behind. Like a trapped beast or… a small animal forcibly separated from its master.
Did he know whom he had hurt? Did he know what he had done? No one told him the answers. He only knew that now his chest carried an indescribable dull pain and sense of suffocation.
Who was she? Was she alright?
“Not very well.”
Aged hands touched Li Shuang’s neck as the elderly medicine woman, who knew how many years old, hunched over examining Li Shuang’s neck. She held Li Shuang’s neck and twisted it, producing a clear bone crack. Li Shuang let out a muffled groan, and the medicine woman said, “Bring some wooden boards. We’ll need to bind it for two or three months. The bone injury is severe; speaking will be very difficult for a short while.”
Hearing this, Wu Yin relaxed slightly: “As long as she lives.”
The medicine woman glanced at him: “Didn’t you say the Jade Silkworm Gu vessel would calm down when this young lady arrived? How did she end up like this?” She casually pointed to the side where the injured lay moaning in pain. The medicine woman snorted, “Useless little brat.”
Wu Yin smiled bitterly: “Grandmother, how can you blame me for this?” He glanced at Li Shuang, then looked outside the wooden house. “I heard there’s no movement in the prison now. Bringing the General here was effective after all. When she called his name earlier, he calmed down. Fully pacifying the Jade Silkworm Gu vessel is just a matter of time.”
Li Shuang lay on the simple wooden bed, listening to Wu Yin and the medicine woman’s conversation. Her throat hurt too much to speak, but her now-clear mind kept working ceaselessly, though her thoughts differed from Wu Yin’s calculations.
She kept remembering the flicker in Jin’an’s eyes when he heard the name “Jin’an.”
She closed her eyes, more clearly connecting all the events that had happened in the Northern Border. Yes, only this way could all the confusion about this mysterious person and Jin’an be resolved.
She took a deep breath despite the pain, having to admit she felt greatly shocked now.
But thinking carefully, what she cared about most wasn’t why Jin’an had always hidden this from her. Because she could understand Jin’an. Understand his insecure feelings—perhaps he didn’t know why his body was so strange. He concealed it because he had no way to explain, it and feared being seen as a monster, or feared that she… would drive him away.
What Li Shuang cared about, what she was carefully counting in her heart, was…
In the Northern Border, just how many times had she slept while holding Jin’an…
She…
So during those nights sleeping with Jin’an, when she felt someone embrace her, it wasn’t… a dream after all.
Li Shuang let out a long sigh.
She had been taken advantage of so many times by this silent pervert, and never even knew it!