Pressing my lips together, I hesitated for a long time before finally whispering, “Okay.”
Hearing my agreement, Su Liumeng was overjoyed. So much so that she was struck by a sudden, overwhelming urge to rush forward and scoop this girl into her arms without a care in the world.
But she held back.
Because she was afraid that the burning affection in her heart would scare this emotionally sensitive and physically fragile girl in front of her.
It was okay.
She had endured it countless times before—this was nothing she couldn’t bear.
Su Liumeng picked up my small quilt.
“Baby, do you want to use a different blanket?” She always tried to respect my opinion.
“No need. I can only fall asleep hugging this one.”
Listening to the girl’s indifferent tone, Su Liumeng suddenly felt a sharp pain in her chest.
She must have been unhappy for a long time, without even realizing it herself.
She probably rarely shared her feelings with anyone. Only when she truly couldn’t take it anymore—like tonight—would she clutch her little quilt, push open the door, and seek out the instinctive sense of safety she longed for.
And the person she trusted… was her.
A deep sense of responsibility suddenly surged within Su Liumeng.
A responsibility born from not wanting to betray that trust.
She vowed once again—no matter the cost, she would protect this perpetually sorrowful girl in front of her.
Click—
I reached out and switched off the lamp on the bedside table.
The deep darkness no longer brought me any fear.
I pulled up a corner of the quilt, leaving only my eyes exposed, and tilted my head to glance toward the other side.
Su Liumeng noticed I was looking at her, so she asked gently, “What is it?”
I fell silent for a moment, then finally voiced what was on my mind.
“I’m still a little shaken.”
Tonight—I think I really did feel fear.
“I was just thinking… what if…”
“What if I hadn’t come to find you—would you have died?”
In the darkness, my soft, boneless little hand suddenly slipped under Su Liumeng’s blanket and grasped the palm she had resting at her side. I interlocked our fingers on my own initiative.
“Silly girl, don’t overthink it.”
Feeling the spot where her hand was suddenly being held, Su Liumeng’s throat went dry, and all the blood in her body rushed straight to her head.
A warm sensation bloomed in her lower abdomen.
As the owner of the room, she was all too aware of everything that was in here. If she took everything out and laid it bare, she’d probably scare this innocent little girl half to death.
So—for now—she chose to endure it.
She even had the presence of mind to comfort me.
“That kind of thing would never happen.”
I slowly shook my head. After crying for so long, my voice was still hoarse and muffled. “That’s not it…”
“I really panicked back there.”
“Now… I just feel lucky. Lucky I had the courage to open that door… and didn’t let myself…keep my feet shackled by the chains in my heart.”
I knew my own personality too well. As a foster child living under someone else’s roof, I’d long since developed the habit of wondering whether my very presence might be a burden to others.
I was more starved for love than anyone. And that’s probably why I clung so desperately to any affection I could get.
Looking back on it now, I realize the true cause of that emptiness—
It was the situation the Su family had deliberately orchestrated.
My already-formed personality…was like a puppet, shaped and manipulated to fit what others needed me to be.
In the quiet darkness, only our soft, low voices echoed. I was pouring out the inner thoughts of a girl to someone who finally seemed willing to listen.
The things I said, one after another, deeply moved Su Liumeng. She searched her memories but couldn’t recall another moment quite like this.
Night had a way of calming people down—of opening them up.
Xiyan had never taken the initiative to open her heart like this before. And after experiencing a terrifying ordeal together, it felt like something between the two of us had subtly changed.
People often lost control of their emotions in the aftermath of intense ups and downs. And right now, that was exactly the state I—Si Xinyan—was in.
Su Liumeng, heart aching as she listened, slowly reached out her other hand and gently covered my small hand with both of hers. As if trying to warm my cold, uneasy heart with her own steady warmth.
I didn’t reject her touch—
Instead, I leaned in even closer.
The two thin blankets were practically pressed together.
With my other hand—which was still somewhat free—I quietly lifted the corner of her blanket, inch by inch. It seemed like I was trying to slip in…but at the very last moment, I forced myself to stop.
Su Liumeng had already held herself back from acting on her own desires.
She knew the fragile state I was in and didn’t want to do anything that might hurt me—so how could I be the one to break that boundary first?
That thought brought a faint look of loneliness to my eyes.
“What were you just doing?”
Caught red-handed by the very person I was sneaking up on, I got flustered and blurted out instinctively,
“Letting my hand get some air.”
“Is that not allowed?”
Su Liumeng fell into a long, speechless silence.
This girl… next time you decide to lie, could you at least come up with a better excuse first?
Even she didn’t quite know how to respond to that one.
Still, she didn’t call me out on the glaringly obvious lie.
“Mm, yeah. It is stuffy under the blanket. Makes sense to let some air in.”
Then, as if remembering something, she suddenly spoke with serious warmth in her voice, “Next time you go out, could you please put your shoes on first? That way you won’t get hurt again.”
I pouted, annoyed by her tone. “I just forgot, okay? Why are you scolding me?”
“I was the hero today, you know. You’re not allowed to scold me.”
“At most, we can call it even…”
My strange, childish reasoning sounded more like I was sulking playfully.
Pleading for forgiveness.
“Besides, wearing shoes is such a hassle. And those slippers are way too heavy.”
“You use magic to clean the house all the time, don’t you? There’s hardly any dust on the floor…”
The more I talked, the more it sounded like everything made perfect sense—no matter how you looked at it.
Su Liumeng’s gaze slowly grew helpless.
She couldn’t be too harsh with me, and in the end, there really was nothing she could do about it.
“You always have a whole bunch of excuses.”
Seeing that she didn’t press the issue any further, my earlier gloominess quickly vanished. I gave a little hum of satisfaction and buried most of my head into the blanket.
“Su Liumeng, why are you so good to me?”
Of course I knew I was being unreasonable. But the way she indulged me without even thinking—
it made me want to fall for her even more.
I didn’t get the answer I was hoping for. My head gradually turned to mush.
As the air settled into silence, the only thing left was the slow, steady breathing of the girl beside me.
But Su Liumeng couldn’t fall asleep at all.
Her brows were tightly furrowed, mind replaying everything that had just happened.
A normal person—even someone with a Pure Yin constitution—could they really be completely fine after absorbing a millennium’s worth of cold yin energy?
Quietly, she reached out with two fingers and gently pressed them against the girl’s wrist, checking her pulse once more—unable to shake off her worry.
The diagnosis was exactly the same as last time: uterine cold and physical deficiency. The yin-cold energy she had absorbed seemed to have vanished without a trace, as if it had sunk into the sea.
Yin-cold energy was practically the bane of all cultivators. From what Su Liumeng had always understood, even if Si Xinyan were to embark on the path of cultivation, she shouldn’t be able to absorb it so easily.
A person’s constitution was one thing, but that didn’t mean they could recklessly absorb energy of a completely different nature.
So then… what exactly was going on now?
Su Liumeng held onto Si Xinyan’s small hand, not letting her pull it back—because she wanted to take her pulse again. She carefully extended her spiritual sense, probing into Si Xinyan’s dantian.
There were no signs of cultivation whatsoever.
She would never have guessed that Si Xinyan had been studying the flow of meridians, and although she hadn’t officially started cultivating yet, she had been repeatedly reviewing the cultivation pathways. Just now, while they were hugging, her body had instinctively started running that route—and had drawn the dispersing cold energy into herself.
However—
Because she hadn’t truly begun cultivation, the energy hadn’t been stored in her dantian. Instead, it remained stuck within the vast network of her meridians.
If this yin-cold energy wasn’t absorbed and refined later, it would gradually dissipate into the world over time.
Su Liumeng’s eyes were now filled with pain, inner conflict, and deep struggle.
She could feel it—the antidote to the cold poison that had plagued her for so long was right there,
in the very girl who made her heart flutter countless times.
Even if it couldn’t completely eliminate the poison, as long as she held the girl in her arms each time it flared up, she would never again be at risk.
And yet, she suddenly hesitated.
She worried that if Si Xinyan absorbed too much of the yin-cold energy, it could cause irreversible harm to the girl.
Maybe…she should just let it go.
Su Liumeng let out a deep sigh. Even if there was only the slightest risk, she wasn’t willing to let Si Xinyan take it.
The only reason she’d allowed the girl to hold her so directly tonight was because she had been completely unable to move.
Su Liumeng was making up her mind.
When someone, faced with a choice between themselves and others, doesn’t instinctively choose self-preservation—the struggle within, the difficulty of that decision, demands a kind of courage that lies in choosing to sacrifice oneself.
Next time the cold poison flared up, she would make sure to hide far, far away.
Whenever Su Liumeng closed her eyes now, all she could think about was how, tonight, when the poison struck, the yin-cold energy inside her had become strangely docile—as if it had encountered some kind of deadly nemesis.
The pain and torment she had endured countless times before, the moments when she had wished for death, had all silently melted away in the background.
Perhaps because the process had been too smooth, it now felt almost unreal to her.
Her gaze, long adapted to the darkness, fell upon the young girl still pouting slightly in her sleep.
Watching her sleep so soundly and sweetly, Su Liumeng couldn’t help but reveal a faint, gentle smile.
The Body of Extreme Yin truly seemed to be something special—this time, the absorption appeared to have caused no immediate harm.
Still, it needed to be observed over a longer period.
As for asking Si Xinyan to help her again—now that Su Liumeng had completely calmed down,
she no longer dared to try.
*****
At that moment, in my dream, I saw my sweet, adorable little dumpling.
In the dream, I was asking her if there was any way to completely eliminate the cold poison.
Zhizhi’s confident answer made my heart leap with joy, and that happiness showed on my face as I slept peacefully.
I just knew my baby would have a way.
Whether it was about curing the cold poison or finding a way to deal with a once-powerful ghost king, whether in the dream or the waking world, I firmly believed— there had to be a solution!
*****
On the spacious bed, Su Liumeng slowly ran her fingers along the butterfly-shaped tattoo at the base of her thigh.
Three pale purple butterflies had already begun to emanate a trace of spiritual energy. Their colors were so vivid, they looked like they might flutter off her skin at any moment.
The slightly bewitching tattoo lifelike and vibrant—stood out starkly against her fair, snow-white thigh, adding a mysterious allure that made one want to explore further.
After a long while, Su Liumeng let out a heavy sigh, the sound echoing softly through the quiet room.
She suddenly gripped the small hand under the covers a little tighter.
“Su Liumeng—”
“I’m cold.”
The girl’s soft, dreamy voice mumbled in her sleep, adorably drowsy and tender.
Su Liumeng’s body stiffened in an instant as she felt the girl—now turned on her side—instinctively clutch her arm and snuggle in.
Outside, the cold torrential rain continued to batter the world.
But within this room, only warmth remained—a warmth that could melt the deepest frost.
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