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Xie Yun's hands are cold.
A'Fei keeps coming back, again and again, to sit by his bedside and rub warmth into them, but despite her best efforts they never get any less cold.
Because Xie Yun - her annoying nattering meddlesome Moldy Xie - is dying.
It's a hard thing to swallow, that her lo- that her something, is living on borrowed time.
Sitting here and looking at his sleeping face, it's almost easy to convince herself otherwise. Just looking at him, it's hard to believe he currently has the deadliest known poison in Jianghu coursing through his veins.
He doesn't look like he only has a handful more months left to live, does not have the frailty and pallor of oncoming death casting a shroud around him.
Perhaps, if she is looking for it, she can see that the skin under his eyes is just a smidge darkened with weariness, the flushed rose of his mouth is just a bit more pallid...
But just by looking he seems to be exactly what he has always seemed, a beautiful and vibrant young man, full of life and vigor, one who should have many more decades ahead of him.
It is almost incomprehensible to think that he won't.
A'Fei has heard it twice in the past half a day.
First from Madame Ni Chang, who made it clear that, even at best, Xie Yun would have a little over a year left to live.
And then again she heard it from that bogus poison doctor, who poked at Xie Yun like some exotic animal at a carnival, before pronouncing with cavalier enthusiasm that Bone Piercing Blue victims barely lasted three months, and that Xie Yun's own condition reflected a month's worth of the damage at this point. That even the Vitality Restoration Pill could not save him.
She'd thrown him out then, blood boiling, heart pounding, throat itching with the tears she was trying to keep contained. The brief seed of hope that had lodged in her gut died in the ground before it ever had a chance to meet the sun.
And now she's here again, sitting by his bedside, staring at him, his hand so very cold in hers.
It feels so wrong.
She puts his hand back to lay on his stomach, careful, gentle, unable to be harsh with him now in his unconsciousness, where she'd freely kick and pinch him were he awake.
The lamp light casts him as beautiful as ever, serene and resting, just like any other night.
But even now there's a poison waging a war within his veins, one that it is slowly but inexorably winning.
Because of her.
She keeps coming back to that.
The poison was unleashed from its cage because he used the Soul Seeking Needle to reach for his internal force. To access his vital energy to use Pushing Cloud Palm. So that he can save the Forty Eight Strongholds.
So that he can save her.
He knew he'd be trading his life for hers and had done it like it was barely even a serious choice at all.
The burning in her throat climbs up, flushing her cheeks, sending fiery heat to her eyes.
When the tears fall, it doesn't feel like a relief. It feels like a betrayal, like she's giving up.
"Who asked you to interfere in my business?" she demands, breaking the silence. She stares at his still and unresponsive face, anger a mounting swell within her.
Delicate gentleness from a moment ago gone amidst the turmoil now roiling in her gut, she grabs him and hauls him up, till he's propped up to face her.
His head lolls to the front, unmoving in his continued induced slumber.
She shakes him, words gushing out like a torrent from a broken dam.
Because how dare he? How dare he choose her life over his, the well-being of her family over his own existence? How dare he make such a choice and then run away and leave her, without even saying a word, without even explaining the sacrifice he'd made - without even - without -
He would've died and she'd have never known.
If she hadn't set out immediately to search for him, hadn't swallowed up her pride to chase after a boy who ran away from her the very night after she told him she wants to go with him wherever he goes; if she had listened to her mother's entreaties to stay behind just a little while to help with the recuperation efforts at the Forty Eight Strongholds after the attack, and put off following him for only a month, a week, a couple of days. If she hadn't had all the help she'd received from the Itinerant Gang, had been just a little slower, just a bit hesitant, and allowed him to slip through her fingers...
Would she simply have never seen him again?
Would he have died, nameless and faceless, just another too-quickly-snuffed life in this uncaring world, and she'd have just never known? Would she have returned home, empty in hand and heart, and lived the rest of her days resenting him for abandoning her, never knowing of his loss, of his sacrifice...?
Something implodes within her at the thought and she lunges forward, pulls his limp weight close, wrapping him within her arms to bury her sobs into the crook of his neck.
In her arms, his body is not as warm as it should be, but his heartbeat against her chest is a steady reassuring drum.
"Xie Yun," she weeps, and he remains asleep.
How could he do that?
How could he run away like that, without ever telling her, without even giving her the chance to walk by his side, to wherever the bleak future may lead? How could he have made these choices, over and over, that take him away from her, when all she wants is for him to stay?
She pulls back, sniffing, lays him back down on the pillow - gentle, oh so gentle again, the flash of rage that made her rough washed away under the torrents to leave just the barren destroyed lands behind. She rearranges the dislodged blankets to cover him, to make him warm, even if only a little bit.
She takes his hand within both of her own again, rubbing them in a futile effort to force some warmth back into him, pressing two fingers against his wrist to take solace in the gentle flutter of his pulse.
She stares at him, captivated by the gentle rise and fall of his chest, a new emotion taking root in the unsteady soil of her barely-contained devastation.
He isn't dead yet.
He tried to run away, but she found him. He tried to hide his condition from her, but she dug out the truth. He tried to push her away, but she stayed.
She clutches his hand fiercely, an immovable determination growing, rising, branching out to fill every corner of her soul.
He isn't lost to her yet.
He is here, within her grasp, alive and breathing and whole, and they don't have much time (not enough, nowhere close to enough, a lifetime would still be too short and all she gets is one year by his side?).
They don't have much time at all, but they still have enough. Enough for Zhou Fei to find a way, to go to the ends of the earth if she must, to save him.
She is the Blade of the South, a heroine now in her own right, one who has gained a name for herself in just a few months after coming down the mountains to the Jianghu world. She is the granddaughter of Li Zheng, whose renown has lent them ready assistance and skills in places she never knew to seek it. She has two opposing internal forces swirling within her and still stands strong to fight and defeat her enemies, unbending in the face of what should have broken her.
And so, as long as there is even a speck of possibility for his recovery, a spark of life within him, she will fight for it, guard his light, and refuse to give up her hold on him. Even if he tries to let her go.
If Xie Yun will not help himself, then by the gods, she will do it for him.
And woe betide him if he gets in her way as she does!
She glares down at him, the great big lug who is still lost in his dreams, unaware of the hell she intends to rain on him when he wakes for all that he is putting her through.
"If you dare die on me, Moldy Xie, I'll make you wish you were never born," she vows, low and furious under her breath, squeezing his hand till she feels his fine bones grind under her grip.
He doesn't whine from the pain of it now, unconscious as he is, but he's sure to feel the throbbing pain of it later when he wakes.
And that is only the beginning of what she has planned for him.
She shoots him a grim smile, thinking of the treasure she asked Madame Ni Chang to lend her.
If Xie Yun will not stay to seek her aid, well then. She will just have to make him stay and take it.