The Shaman Guide stepped forward, his eyes sweeping across the dungeon. “Those who can move, drag the injured out,” he ordered, his usual smile replaced by the seriousness befitting a sect leader.
He pulled out a steel fan from his sleeve and slowly approached, creating a sense of pressure that focused the man’s attention on him. Meanwhile, those who could move took the opportunity to drag out the immobile injured.
“Jade Silkworm, you’re misbehaving again,” the Shaman Guide said as a faint fragrance wafted from his fan.
Li Shuang watched silently. The mysterious man’s eyes fixed on the Shaman Guide, seeming to calm slightly. But as the Shaman Guide drew closer, a sudden gleam flashed in those dark red eyes.
Li Shuang, with a soldier’s keen sense of danger, shouted, “Watch out!”
But it was too late. The chain embedded in the wall whipped back, aiming for the Shaman Guide’s back!
The Shaman Guide glanced sideways and dodged swiftly. However, he hadn’t anticipated someone helping an injured person to stand up nearby. The recoiling chain now headed viciously towards them.
Such force would surely be fatal.
The Shaman Guide threw his steel fan, barely deflecting the chain’s momentum. Yet it wasn’t enough to stop the chain’s sweeping arc.
Suddenly, a clear “shing” rang out as an eight-sided sword was unsheathed. Li Shuang leaped into the air, her sword tip piercing the outermost chain link. She drove the force straight down, embedding the sword into the hard stone floor.
Stepping on the sword hilt, Li Shuang pushed it over a foot into the ground, pinning the chain like an iron nail. This not only saved the two people but also halted the left hand of the now-berserk parasite host.
“Impressive, General Li!” The Shaman Guide applauded from the side.
Ignoring him, Li Shuang stepped along the chain towards the man. The Shaman Guide opened his mouth to stop her, but before he could speak, the man’s other hand moved suddenly. Another chain rose from the ground with a clatter, wrapping around Li Shuang’s waist and pulling her towards him. His hand seized her throat.
Li Shuang’s face quickly turned purple.
As Li Shuang was about to have her neck snapped, the Shaman Guide 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 urgently, “Try calling his name to wake him up!”
The Jade Silkworm parasite recognized Li Shuang as its master, but after being away from her for so long, it had become wild and violent, unable to recognize anyone or anything. While others’ calls would have no effect, Li Shuang’s voice might work.
But… Li Shuang’s mind was blank.
Name? She didn’t even know his name or his background. Her memories of him were limited to that mysterious black face mask, those clear eyes that always reflected her image, his eternally warm chest, and that red mark on his chest…
Red mark? Jingan had one too.
Suddenly, as Li Shuang felt her breathing becoming extremely difficult and all sounds fading away, a strange connection formed clearly in her mind.
The red mark on the chest, the man who only appeared at night, the mysteriously behaving and overly dependent little boy, the inexplicably leaked military camp information, and the “resurrected” old woman leaving the dungeon to search for someone in the camp…
There couldn’t be two Jade Silkworm parasites in the world.
He was…
“…Jingan?” The broken sound squeezed out from her throat, so weak and difficult that it vanished like a fleeting epiphany. Yet this barely audible, hoarse voice made those dark red eyes tremble.
Jingan’s body stiffened, his fingers loosened, and the grip on Li Shuang’s neck disappeared. She fell to the ground like a rag doll.
Clutching her throat, Li Shuang gasped for air painfully. Each breath was an immense effort, bringing searing pain that burned from her throat into her chest. She could barely support her head.
Jingan stood rigidly beside Li Shuang. The dark red in his eyes slowly receded, though they remained bloodshot. Only in his pitch-black pupils did a faint reflection of Li Shuang appear.
She curled up on the ground, her labored breathing terrifyingly loud, like the harsh sound of a stretched horse-head fiddle, interspersed with muffled coughs that pained the hearts of those who heard.
Jingan didn’t move, just staring at her with a somewhat dazed expression.
The Shaman Guide, unsure of Jingan’s state given his earlier deceptive attack, knew he had to ensure Li Shuang’s safety. Not only was she the only one who might control Jingan, but there were also fifty thousand troops ready to burn the mountain if she didn’t return.
She was severely injured by Jingan and needed treatment. They had to take her away today.
As the Shaman Guide moved, Jingan didn’t notice him, fixated on Li Shuang, his beast-like eyes devoid of emotion.
The Shaman Guide found his steel fan that had been knocked aside earlier. With a flick of his wrist, he opened it, sending three steel needles flying straight toward Jingan’s heart.
Facing danger, Jingan’s body seemed to instinctively dodge. He stepped back, turned sideways, and twisted his head, evading all three needles. But when he turned back, he heard a “click.”
The iron door had been locked from the outside, and Li Shuang on the ground had vanished.
The chains on his neck and feet still limited his movement to a confined area.
He pulled at the chains, moving as close to the iron door as possible. There was a wire mesh on the door that allowed him to vaguely see outside.
“Call the healer,” came the Shaman Guide’s urgent voice from outside.
Jingan saw the Shaman Guide carrying the woman in red armor and silver mail, ascending the stairs outside, quickly disappearing from his view.
Anxiety. An uncontrollable anxiety arose in his heart, along with inexplicable helplessness and fear.
He paced in place, the chains scraping against the ground with a clattering noise. The dark red in his eyes had completely faded, and the flame pattern on his body slowly retracted towards his chest.
His fingertips still held the scent of that person.
He raised his hand, finding two or three long strands of hair entwined around his fingers, seemingly still warm. This sensation felt strangely nostalgic. He wanted to see that person again, to be by her side. Jingan paced restlessly, craning his neck to look outside, even though he could no longer see anything.
But he could still smell her scent nearby, very close, not far away.
Clutching those few strands of hair, Jingan persistently peered through the wire mesh. Compared to his earlier frenzy, his current anxiety more resembled the dejection and pleading of an abandoned creature or… a small animal forcibly separated from its owner.
He didn’t know who he had hurt or what he had done. No one told him the answers. He only knew that now an indescribable, dull pain and suffocating feeling emanated from his chest.
Who was she? Was she alright?
“Not too good,” came the response.
An aged hand touched Li Shuang’s neck. The old healer, of indeterminate age, hunched over as she examined Li Shuang’s neck. She held Li Shuang’s neck and twisted it, producing a crisp bone sound. Li Shuang let out a muffled groan.
“Bring some wooden boards,” the healer said. “We need to bind it for two or three months. The bone injury is severe. Speaking will be difficult for a while.”
Hearing this, the Shaman Guide sighed in slight relief. “As long as she lives.”
The healer glanced at him. “Didn’t you say the Jade Silkworm host would calm down when this girl arrived? How did she end up like this?” She gestured to the side where injured people lay moaning in pain. The healer snorted, “Useless brat.”
The Shaman Guide smiled bitterly. “Grandma, how can you blame me for this?” He glanced at Li Shuang, then looked outside the wooden house. “I heard there’s no more commotion in the cell. Bringing the General here was effective. She called his name earlier, and he calmed down. Fully pacifying the Jade Silkworm host is just a matter of time.”
Li Shuang lay on a simple wooden bed, listening to the conversation between the Shaman Guide and the healer. Her throat hurt too much to speak, but her now-clear mind was working constantly, though her thoughts differed from the Shaman Guide’s calculations.
She kept recalling the flicker in Jingan’s eyes when he heard the name “Jingan.”
Closing her eyes, she more clearly connected the events that had occurred in the northern frontier. Yes, only this explanation could resolve all the mysteries surrounding this enigmatic person and Jingan.
She breathed deeply despite the pain, feeling a great shock.
But upon careful consideration, what concerned her most wasn’t why Jingan had always concealed this from her. She could understand Jingan’s insecurity, how he might not have known why his body behaved so strangely. His concealment stemmed from an inability to explain and a fear of being seen as a monster, or perhaps a fear that she… would drive him away.
What truly preoccupied Li Shuang, what she was mentally tallying, was…
How many times had she slept while holding Jingan in the northern frontier…
She…
So on those nights when she slept with Jingan, the feeling of being embraced 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 opportunist, and she had been completely unaware!