Chapter 12: Life If Only As First Seen (VI)
She didn't know how much time had passed when she woke up.
Upon waking, she found that her clothes had been put back on, her belt retied, everything arranged very neatly—not even a single blade of grass remained, and not a trace of the night's escape could be seen. Beneath her clothes, she could clearly feel the bandages. She didn't know how the wounds had been treated, but the pain had lessened considerably, and she seemed able to make some small movements.
She opened her eyes wide, looking down at her own chest, feeling the extent of the bandages, imagining the scene in the grass pile earlier, her expression somewhat dazed.
After a while, she turned her gaze with some difficulty, searching for Zhexiu's figure.
Zhexiu was crouching at the edge of the water reeds, the farthest point from her on this patch of solid grassland. The hem of his clothes had been torn off, leaving his two legs exposed, his posture somewhat awkward, like a dog.
The torn hem of his garment must have become the bandages around her chest and abdomen.
She looked down at herself again, and for some reason felt very wronged, thinking: "How could you take off someone's clothes without their consent?"
Strangely enough, now that she no longer needed to hide her gender, she seemed to start thinking like a young girl—using "one" to refer to herself instead of "I," though she hadn't yet switched to "this girl."
The more she thought about it, the more wronged she felt, especially since Zhexiu still hadn't turned around. This made her even more miserable to the extreme... *Waa*—she burst into tears.
Hearing the crying, Zhexiu's back, crouched by the water reeds, trembled slightly.
After a moment, realizing the crying showed no sign of stopping, he followed the sound and walked over, sitting down in front of her. Trying to keep his tone as gentle as possible, he said, "Don't cry."
Qijian's crying paused momentarily. Her small face was covered in tears.
Zhexiu hesitated, then added, "...Otherwise, if you attract those demon beasts again, it'll be trouble."
This was still just making conversation.
Whether adults or youths, men never seemed to understand that making conversation at such moments often meant asking for trouble, which in turn meant asking for death.
Qijian was stunned for a moment, then started crying again. She remembered not to make any sound, which made her look even more pitiful.
Zhexiu was silent for a while, then explained, "You know, I can't see anything right now, so..."
Before he could finish this sentence, Qijian cried even more sorrowfully, thinking bitterly: Even though you can't see, you've touched every inch of my body. Are you going to deny it? Are you going to shirk responsibility?
Zhexiu found this very headache-inducing. He had lived for over a decade, fought for over a decade, encountered countless terrifying demon beasts and demons on the snowy plains, witnessed countless life-and-death situations, but... he had never encountered anything like this. He thought, what should he do? If she kept crying like this, what if she aggravated her wounds?
Listening to Qijian's sobbing, he felt very uneasy and somewhat confused. He thought: As the closed-door disciple of the Lishan Sect Leader, with such a high cultivation level, having reached the middle stage of Tongyou at such a young age, with such powerful swordsmanship that even Guan Feibai might not be your match, with your keen insight, having directly seen the third stele at the Tian Shu Ling—how can you be so remarkable in every way, yet... why are you so fond of crying?
Not knowing how to resolve this, he could only sit silently by her side, unaware that this approach happened to align perfectly with the ultimate truth of male-female relations.
Emotional problems in women can only ever be solved by time. Most of the time, they just feel sad and hurt and want to cry, so you just let them cry, accompany them, hand them a handkerchief when needed, offer your shoulder without hesitation—there's no need to constantly comfort and talk. When they haven't truly calmed down yet and don't want to make trouble, anything you do is meddling.
Sure enough, the crying gradually subsided. Qijian lowered her head like a frightened little bird, shyly saying, "You... did you already know?"
This question contained two implications, making it very difficult to answer—if he had known beforehand, then many of the physical contacts that occurred afterward, especially that scene earlier, could be interpreted more negatively. Fortunately, Zhexiu truly was not good at conversation, so he remained silent—silence could mean many things, and Qijian could choose the interpretation that made her feel most comfortable.
In fact, Zhexiu really hadn't thought of it.
During the escape earlier, a few times—especially when carrying her over the mountains and listening to her soft murmurs—he had vaguely suspected something, but those thoughts had come and gone, never going deeper, because he never would have imagined that the Lishan Sect Leader's closed-door disciple, the most beloved little junior brother among the Seven Laws of the Divine Kingdom, the young genius who had ranked high on the Qingyun Ranking at twelve years old... was actually a girl.
Now, recalling those scenes in the thatched hut at the Tian Shu Ling, he naturally had a completely different interpretation. Back then, the seven of them had been under one roof, with Zhexiu, Chen Changsheng, and Tang Thirty-Six in the inner room, and the four Lishan Sword Sect disciples in the outer room. Every night when they slept, Gou Hanshi, Guan Feibai, and Liang Banhu all squeezed together, leaving a large space for Qijian. Most crucially, Qijian had a separate set of bedding. At the time, Zhexiu and Chen Changsheng had thought Gou Hanshi and the others were too indulgent toward their little junior brother Qijian, or that the Lishan Sect Leader's closed-door disciple held some special status. Now he understood—it was simply because men and women were different.
What should he do next? Zhexiu remained silent, and Qijian didn't know what to say either. An awkward atmosphere lingered between the boy and girl.
Just then, a faint tremor came from deep within the grassland, followed by a low, thunderous roar. Zhexiu's expression changed slightly at the sound. He tilted his ear and listened for a moment, confirming it was an extremely terrifying and powerful demon beast. He could no longer worry about anything else. Taking out powder used to eliminate scent, he scattered it around the grass, while simultaneously, as he had done throughout the past day and night, turning around and crouching down in front of Qijian.
Over the past day and night, they had repeated this process many times. Logically, it should have become very familiar, but perhaps because he now knew Qijian was a girl, Zhexiu's movements seemed somewhat stiff. The hands he reached back were rigid, making him look like a duck about to be stewed.
Seeing him like this, Qijian's tears turned to laughter. She gently patted his back, signaling him to crouch lower, then slowly leaned onto him, her hands naturally wrapping around his neck.
Perhaps it was purely psychological, but Zhexiu felt that the sensation against his back had become much softer.
More than ten li away in the grassland, the earth beneath the wild grass kept bulging upward, emitting terrifying low rumbles like thunder. Something was moving at high speed. The sunlight was extremely fierce at this moment, penetrating the pools of water beneath the grass, illuminating countless demon beast figures. They surged forward like a tide, tracking them—a truly shocking sight.
At the forefront of the beast tide, Zhexiu and Qijian moved forward through the water, facing the increasingly high and bright sun. She was still his eyes, and he was still her legs.
"Which direction?"
"It seems there's a large meadow to the southwest, higher ground. Maybe we should check it out? That sound came from the east, so you might need to go faster."
The conversation ended, and there was silence for a long time, broken only by the sound of water being trampled, splashes flying, and the grass growing taller.
After who knows how long, Qijian asked softly, "Are you very surprised?"
Zhexiu was silent for a moment, then said, "Yes."
She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaned against his shoulder, smelling the familiar scent at the tip of her nose, and continued softly, "What are you thinking?"
Zhexiu didn't answer, because he didn't know how to answer. Thinking? What thoughts? The thought of his fingertips sliding over your trembling body? No. At that moment, the wolf tribe boy's mind had been completely blank, with no thoughts at all.
She thought... does silence mean displeasure? After another moment, her voice even softer, sounding nervous, she asked, "Then do you think it's better for me to be a man or a woman?"
This question didn't strike at the heart—it struck directly at the vital point.
Zhexiu thought for a moment. Since yesterday, you've been making soft sounds, clinging tightly to me the whole way. If you were a man, this scene really wouldn't look good. So he said, "It's better as a woman."
Qijian blushed slightly, her voice as soft as a mosquito's buzz: "Women together are naturally good. That's what you mean, isn't it?"
Zhexiu thought, there is one thing that is not good—you no longer act as magnanimously as before. Why is that?
There was a folk tale on this continent, a story about a pig demon carrying his wife on his back.
Yes, whether in stories or reality, most of the time, it should be the man carrying the woman. It's hard to imagine the reverse.
So in this vast, boundless grassland, while Zhexiu carried the girl Qijian on his back, at the other end of the grassland, Chen Changsheng was also carrying a young woman.
He had trudged through the grassland for a long time, still in the wetlands, walking with great difficulty. The scorching sun blazed down on the reeds and nameless wild grass in the water, as if trying to turn all the green plants into carvings of gold and silver. Yet he didn't sweat a single drop. The cold energy continuously emanating from his body dispelled the intense heat and resisted the sunlight.
Xu Yourong had her eyes closed, leaning against his shoulder, her eyelashes not fluttering, occasionally pursing her lips. It seemed that with Chen Changsheng as a natural ice pack, she was sleeping very soundly.
Until now, there had been no sign of Nanke pursuing them. Chen Changsheng thought the demons probably didn't want to risk entering this grassland either and had likely given up. Only then did he relax. The moment his spirit slackened, his injuries and fatigue surged in like a tide, or like mud trapping his feet, leaving him with no will to take another step forward.
The surroundings were all wetlands and wild grass, with no place to sit and rest. Chen Changsheng looked at the grass stems taller than a person and had no choice but to continue walking with Xu Yourong on his back. Only now, instead of moving forward, he kept circling, trampling down all the reeds and wild grass around him. Gradually, a flat area formed from crushed green branches appeared before him.
With the cover of reeds and wild grass, it was hard for anyone outside to see what was inside. And if someone could look down from the sky, they would see a small circle of grass about several zhang in diameter.
Xu Yourong hugged her knees, lying sideways on the pile of green grass, looking very delicate and pitiful, like a newborn child.
Chen Changsheng sat beside her, looking down at her face for a long time, his expression very serious, as if he had discovered something.
(Wishing everyone a pleasant weekend. I've compiled a few songs related to "Ze Tian Ji" recently. I'll share them on WeChat later. You can go listen.)