CH 77

“Kill Liaoji,” Dan Yi said shortly, carrying Chen Ziqi onto a palanquin. Chen Ziqi’s bones were broken and his hand needed to be treated immediately.

“Yes, sir,” Diao Lie said smartly. He didn’t ask for any explanation. 

Yuhu listened to their exchange and felt her heart start beating faster and faster. Chen Ziqi was already seated in a palanquin, leaning on the side railing and shooting her a meaningful look. He obviously wanted her to get on the palanquin behind theirs.

“Bring her along,” Dan Yi said. He then put down the curtains and pulled Chen Ziqi into his arms. He refused to let Chen Ziqi move a muscle after that.

Having received his orders, Diao Lie knocked Yuhu unconscious with a single chop to her neck, then picked her up bodily and tossed her into the palanquin. He made a hand signal, and the palanquin bearers immediately used the Cyclone Step to fly the palanquins away. At the same time, fierce, strong-looking grey eagles flew in from all directions, and they followed Diao Lie toward the cave that the Abbess Liaoji was in.

“Can Diao Lie kill that old witch?” Chen Ziqi asked curiously, burrowing into Dan Yi’s chest. 

“You don’t necessarily have to have a neili contest to kill someone,” Dan Yi said, holding on firmly to the hand that had the two broken fingers. He felt very anxious; if they delayed treating his injury for too long, it was possible that the bones wouldn’t heal properly.

“Could you get someone to go and look for my mum?” Chen Ziqi asked. He couldn’t help frowning on thinking that Chang Er hadn’t been found yet.

“If I’m not wrong, the Lushan Sect was the one that took her away,” Dan Yi said, explaining the sword marks he’d seen earlier. “I’ve already sent people to look into this, and we should have some news when we get to the Cloud Palace.”

“Nn,” Chen Ziqi said, nodding his head. He nuzzled Dan Yi’s chest. Dan Yi was only a young man who’d just turned seventeen, but he was so reliable and capable. He really was worthy of being the object of his romantic attention!

When they returned to the Cloud Palace, Elder Mu had already been dragged to the Palace Master’s bedroom and was waiting to treat Chen Ziqi.

“Why were you still fighting when your bones were broken?” Elder Mu sighed, shaking his head as he saw the blood seeping out of the handkerchief binding the two fingers together. “Take the handkerchief off.”

Chen Ziqi grit his teeth and was about to pull the handkerchief off when Dan Yi reached around him from behind and lightly tapped the scarlet handkerchief. The soft, silky handkerchief immediately turned into a few soft red feathers.

He’d forgotten that Dan Yi’s clothes were made of his feathers, and his handkerchief was no exception. Chen Ziqi reached a curious hand into Dan Yi’s clothes and started feeling around. “Do you still have any more?” he asked. 

“Stop messing around,” Dan Yi said, grabbing hold of Chen Ziqi by the waist to stop him from moving around. When he bent his head to look at Chen Ziqi’s injured fingers, his heart ached painfully.

Those two long, slender fingers were bent at an unnatural angle, and the middle finger was so badly injured that white bone poked out of the bleeding wound.

“Does it hurt?” Dan Yi asked, pressing his lips together and covering Chen Ziqi’s eyes to stop him from looking at the horrible injury.

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This was a difficult injury to heal. Elder Mu studied it for a while, then took out a few thin bamboo strips and a roll of silk. “This subordinate is about to begin. Wang ye, this is going to hurt. Please bear with it,” he said.

“Yxj- CEXL!” Jtfc Ildl tjvc’a olclrtfv gfqislcu ktfc Sivfg Ze rajgafv ab olz tlr lcpegs. Pa kjr qjlcoei atja tf mbeivc’a tfiq rmgfjwlcu bea ibev.

He hadn’t felt the pain when his fingers had been broken in the heat of battle, but now that he was in a warm, clean and safe environment, lying in his lover’s arms, he felt the pain keenly. He threw his head back in agony and bit his lip so hard that it started bleeding.

Dan Yi pried his mouth open and stuffed a wad of cloth inside. 

“Pei!” Chen Ziqi spat the cloth out and bit Dan Yi’s arm, which was just passing by his mouth.

“Mmph…” Dan Yi groaned softly. He didn’t, however, pull his arm back, and allowed Chen Ziqi to continue biting it.

Thankfully, Elder Mu had swift hands and he set the broken fingers quickly. He applied a thick layer of medicine on the wounds, then used the silk ribbon to bandage the wound and splinted it with thin bamboo strips.

“It’s done,” Dan Yi said, looking rather helplessly at the fellow who was still biting him and refusing to let go. He used the wad of cloth that Chen Ziqi spat out of his mouth to wipe the sweat off his face. 

Chen Ziqi released Dan Yi’s arm. He saw that there was a round bite-mark on Dan Yi’s arm, and that blood was slowly seeping out of the teeth-marks. He stretched out his tongue and licked the blood off. The skin and muscles felt warm and toned, and tasted faintly of blood.

“Ouch… don’t lick it!” Dan Yi pulled his arm back.

“What’s wrong?” Chen Ziqi asked, raising his eyebrows. He looked up and saw that Dan Yi had a slightly panicked look on his face. His gaze looked complicated, as if a thousand thoughts were running through his mind. At the same time, however, Dan Yi was smiling. Chen Ziqi was somewhat confused.

“There’s still Spicy Eye Water on your tongue,” Dan Yi said, frowning now. 

“… …”

Damn that Spicy Eye Water.

After Chen Ziqi’s injuries had been attended to, the spies who had gone to look into Chang Er’s whereabouts came back. She had indeed been taken to the Lushan Sect, having been rescued by Li Yuhan. This was probably the result of Ah Mu having been sent to the Lushan Sect – he likely pestered his Uncle to let him see his Mother daily, and Li Yuhan had no choice but to take a risk and barge into the Suxin Sect to rescue her.

“How’s the situation in the Suxin Sect?” Dan Yi asked, taking the bowl of medicine that Linghe brought in and placing it next to Chen Ziqi’s mouth. 

Chen Ziqi drank a mouthful of medicine from the bowl Dan Yi held. It was so bitter that his brows knitted together involuntarily. He went for broke and just gulped it down. After that, he couldn’t help sticking out his tongue because it was too bitter.

“Cheng Zhou and Abbess Wuyin died in the battle in front of the Suxin Sect’s gates. A whole bunch of people took advantage of the mess and forced their way into the Suxin Sect’s grounds.”

Cheng Jiazhen had risked death to stab Abbess Wuyin, and that knife had pierced very close to the Abbess’ elixir field. This made it very difficult for the Abbess Wuyin to channel her neili. Cheng Zhou then took the opportunity to pounce on her and used a secret method in ‘Open the Heavens’ to cause all the neili he had gathered over the years to implode within himself. Both of them died in the resulting explosion.

This was really karma; what went around came around. The Abbess Wuyin had used the Bloodblade Tower to massacre the entire Cheng family, and now the Cheng family had used a bloodblade to kill her. One could say that things had come full circle. 

The only thing was, with Cheng Zhou’s death, the “Jiangnan Warriors” that he had gathered no longer had a leader, and they started clamouring to force their way into the Suxin Sect.

Chen Ziqi pursed his lips. This group of so-called “warriors” weren’t much different from the vulture-like martial artists who had tried to rape him in the forest. With Abbess Wuyin’s death, the whole of the Suxin Sect would be in chaos for a good while. He suddenly remembered Lord Jiang, whom he’d last met at the Hidden Library, and he couldn’t help frowning. How much involvement did the Second Prince have in this Suxin Sect affair?

He was deep in thought when another bowl of medicine appeared in front of him. He didn’t stop to think; he simply opened his mouth and had already taken a mouthful of the medicine when he heard Linghe exclaim, “Palace Master, that’s your medicine!”

Dan Yi had also suffered some internal injuries, so Elder Mu had prescribed medicine for them both. The first bowl was Chen Ziqi’s, and this second bowl was Dan Yi’s. Dan Yi didn’t know this, and he simply fed it to Chen Ziqi the moment he received it. 

Chen Ziqi’s mouth was full of the dark liquid which was so bitter that he felt his tongue was about to wither away. He turned to glare at Dan Yi, who had a perfectly innocent expression on his face. Slightly annoyed, Chen Ziqi scooted over, planted his lips over Dan Yi’s and pushed the medicine directly into Dan Yi’s mouth.

Dan Yi was stunned. Chen Ziqi licked his lips, then grinned. “This is your medicine. Drink it yourself!” he said.

Dan Yi’s eyes darkened. He silently drank the bitter medicine, then waved a hand to dismiss the servants.

He knew that Chen Ziqi might just be fooling around, but every time Chen Ziqi behaved intimately towards him, his heart couldn’t help fluttering wildly, and he hoped against hope that Chen Ziqi had behaved that way because he liked him. Dan Yi looked down and stared at Chen Ziqi for a moment. “Qiqi, do you know what you’re doing?” he asked. 

“Giving you a kiss,” Chen Ziqi said, smiling gaily at Dan Yi.

Dan Yi pressed his lips together. “You should know that this… isn’t normal behaviour between two guys,” he said.

“You mean it’s wrong?” Chen Ziqi asked, looking confused.

Dan Yi felt a prick of pain in his heart, and he slowly lowered his gaze. “Nn. Only… only lovers will kiss each other,” he said. 

“Oh. Then perhaps it could be because my body hasn’t been feeling alright recently – as if I can’t control it properly,” Chen Ziqi said. Dan Yi looked really defeated now, like a little chick that had just been knocked over by a snowball. “Perhaps I’ve been infected with another blackworm.”

“A blackworm?” Dan Yi exclaimed in shock. He looked up at Chen Ziqi. “Where?”

He tried to think back on when Chen ZIqi had last left his sight. There would have been no way to infect him with a blackworm otherwise.

“Hmm, I’m not sure either,” Chen Ziqi said, sidling over. Dan Yi was sitting cross-legged on the bed, and Chen Ziqi stuck an elbow on his knee, supporting his chin with that arm. He looked up cutely at Dan Yi. “Why don’t you kiss me and find out?” 

Dan Yi looked down at the bright-eyed youth. His heart, which had been languishing in the eighteenth pit of hell, suddenly flew right up to the very pinnacle of the Lingxiao Pagoda in Heaven.

—

The author has something to say: Mini-theatre

Yuhu: Why is it that I’m always fainting? I disagree with this 

Birdie Gong: So noisy

Diao Lie: Karate chop!

Yuhu: @[email protected]

Qiqi: Why am I always getting injured? I disagree with this 

Birdie Gong: So noisy

Diao Lie: Do I also knock him out?

Birdie Gong: A kiss on the lips will solve it

Qiqi: （￣3￣) 

Yuhu: Discriminatory treatment! I disagree with this

Diao Lie: Karate chop!