'Share the Blood with No Gap Between the Teeth and Lips...'

Inside the karst cave under the dancing candlelight...

Gu Feidi put his arm around Su Yang’s shoulder and sat the injured man against the stone pillar. Pain arose from his chest. He muffled his cough with his free hand and blood droplets oozed out between his fingers. They slid down from the back of his hand, dripped onto and were absorbed by Su Yang’s dark robe.

Slowing his breathing down, he wiped the blood on his hand and his lips with his sleeves, before asking in a hoarse voice, “...How are you holding up?”

Su Yang leaned against the stone pillar. The agonising pain from his trapped, dislocated wrists almost caused him to black out. 

His complexion was ghostly white, and he was frowning tightly from the pain. Fine beads of sweat gathered on his forehead. It glittered under the lamplight and with the rhythm of his breathing. 

Upon hearing Gu Feidi’s question, some clarity returned to Su Yang as he noticed the front of his robe was wet with blood—not his blood. He forced a reassuring smile and replied in a low voice, “I feel fine…but you’re hurt…I have medicine in my bag. It dropped over there. You treat yourself first…”

Gu Feidi whispered, “That can wait, we need to set your wrists back first.”

As he said that, he stretched out his hand to gently untangle Su Yang’s robe. He rearranged the robe and covered Su Yang back up, finishing it up by smoothing the wrinkled sleeves. 

Su Yang hissed from the pain and curled into himself a bit. “It hurts.”

“Bear with it just a little longer,” Gu Feidi held Su Yang’s right arm with his left hand while resting Su Yang’s right hand in his right palm. He coaxed Su Yang. “I will try to be gentle...”

Before his last word ended, Gu Feidi suddenly grasped and pulled Su Yang’s right hand, setting the dislocated joints back to their original position.

Su Yang screamed out painfully as tears gushed out of his eyes. They slid down his cheeks like a waterfall. 

“You called that gentle?” Su Yang snapped on impulse. “That fucking hurts!”

Gu Feidi raised his hand to help Su Yang wipe away the tears. He moved forward to land a soft kiss on Su Yang’s forehead and encouraged, “One more time. You can endure this.”

Trembling, Su Yang already accepted that there would be pain from whatever Gu Feidi was doing, as he just nodded and closed his eyes. 

He bit down to endure the second round of pain. Once it was over, he rested his head on Gu Feidi’s chest as he breathed through his nose, trying his best to calm his troubled breath down. 

Gu Feidi lifted his hand and stroked Su Yang’s soft hair. He closed his eyes to cherish this moment before he clenched his teeth to muffle his cough and attempted to stand up.

But the poison in his body was still active. As soon as he was back on two feet, he staggered and almost fell to his knees.

It was Su Yang’s turn to support Gu Feidi to sit against the stone pillar right next to him. Once Gu Feidi was settled, he stood up. “Rest. I will get the medicine.”

Their bags were dropped not far away, just outside the karst cave entrance. Su Yang picked them up, and rummaged through for medicine for internal injuries, and fed the pill to Gu Feidi.

Watching Gu Feidi swallow it with difficulty, Su Yang vented out angrily, “That man had no concept of holding back!”

Gu Feidi glanced at Su Yang and said, “He has profound internal energy, and he held back on his first hit. If he struck me with all of his strength, even if I was at full strength without the poison, I don’t think I would come out alive.”

Recalling the man in white and how the man dealt with him and Gu Feidi with ease, Su Yang had to admit this as well. The senior was definitely someone neither of them could match. If their powers were measured on paper, he wouldn't be able to mark them on the same piece of paper.

He was frustrated and mumbled, “I thought our martial arts skills were already strong enough. To think we were faced with a big BOSS…”

“What?” Gu Feidi didn’t understand the English word.

Su Yang tried to come up with another word, “What I meant was…a more powerful person.”

Gu Feidi chuckled. “There are mountains beyond mountains; there will also be someone who is stronger. You should have learned that during our time studying in the House of the Jade.”

Su Yang pouted in silence. 

After a moment’s silence, Gu Feidi added, “What’s more, he is after all the Leader of the Evil Sect…”

Su Yang lowered his gaze and sighed quietly.

He actually already got a sense of the man’s identity when Mei Shisan was brought up.

But this was just a guess. To encounter the Sect Leader was all too unexpected for him. Until now, he still wasn’t sure if this was real or not.

Where was that shrivelled old man?

The Leader of the Evil Sect was actually an extremely gorgeous uncle with long hair?!

No, calling him an uncle might be an insult. There was almost no trace of age or hardships in his appearance. If it weren’t for the wisdom in those deep eyes and the faint lines under them, Su Yang would never even be able to guess at the man’s age. 

Oy! This martial art world’s beauty level was too inhuman!

Of course, even if he complained inside, he knew he had made a big mistake from his first impression of the Sect Leader. 

Thinking about the actors in the cast. The actor who played Gu Feidi was an effeminate attractive young man, Fan Xi’s clown role was played by a random comedian selected by the team, and the old man who played the Sect Leader was definitely different from the genuine goods in this world.

In this whole world, only the Evil Sect’s Young Master had the same face as the one in the real world’s drama, down to the last detail. 

Based on that fact, for him to not recognise the Evil Sect’s Sect Leader was normal.

But at the same time, him not recognising the Evil Sect’s Sect Leader was not normal to anyone in this martial arts world.

In conclusion: he didn’t know how to explain to Gu Feidi.

Moreover, during the earlier fight, the Sect Leader also asked a question about taking over a body through rebirth. Su Yang didn’t know if Gu Feidi heard those words. If he did, what would Gu Feidi think of him?

Did he believe it? Was he disgusted by it? ...Did he think that he was being lied to all this time?

Su Yang didn’t know why he was so worried about whether Gu Feidi thought any less of him. 

According to logic, he shouldn’t care so much about what Gu Feidi thinks—they are on opposite sides, destined to be each other’s arch-rivals. His life would end under Gu Feidi’s blade as he died in his arms.

But the anxiety wasn’t going away in his heart. He hoped that Gu Feidi wouldn't ask, but he was also afraid that Gu Feidi came to a conclusion without asking.

“You…” Gu Feidi hesitated to say the rest of his question. 

Su Yang’s chest and throat tightened as he sweated under pressure. 

Gu Feidi completed his question. “...Would you really die if you detoxified me?”

“No way!” Su Yang sighed with relief and smiled. “Although transferring the Poisonous Gu into my body is the treatment. But…I know a way to get rid of it completely, so don’t worry about it.”

Gu Feidi stared into Su Yang’s eyes and inquired solemnly, “You are absolutely sure?”

Su Yang nodded his head confidently. “I am absolutely sure!”

After another moment’s silence, Gu Feidi smiled. “Alright, I believe you.”

Su Yang smiled back, lowered his head and pondered for a while before cautiously, metaphorically stepping on thin ice. “Do you…have no other question to ask?”

Gu Feidi watched the distressed Su Yang and comforted calmly, “I won’t ask what you are not willing to say.”

Scratching his nose lightly, Su Yang muttered, “The more you act like that, the more guilty I feel…”

So Gu Feidi asked, “Then please be truthful with me on one thing…Were you the one that I met in Mount Mei Zhu’s forest?”

Su Yang lifted his head and locked eyes with Gu Feidi. Gu Feidi relaxed his eyebrows and smiled softly to encourage him to talk.

Feeling more at ease, Su Yang finally nodded, “Yes, that was me.”

“Then that’s enough for me,” Gu Feidi grinned. “You were the one who I met. You were the one I interacted with. You were the one who saved me. My feel心 (translated as ‘feel’) and 信 (first letter in 信任, translated as ‘trust’) are homonyms. That means Su Yang won’t pick up on the word change. TBH, love would make more sense but we don’t toss out that word so early. —My trust was also in you. Why should I seek the answer to your origin?”

Su Yang didn’t know why his nose was stuffed up even when Gu Feidi’s tone was very calm and his words were also very simple. 

He turned quickly and widened his eyes, trying to focus only on the stalactites hanging from the top of the cave.

After a while, he uttered, “Whatever, as long as you remember that I will not hurt you.”

Chuckled softly, Gu Feidi teased, “Yes, I know you won’t hurt me, however…”

Su Yang’s heart skipped a beat. “However?”

Gu Feidi went on, “Are you really not going to look for the manual for Half-Withered Crimson? Don’t you want to detoxify me?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Su Yang responded. “We need to go deeper into the cave and treat you as soon as possible.”

With that, he stood up and supported Gu Feidi on his shoulder. They helped each other forward and went through the stone gate. 

Behind the stone gate was a dark corridor. Although there were lamp posts on both sides, only one lamp was lit out of every two to three. 

They walked through the corridor and came to a round, stone chamber constructed according to the cave terrain. 

There were flaming torches secured in sconces around the stone chamber, and between each sconce were archways shaped like a half-circle of pitch black. A narrow well with a diameter of more than a third of a meter was located in the corner. The surface of the water in the well was very close to the edge of the well. Su Yang was pretty certain the water in the well was connected to the lake outside. A couch was placed in the centre of the stone room, and next to it was a small table and a lampstand, as well as a complete set of pen, ink, inkstone, and paper. 

Su Yang settled Gu Feidi on the couch and took a torch from one of the sconces to explore the passages through the archways one by one. 

Not before long, Su Yang returned to the main stone chamber and shared, “There are two armouries. The rest are rooms for storing ancient texts.”

Gu Feidi saw Su Yang come back empty-handed. “You didn’t find the Half-Withered Crimson?”

Su Yang explained, “I already figured this was not the most ideal place to preserve paper books. The humidity is too high because the cave is near the lake, but I would never have expected that they had carved the forbidden texts on stone. I can’t move the upright stone. My only choice is to learn the skill in the room. But I couldn’t be at ease leaving you here by yourself. You are still injured…”

Gu Feidi asked with a smile, “What is there to worry about?”

Su Yang flattened his lips and replied, “I fear that the Sect Leader would come back to look for trouble.”

Gu Feidi insisted, “Even if he really returned and wanted to finish what he started, it doesn’t matter if you are here or not. Neither of us can stop him. You go on ahead and find the Half-Withered Crimson. The sooner I am treated, the sooner I can fight alongside you.”

Why did everything that came out of Gu Feidi’s mouth always sound so logical? After a long pause, Su Yang decided to go through the archway to search for one that contained information on Half-Withered Crimson. As he wandered, he also wondered whether it was more convenient to study it in the room where the inscription was stored, or copy them back and study in the stone chamber. 

Once Su Yang disappeared behind the arch, Gu Feidi covered his mouth and nose with his hand to silence his cough. Then he wiped away the blood. 

After a long search, Su Yang finally found the inscription of the Half-Withered Crimson in the corner of the room behind the fourth archway.

The surface of the stone was slightly chipped, but fortunately, all the inscriptions were legible. There was a faint layer of black ink on the stone as if someone had come here to copy the knowledge by covering the surface of the inscription in ink, and pressing the paper over the ink to stamp the words onto the paper. The lingering ink made the words more visible. 

Su Yang read through the first few sentences of the general chapter on the top of the stone. He spoke as he read, “Mental skill of the cold, merge the trembling chill into the body. The mental skill of yin nature, imprinting the skill into the soul. The half-withered crimson flower would be frozen eternally, never to perish.”

—This was a ‘cold nature’ mental skill, with the words implying that flowers would stay eternal if they were frozen before they wither.

He scanned through the main text and, in his joy; he found that there were only three sections, which meant it wouldn't take him long to learn it. It would take even less time with the help of his Apparition of the Frozen Lake. One section mentioned that when one fully learned the mental skill, their body could reach a temperature to the point of nullifying the effects of all types of poison. Effectively making the user their nemesis.

There are also all sorts of Poisonous Gu engraved in the appendix. One that counteracts the other Poisonous Gu, one that relates to feeling, one that makes its host speak the truth, one that torments the host, etc. This stone described ten different kinds in total. 

Su Yang held up his torch and moved closer, looking for the solution for the Blood Gu in the appendix with the text that was of fingernail font size.

He quickly found a passage:

“The Blood Gu enters the pulse, travels up and rests at the acupoint of the tongue. Host and user must bite their tongues to create a bleeding cut. Share the blood. No gap between the lips and teeth. With the mental skill, the user gently accepts the crimson, softens the crimson, and withers the crimson. After the third time, the Gu will be absorbed into the user’s body.”