NOVEL NEXT Chapter 75: Ignoble Kindness
Feng breathed out. "Do you plan to return to your Sect? You can't possibly want that."
"... I do not," Yunjin replied after a while. "But neither do I have long to live. I can feel it. My body… It is dying."
"Quite frankly, I'm surprised she held for so long. The toxin concentrations within her were not insignificant. Had we been even a week later, she would have likely expired already."
A mere week… If his Father had decided to meet with Patriarch Ru even a week later, or if some other delay had occurred…
It baffled Feng how close the timing was.
"Curious, isn't it? Perhaps the hand of serendipity is at work."
The Young Master shook his head. Now was not the time to dwell on such matters.
"But I can heal you," Feng replied to Yunjin, undeterred. "My blood keeps you alive."
His words were meant to address the concerns of both Yunjin and the pretty lady. The latter responded first:
"Your blood is a treatment, not a cure. The root of her soul is festering with poison. Every inch of her body is laced with maggots, her organs harbour eggs, and her bones have morphed into toxin crystals. Your blood suppresses the symptoms, but it cannot cure them."
"You are the only thing keeping me alive," Yunjin bluntly said, mirroring the pretty lady's sentiment. "I don't know why, but ingesting your blood quells the toxins and the worms inside me. But you have your own life to live. I cannot rely on you forever."
"Then… What will you do?" Feng asked helplessly.
Yunjin stared off into the sky — the beautiful green and purple hues of the auroral sea above, courtesy of the Jade Clouds.
"I would like to find a place far from here," she declared. "Preferably somewhere high, where the air is clean, and I can see the skies unobstructed by miasma."
"Then…" she hesitated, before finishing: "I would like to die there. Peacefully, and without pain, if I can. To spend what little time I have amidst fresh air and light… It will be the greatest end I can ask for."
"W-what?" Feng was taken aback.
She… She wanted to die? After everything she suffered? And after she escaped?
That's… That's absurd!
"Is it? Young as you are, I suppose you can't see it. Sometimes, we no longer have a choice in how we live. Only in how we die."
There is always a choice! Feng nearly snarled. I'm here! I can save her!
"How? By feeding her your blood forever? You know that's not an option, Zhong."
Yunjin smiled at him. It was not a sad smile, he realised. The Young Miss was at complete ease, despite declaring her wish for death moments ago.
"It is selfish of me, is it not?" she said lightly. "You have already given so much to a useless husk such as myself, yet I dare ask for more."
She chuckled, her tone void of mockery, yet the Young Master found it unbearably sad. "It is unsightly, I know. I am sorry, Feng."
"It's not unsightly at all!" he protested. "I can help you! There's no need for you to—"
"I cannot — will not — impose on your kindness much longer," Yunjin answered resolutely. "Even a worthless worm like me can tell… You are destined for great things, Feng."
The Young Master tried to object, but she continued before he could cut in. "Let me finish. I… I don't want you to be shackled to trash like myself. That, I think, would be the highest form of disservice I can inflict on the world. It would be too selfish, even for me."
"Then… You are giving up?" Feng demanded.
"No. Giving up would be me lying here in this muck, letting the maggots take me," Yunjin responded. Her eyes — one dead, the other resolute — looked to his. "Dying far from here would not be considered a failure. It would be a success. That I have escaped this place… The completion of such a dream… The only dream allowed to me."
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She looked up and sighed, closing her eyes. "To be able to die under open skies and fresh air… What a wondrous, beautiful thing that would be."
And yet, even as she said those lovely words, Feng remembered her desperate pleading, back in her cell. The real ones, not the cries she made begging for someone to kill her.
The plea she made with her soul.
"I want to live."
"What if…" he began. "What if you come with me? Back to the Beheaded Phoenix Sect? You can live with me, I can give you my blood every day! It won't be a problem!"
"We both know that's not possible," Yunjin stated kindly. "You are not that young or naive."
"I can… I'll…" The boy desperately racked his brain for a solution. Maybe he could send her periodic packages of blood?
"Delivery problems aside, the soporific effects are not as effective if not ingested fresh. And as I mentioned before, this isn't a cure. It's more of a suppressant, and its effectiveness will wear off with repeated use, especially a diluted version of it."
"I'm thankful for your help," Yunjin said. "Truly, I had not thought there was anyone left in the world who would care for me…"
Care for…
"So I am satisfied with this," the girl lied with an easy smile. Despite her horrific wounds and disfiguration, Feng thought the steel in her eye was beautiful. "Let's go. It would be cruel for the both of us to talk about this any longer—"
"I'll marry you!" he blurted out.
Silence reigned. Save for the bubbling of the muck and the ever-present distant drone of flies, the swamp was quiet — as if it, too, was stunned speechless by Feng's declaration.
Feng heard a tired, long-suffering sigh in his head.
"Here we go again…"
Yunjin blinked at him, before bursting into laughter.
"Yunjin, I'm serious!" Feng protested. "I'm the Young Master of a Sect, and you are the Young Miss! Political marriages are a thing! Father even told me he was trying to arrange a few for me! This is perfect!"
"That's because your 'father' has already made arrangements with the Split-Headed Carnivores for a marital engagement. Why else did you think you were meeting the Young Miss of the Chen Clan so often?"
Wait, really? Feng thought. Lianshi never said anything! And Father never told me!
"You are still young. Perhaps he thought it wise to keep that fact from you, lest you ruin the arrangement by accident. Or through the cruel fits of hormones."
"Young Master," Yunjin said between chuckles. "Thank you for making this Young Miss laugh. I had thought maybe I had forgotten how. But that is enough jokes, we need to—"
Feng grabbed her hand.
"If you are going to do this, do it properly."
"Yunjin, please marry me," he said. His voice was steady, his tone resolved.
The Young Miss closed her eyes.
"There is a limit to jokes, Young Master," she said tiredly.
"I'm not joking," he insisted.
"... I know," she sighed. "How did someone like you even become a cultivator?"
"My blood is the only thing keeping you alive right now. If we do this, this solves the problem, at least until we find a better solution!"
"And in doing so, you would completely sacrifice your reputation," Yunjin calmly explained. "For as long as I cannot cultivate, any political position I hold is pointless. Your Sect will never allow it. Young Master, I'm ruined. What worth could you possibly see in me that would justify doing this?"
"Why must I need a reason to save someone?" he hissed.
"You must always need a reason!" she almost shouted back. "You must have one because the alternative is madness! You are not so young or stupid as to not have realised this. If anything, the last few weeks have taught me that you are talented beyond belief in both matters of strength and intellect. You must already know… And there are most certainly people whom you respect who have already told you this…"
Feng gripped her hand tighter.
"Your kindness," she continued angrily. "Will undo you someday. Cease your foolishness. Cease this pointless saviour complex of yours. You must grow up, Young Master."
"That is not growing up," Feng argued. "You speak of becoming callous — becoming greedy and selfish — as if it's a mark of maturity when it is not! All it shows is that you have given up on helping others entirely! Someone like that could not be called human!"
"No," Yunjin agreed. Feng was taken aback until she continued: "They would not be human — not like me. They would be more than that. They would be better. They would be a cultivator."
"A world where everyone has forsaken even their humanity for power… A world for immortal, inhuman cultivators alone…"
"Only a worm," Yunjin said with a shuddering voice. "Has a need to care for others. Only a worm holds the pitiful desire to do such an ugly thing. Because the road to Mount Tai is denied to them, they must seek whatever wretched way they can to survive. Banding with others, relying on mutual kindness… That is the way of human creatures. Pathetic, weak, and worthless worms…"
Yunjin's remaining eye gazed at him, and for a second, hate flashed in it. Feng flinched, and the steel in them softened with regret.
"You are not a worm, not like me. You are blessed," she whispered, voice deliberate and heavy. "Yet you cling to your humanity like a child to their mother's skirt. It is unsightly."
"You would be dead right now if not for that so-called unsightliness," Feng countered hotly. "Any outcome that sees you saved from that horrid suffering cannot be called pointless!"
"You still do not understand," she took a shuddering breath. "Very well. Allow this tarnished Young Miss to educate you. Cruel and cheap as it may be, it is, perhaps, the only thing I can do to repay your ignoble kindness."