58: Chapter 58 I've Accepted Your Heartbeat

Xia Lengbai bit her lower lip tightly, blood beads already seeping out, and a metallic taste spread through her mouth.

She did not respond, simply crouching down silently. With shoulders that looked delicate but actually contained Ice Spiritual Power, she struggled to hoist the man who was a head taller than her onto her back.

Shen Xiao's body was scorching, as if he were carrying a furnace. Through several layers of soaked clothing, he still transmitted a burning temperature to her back.

This heat intertwined with the chill rising from her body due to the exhaustion of her spiritual power, creating a strange sensation of being caught between ice and fire.

She could clearly feel that as he lay on her back, his body was trembling uncontrollably due to the burning of the Blood Poison.

Yet, strangely, his breathing remained exceptionally steady, evenly puffing against her ear, carrying a strange scent of blood mixed with burnt flesh.

This bastard, he was almost charred to a crisp, yet he could still feign such composure.

"Move three zhang to the left."

Shen Xiao's voice sounded in her ear, low and hoarse, devoid of any emotion, as if delivering an unquestionable command.

"Under the ice wall over there is a dark green boulder. A stalk of 'Blood Coagulation Grass' is growing in the crevice of the rock; it can temporarily seal the wound on my left leg."

He did not ask if she was willing, nor did he request it; he simply gave the direction and goal, as if she were not a living person, but a highly precise combat machine he was controlling.

Being treated as a tool made an inexplicable anger flare up in Xia Lengbai's heart, but her steps did not hesitate in the slightest.

She knew all too well that to be angry with Shen Xiao now was to gamble with her own life.

Furthermore, she knew clearly in her heart that following this bastard's instructions seemed to always keep her on the edge of life and death, yet she always managed to survive.

In the glacial rift, the cold wind was like a knife, blowing on her face with a stinging pain.

Xia Lengbai carried a person on her back, walking unevenly on the rugged ice surface.

A few steps later, she indeed saw the dark green boulder Shen Xiao had mentioned.

She carefully set Shen Xiao down, letting him lean against the ice wall, and then stooped to grope beneath the boulder.

Soon, she plucked a small plant with thick leaves and a dark red body.

A strong, pungent scent of vegetation rushed into her nose.

"Chew it up, and apply it."

Shen Xiao's voice remained calm.

Xia Lengbai glanced at him, said nothing, and resignedly stuffed the Blood Coagulation Grass into her mouth.

The bitterness of the plant juice instantly exploded on the tip of her tongue, so astringent that she almost spat it out, but she forcefully endured it, chewing it into a mushy pulp, then lowered her head to carefully apply it to the terrifying, deep-to-the-bone wound on Shen Xiao's left leg where the flesh was turned outward.

The cooling plant pulp made a soft "sizzling" sound as it contacted the burnt flesh.

Shen Xiao's tense body seemed to relax slightly.

Xia Lengbai's fingertips inevitably became stained with his blood; the warm, viscous liquid seeped through her fingers, staining her white sleeves red.

She suddenly stopped her movements, lifted her head, and leaned close to Shen Xiao's ear, her warm breath mixed with the bitter taste of the Blood Coagulation Grass blowing against his earlobe.

"Do you know?"

Her voice was very low, like the most intimate whisper between lovers.

"Your life is in my hands right now. If I wanted to, with just a gentle push, I could throw you into that bottomless ice crevice beside us, so that Lin Yun would never find you."

Shen Xiao did not even lift his eyelids, as if he were asleep, but his steady breathing rhythm proved he was wide awake.

He was actually ignoring her?

Xia Lengbai waited for a moment; the panic, compromise, or weak threats she had anticipated did not appear.

There was only a deathly silence.

A sense of humiliation, mixed with anger, curiosity, and being slighted, grew wildly from the bottom of her heart like weeds.

She suddenly reached out and pinched his wounded leg, which had just been bandaged, hard!

"Ugh!"

Shen Xiao finally let out a suppressed groan and slowly opened his eyes.

Those pitch-black eyes were as calm as a bottomless pool of cold water in the dimness, clearly reflecting her face, which was tinged with slight anger.

"Your heartbeat is ten beats faster than usual."

He spoke indifferently, not a hint of pain audible in his voice.

"Loss of emotional control is a standard feature of a yandere; I understand. But I suggest you don't have an outburst at a time like this; it affects our escape efficiency."

"You!"

Xia Lengbai was choked by this sentence, her cheeks instantly flushing red.

This guy... how did he know her heartbeat had sped up? The Telepathic Symbiosis Technique?

At the thought that all her physiological reactions might be perceived by him clearly, she felt as if she had been stripped naked, with no privacy to speak of.

"Shut up!"

She snapped in anger and shame, roughly hoisting Shen Xiao back onto her back, intentionally jolting him upward to make him hurt more, then gathered her strength and rushed forward.

However, before she had gone far, a palm-sized, blood-red rune lit up without warning on an ice cliff dozens of zhang ahead!

The rune seemed to be drawn with fresh blood, appearing exceptionally glaring in the deep blue glacial environment, exuding an ominous aura.

It was the "Blood Soul Mark" left by Bai Lian!

Xia Lengbai's heart jolted, and her feet were instantly nailed to the spot.

But it was too late; the mark was triggered the moment her spiritual power fluctuations touched it!

"Hum..."

A beam of blood-colored light shot out from the rune, fast as lightning, aimed directly at the center of her brow!

This strike came too fast, so fast that she could not react in time at all!

In that split second, a palm suddenly reached out from behind her, precisely blocking the space in front of her forehead.

"Sss, sss, sss..."

In Shen Xiao's palm, that wisp of dormant, crimson-gold Burning Heaven Pill Fire suddenly erupted like a small sun, colliding violently with the cold beam of blood-colored light.

A shrill burning sound rang out, and a foul stench of burnt feathers filled the air.

Under the domineering consumption of the Burning Heaven Pill Fire, the blood-colored light lasted only for a breath before being completely burned into nothingness.

But Shen Xiao's palm was left with a charred wound extending from his wrist to his fingertips; the flesh was curled, and it was deep enough to see bone.

Xia Lengbai stared blankly at the hand that had blocked her view, still emitting blue smoke, and smelling the scent of burnt flesh, her heart was tightly gripped by an invisible hand, suddenly tightening.

That morbid, twisted possessiveness, which she had forcefully suppressed for so long, surged like a breached flood at this moment, instantly crushing all of her reason.

She grabbed Shen Xiao's injured hand, disregarding the char and bloodstains, and pressed her own fingertips against it.

Wisps of frigid Ice Spiritual Power were carefully and gently channeled into his palm, suppressing the intense pain of the burning for him.

"From now on..."

She whispered, her voice very soft but carrying an unquestionable obsession and determination,

"I do not allow you to be injured. Your life is mine, and your wounds can only be inflicted by me. You can only be schemed against by me, and you can only be hurt by me."

Shen Xiao lifted his eyes, examining her earnestly.

Her profile looked somewhat pale under the faint light reflected by the glacier, but her eyes were startlingly bright, burning with a kind of crazy flame that he found both familiar and strange.

He was silent for a moment, then tugged at the corner of his mouth, revealing a weak yet playful smile.

"Fine."

Shen Xiao said indifferently,

"Then let's consider it... a promise."

As soon as he finished speaking, a sharp "Whoosh!" sound tore through the sky!

A brilliant golden sword light descended from the sky like a meteor from beyond the heavens, carrying an unrivaled momentum, and slammed fiercely into the ice surface three zhang in front of them!

"Boom!"

The enormous power exploded, sending countless ice shards mixed with gravel soaring into the sky, forming a curtain of ice crystals.

A slender figure stepped out slowly, walking through the flying ice shards.

Golden pupils burned in the dimness, emitting a bone-chilling cold.

It was none other than Lin Yun.

Behind him, the expressionless Bai Lian stood silently, like an exquisite doll.

The ancient soul sound bell in her hand was "humming" lightly, the sound seemingly turning into invisible chains that completely sealed off this space, firmly locking onto the presence of Shen Xiao and Xia Lengbai.

Lin Yun's gaze crossed the raging ice dust and landed on Xia Lengbai's back.

When he saw Xia Lengbai carrying Shen Xiao, the two of them stained with blood and leaning against each other in an intimate posture, those golden vertical pupils suddenly constricted, and the frigid killing intent almost condensed into substance.

"Lengbai, you carrying him is just like carrying a corpse."

His voice was cold, devoid of any warmth,

"I'll give you one last chance: put him down. I can... forgive you for everything."

Xia Lengbai not only did not put Shen Xiao down, but instead gripped the hand she had clasped on him even tighter.

She lifted her head, staring straight into Lin Yun's eyes that were burning with rage, and replied word for word:

"Lin Yun, forgive me? When I stole your healing pill, I never thought about wanting your forgiveness."

After hearing Xia Lengbai's reply, the last trace of something called "reason" in Lin Yun's eyes finally shattered completely.

The muscles on his face twisted, anger and murderous intent interweaving and boiling over, no longer able to be suppressed.

He slowly raised his hand.