Chapter 28: What’s Mine Is Yours, What’s Yours Is Still Yours
The sword tip cut through her skin, slicing open her blood vessels.
No blood spurted out—not even a single drop flowed, because the blood in her body was almost completely gone.
Chen Changsheng picked up the scabbard and aimed its opening at the wound on her neck.
With a slight stir of his spiritual sense, a thread of blood emerged from the scabbard, as if it were being generated from nothingness itself.
That thread of blood was extremely thin, even finer than silk, and it slowly seeped into her blood vessels.
Throughout the entire process, he was extremely cautious, his spiritual sense condensed to its utmost limit.
There was no sound.
Only a scent.
The scent of his blood gradually spread through the empty tomb.
No one knew how much time had passed. He withdrew the scabbard, and a faint chill appeared at the tip of his right index finger, which he pressed against Xu Yourong’s neck. After a moment, confirming that her blood vessels and wound had been sealed by the tiniest ice shards, he began to tend to his own injury.
The wound on his wrist—clearly visible, even faintly showing bone—slowly healed, or rather, was sealed by ice.
A few traces of blood remained beside the wound. He recalled what his senior brother had privately told him back then. After hesitating for a moment, he raised his wrist to his lips and began to lick it carefully, like a young beast lapping at milk.
Back then, his senior brother had told him that if he ever got injured and bled, he must use this method—only this method—to consume the blood into his stomach, so that the scent of the blood would no longer spread. Aside from this, no amount of rinsing with clean water, burying with sand and soil, or even burning with fire could make that scent disappear.
This was the first time Chen Changsheng had tasted his own blood. In past battles, he had nearly coughed up blood several times and forced himself to swallow it, but back then the blood only touched his throat. Now, it was on his tongue.
So, his own blood was sweet.
That was what he thought.
The taste was indeed good.
It seemed delicious.
Really delicious.
He wanted to eat more.
Suddenly, he snapped awake, drenched in sweat, which then froze into frost. He had been licking faster and harder, like a greedy young beast lapping at the blood-mixed milk of its dead mother.
If he hadn’t woken up in time, he might have licked the wound on his wrist open again.
The tomb was utterly silent.
Only after a long time did a gentle breeze pass through.
The frozen beads of sweat on the ground rolled slowly, making a rumbling sound.
He leaned wearily against a stone pillar, his face abnormally pale.
Because he had lost too much blood, and because of fear.
At the age of ten, his soul had seeped out of his body with his sweat, drawing celestial anomalies. In the mist-shrouded great mountain behind Xining Town, an unknown, terrifying lifeform had peered at him. From that night on, he knew his body was different from others—not just his illness, but that his soul was the most delicious fruit to many beings, an irresistible temptation.
“If the world discovers the strangeness of your blood, you will die, and you will certainly face a fate worse than death.”
His senior brother had said this to him the day after that night at age ten. It had taken his senior brother a long time to convey the meaning clearly, because his arms were sore and weak, and his hand gestures kept going wrong.
He asked his senior brother why this was so. His senior brother was silent for a long time before telling him that it was because the night before, he had been fanning him continuously, trying to blow away the scent emanating from his body.
He asked his senior brother why he had done that. His senior brother was silent for another long time before telling him that the night before, after smelling that scent for a while, he had suddenly wanted to drink all of his blood, to eat him.
In Chen Changsheng’s mind, his senior brother, Yu Ren, was the bravest person in the world, the one who treated him best. If his senior brother wanted him to die, he would die. But if his senior brother wanted to eat him…
He thought about it for a long time and still found it too terrifying.
The blood flowing through his body was a delicacy coveted by all living things. For the person involved, this was certainly not a good thing. So he disliked his own blood—even hated it, or rather, feared it. Because of this mindset, he never thought about it, and sometimes even subconsciously forgot what was special about his blood.
After that night, in the early morning, the scattered soul withdrew into his body, entering his blood, and never leaked out again. But that hatred and fear still lingered in the deepest part of his consciousness.
After arriving in the capital, he thought he had left that terrifying memory behind. He could sense that the scent of his blood seemed to be fading. However, on the morning after spending a night at the Heavenly Book Mausoleum viewing all the front tablets, when he first bathed his marrow in starlight during daylight, he was shocked to realize that everything seemed to be returning to that night when he was ten.
He didn’t want to experience that night again, didn’t want to sense that unknown gaze from the mist again.
So he became even more cautious. When severely injured in battle and about to cough up blood, he would force himself to swallow it back, even at the risk of danger. No matter how powerful his opponent, he no longer dared to burn the entire lake outside the Netherworld, afraid that, like that time in the underground space, his true essence would blast his flesh and blood to pieces.
He must not bleed, must not let anyone smell his blood—this was something he didn’t need to think about but held as his highest principle.
Even more important than his life.
Because he always remembered his senior brother’s warning.
But today, in this tomb, he didn’t follow his senior brother’s warning.
Because he had to save someone.
He looked at the sleeping Xu Yourong and showed a satisfied smile. Because of the poison, her face had been somewhat swollen, but now the swelling had noticeably subsided, and her delicate brows and eyes had become clearer.
Most importantly, her face, pale as snow, was now gradually gaining a few traces of color.
Far from Zhou Dufu’s tomb, there was an old temple. If counting from the first initial shrine a thousand li away, this old temple should be the ninth. That meant it was only two hundred li from Zhou Dufu’s tomb.
Even a child just starting school could figure this out, so Nan Ke and the others naturally wouldn’t get it wrong. The old man playing the qin said with emotion, “I never thought I’d live to see the day I’d lay eyes on Zhou’s Tomb.”
Teng Xiaoming, carrying his load, looked at the faint black protrusion visible under the distant sky. Known for his taciturn and dull demeanor, even he showed some excitement now, let alone his wife Liu Wan’er and the two demon beauties.
Dozens of days of hardship—even these demon strongmen found it somewhat grueling. But thinking that Xu Yourong and Chen Changsheng were ahead, waiting to die, and more importantly, that the end of the White Grass Path might be the legendary Zhou’s Tomb—what was this hardship compared to that?
Suddenly, the White Grass Path trembled slightly. The source of the tremor came from deep within the vast grassland behind them.
The old qin player felt a slight surprise. He turned to look into the grassland, his expression serious as he said, “The beasts seem a bit restless.”
Suddenly, his expression changed drastically. His mouth opened, but he was too shocked to speak. The demon general and his wife also saw the anomaly in the sky, and their auras instantly surged to the limit that the Zhou Garden could contain.
A shadow appeared in the sky above the grassland. That shadow was so huge it seemed to cover half the sky. It was moving slowly, and from a distance, it looked like a pair of enormous wings.
Nan Ke looked at the shadow in the sky, frowning as she said, “Even the Sky Roc is going mad. What exactly is happening?”
She didn’t know that the source of the beasts’ unrest was deep within the tomb two hundred li away. In the depths of that tomb, a young man had cut open his wrist, and his blood was exposed to the air. The scent of that blood had spread across the grassland, now extremely faint, but still enough to drive the beasts of this world into a frenzy of insane desire.
Around the tomb, there were ingeniously designed ventilation and light channels, ensuring rainwater wouldn’t pour in through them, but allowing fresh wind and light to enter. What had Zhou Dufu been thinking when he ordered the design of his own tomb? Did he think the dead still needed to breathe fresh air and enjoy the bright spring sunshine?
Chen Changsheng couldn’t figure it out. He only confirmed, through the changes in light and the moisture in the air, that it should be the morning of the second day, and the rain outside the tomb had likely stopped.
Just then, Xu Yourong finally woke up.
Chen Changsheng looked at her and smiled.
She didn’t smile. She stared at him blankly and asked, “Did you pour your blood into my body?”
Chen Changsheng said, “To be more precise, I infused my blood into your blood vessels.”
Xu Yourong felt helpless, sad, and exhausted. She said, “Although I don’t know how you managed to do all this, do you think it will work? I told you, my blood…”
“Yes, it will work.”
Before she could finish, Chen Changsheng said with a smile. His face was pale, his expression weary, but his eyes were bright, clean, and confident, like the newborn sun—though veiled by clouds, its radiance undiminished.
Seeing his expression, Xu Yourong had a thought she didn’t believe herself, and murmured, “This can work too?”
“It seems it really does.”
Chen Changsheng walked over to her, examined the wound on her neck, and then said, “Check for yourself.”
Xu Yourong was somewhat dazed. Subconsciously following his words, she examined herself and found that her blood vessels were indeed not as dried up as before she fell unconscious. Though not as abundant as usual and still somewhat thin, it was at least enough to ensure… survival.
Survival—how important, how wonderful. Most important, best.
But why had she survived?
What was going on?
At this moment, the blood flowing through her body was clearly supposed to be his blood, yet it felt like her own, with no difference at all.
(At least for now, it’s certain that Chen Changsheng is type O blood… Tomorrow is Monday, dear everyone, don’t forget to cast your recommendation votes. Thank you.)