Chapter 022

Zhaoxue stared blankly at that hand.

Clean and smooth, the nails neatly trimmed.

Zhaoxue didn’t place her hand in his. She shook her head. “I can’t get up. It really hurts.”

He came back so quickly—thankfully, she hadn’t cried.

Only now did the fear creep up on her. When someone is left behind—cold, in pain, and exhausted—all the weariness she had been holding back came crashing down.

Jiang Lingfeng turned around in front of her and crouched down.

Zhaoxue sensibly climbed onto his back right away and wrapped her arms around his neck.

His body had just come out of battle—it was warm, and his body heat quickly passed through the thin layer of fabric to reach her, gradually thawing her numb nerves.

“Your leg,” Jiang Lingfeng said.

Zhaoxue obediently stretched her leg forward so he could support it. He rolled up the hem around her injured ankle with one hand, then adjusted his hold under her thigh, lifting her higher before slowly standing up.

Lying on his back, Zhaoxue let out a small cry and instinctively tightened her arms around his neck.

“It’s… a bit high,” she explained weakly.

“Scared?”

“Not really.”

Zhaoxue had simply never experienced a view from this height before.

Jiang Lingfeng held her a little tighter, then began walking back.

Zhaoxue hesitated shyly on his back before slowly speaking:

“Uncle… no, Martial Uncle, um, could we maybe not go back just yet?”

“My ankle’s injured. I’m afraid my eldest sister will notice.”

“……”

“If she sees my foot is hurt, she’ll definitely know I snuck out tonight.”

“If you don’t go back now, she’ll still find out in the morning.”

“I know that too…”

Zhaoxue rested her chin on his shoulder. The faint scent of blood on him was now covered by the fresh fragrance from her black hair—somewhat like medicinal herbs mixed with the crisp scent of plum blossoms in the snow.

She couldn’t help but gently sniff.

“I was thinking maybe we could check around and see if there’s a pharmacy still open… Even if I can’t fully recover right away, I should at least be able to walk normally so my sister won’t notice anything when I go back…”

Jiang Lingfeng could practically hear the gears in her head turning furiously.

As she spoke, she muttered in frustration, “…How could I be so careless? So annoying.”

“If I had known earlier…”

Jiang Lingfeng asked, “Do you regret coming out tonight?”

“How could I!”

Zhaoxue retorted in surprise, “Didn’t we gain a lot tonight? You killed that demon, and we got rid of a major threat.”

As she said that, she lowered her head. “Even though… even though I got hurt and it was a little dangerous, in the end nothing serious happened.”

Jiang Lingfeng felt the girl gently press her cheek against his neck.

She was probably truly exhausted—speaking slowly, her breathing soft and steady, her voice so light it felt like she might fall asleep at any moment.

So light, so gentle.

Her breath was like a feather, softly brushing again and again against the back of his neck—an unbearable tickle.

For no reason, Jiang Lingfeng suddenly thought of her when she nearly drowned in the lake—clinging to his chest, pitiful and desperate. Back then, she’d choked on water, gasping heavily and coughing nonstop. Her chest had been pressed so tightly against his, their heartbeats almost resonating together.

But now, she was on his back, breathing so peacefully, like a sleeping child.

She used to be so terrified of him, yet in the blink of an eye, she could speak to him so calmly—and lie on his back with no defenses, nearly drifting off.

“Why…”

Zhaoxue, half-asleep, heard the soft question—as light as a speck of dust drifting into her ear.

She yawned and rubbed her eyes. “What?”

“…Are you asleep?”

“Not yet,” Zhaoxue sniffled, her nose cold from the chill. “How can I sleep on someone’s back? What if I fall off?”

“You won’t fall,” Jiang Lingfeng said. “I’ll hold you.”

Zhaoxue froze.

“I’ll hold you.”

She didn’t know why, but those simple words made her heart tremble slightly. Just like the time her eldest sister said to her, “No matter what, I’ll step in.”

…A strange emotion flooded her chest.

Back then, when she was sinking into the lake, Jiang Lingfeng must have held her up just like this.

“…So this is what it feels like.”

To be held up by someone in the middle of exhaustion, despair, and darkness—so this is what it feels like.

She shook her head, still trying hard to shake off her sleepiness.

No matter what, that wasn’t allowed.

He was her eldest sister’s senior disciple brother, one of the male leads in the original story—and her mission target.

“Aren’t you sleepy anymore?”

Jiang Lingfeng felt her restless movements on his back.

“Mm-hmm, not sleepy anymore. The cold wind woke me up a bit.”

Zhaoxue made small talk, “Martial Uncle, what exactly did you ask just now? What ‘why’?”

Jiang Lingfeng said, “I just wanted to ask why you were so brave today.”

Zhaoxue was momentarily stunned.

“Although I always knew you weren’t timid,”

For example, punishing those two disciples with talismans, jumping into the lake to chase a cat, surviving a whole night in an old mansion full of demons while leaving marks and mapping it out…

“But in a situation like today, how could you dare to step forward alone?”

Had she ever thought, what if he had been a little slower to act—would her head still be on her neck now?

“You’re really asking that kind of question…”

Zhaoxue felt a bit speechless. “But this was my plan from the start, and I should be responsible to complete it properly, making sure nothing goes wrong, right? If we let that demon escape, wouldn’t that mean we’d end the night with nothing at all?”

“…”

“Isn’t that how it should be?”

Jiang Lingfeng was silent for a moment, then asked, “Weren’t you afraid?”

That murderous intent came crashing down like a tidal wave—he, standing just a few feet behind her, could feel it too.

The demon was determined to destroy her.

Surprisingly, the girl admitted it openly.

“Of course I was afraid,” she said, “But what does being afraid matter? In that situation, if I hadn’t stepped forward, it definitely would have escaped, right? My intuition is very accurate—if I had delayed even one second, no, half a second, tonight would have been for nothing.”

Even so…

“—But I knew, Martial Uncle, you would definitely protect me, right?”

Zhaoxue said firmly,

“You’ve saved me more than once. Eldest sister admires you so much. From what I see, your strength is beyond doubt, and you even personally promised eldest sister and me…”

She spoke with a hint of a smile in her voice, “So, all I need to do is trust you.”

Jiang Lingfeng paused.

…“Trust.”

It seemed no one had ever said such straightforward words to him before. In his memories, thoughts related to this word were always its opposite.

Closing his eyes, he still saw the screams that tore through the air, eyes bloodshot with hatred and fury, curses filled with chaos and unwillingness. The little trust and kindness left between people had turned to ashes in the fire of that disaster.

So many walls built from words like “We hate you” and “Go die,” seemed to crack just a bit from such a simple phrase as “All I need is to trust you.”

“…”

But what could that really change?

Jiang Lingfeng closed his eyes again.

He had long known his abilities were limited, and he could not protect everyone.

“Something like this must not happen again.”

Next time, he didn’t know if his sword would be as quick as it was today.

“Got it.”

Zhaoxue sighed and said, “I’m not that clueless… Eldest sister, Martial Uncle, you both don’t believe me.”

“That demon showed signs of retreat the moment it saw you, isn’t that strange? Normally, no matter what, when two enemies meet on a narrow path, at the very least, it would try to test the other’s strength, right? But it had no intention of attacking at all back then. This situation means either it had fought you before and clearly knew the vast gap between your powers, or it had heard of your name and knew just how strong you were…”

“Either way, doesn’t that just prove how far apart Martial Uncle and that demon are? It’s not something any trick or scheme could easily cover.”

Zhaoxue said, “After thinking it through, of course I chose to trust you, Martial Uncle.”

Jiang Lingfeng: “…”

Forget it.

He said, “Go to sleep. I’ll apply some medicine to you later and take you back before dawn.”

Zhaoxue: “Okay, thank you!”

—

—A heavy worry had been resolved.

It should have been something to feel happy and relaxed about.

At first, Zhaoxue really felt that way. She returned to her room in the inn just after midnight, exhausted and fell asleep immediately, sleeping until afternoon without dreaming.

When she woke up, her ankle was much better, and she could walk slowly.

But then, three things happened one after another.

The first was that her system returned.

Before she could even feel happy, Fang Lian knocked on her door with a serious face, calling her downstairs.

On the stairs, Fang Lian quietly told her that they finally caught that demon this morning—with Jiang Lingfeng’s help.

“That was an old, ugly half-demon. We were about to fail because it was so cunning, but once Martial Uncle showed up—”

Fang Lian suddenly let out a few dry laughs, then changed the subject and warned her, “Zhaoxue, when you see Zhaoyang later, don’t even think about lying to her or trying to deceive her. If you’re wrong, just admit it. Zhaoyang is stubborn but soft-hearted, if you act a little cute, she’ll definitely calm down in no time.”

Zhaoxue’s heart skipped a beat.

—Yes, the second and third things had come together.

The demon she and Jiang Lingfeng hunted last night was not the main target of this demon-clearing path, nor the mastermind behind the series of incidents.

And, her eldest sister knew she had gone out last night.

This was the most shocking thing for her.

Almost instinctively, she glanced at the man in black standing by the tea table on the stairs, her gaze trembling slightly.

Was it him who told her?

Had Jiang Lingfeng told her eldest sister? After all, they were fellow disciples, with more than ten years of close relationship, and he still secretly admired Zhaoyang in the original story—

But Jiang Lingfeng avoided her gaze.

He didn’t look at her, instead, he leaned against the chair back and took a sip of tea.

Zhaoxue clenched the armrest so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

Just last night, they were still… she felt something churning inside her, something stuck in her throat, trembling and almost bursting out.

—but it was quickly extinguished.

“It wasn’t Senior Brother who said it.”

Zhaoyang spoke for the first time in such a cold and serious tone. She looked up at Zhaoxue on the stairs, her imposing presence making Zhaoxue instinctively step back and shrink.

“It wasn’t him who told me, I knew about this last night.”

Zhaoyang said to her, “Zhaoxue, come down.”