The moment she crashed hard onto the bottom of the cave, Meng Ruji heard the sound of bones shattering.
But they weren’t her own.
She was being held in Mu Sui’s embrace, and it was Mu Sui who cushioned her fall, whose bones had broken.
After recovering from the brief confusion following the impact, Meng Ruji immediately climbed off Mu Sui. She roughly brushed off the dirt and vegetation from her body, then turned to look at Mu Sui.
Moonlight shone down into the pit bottom. Apart from the sound of mud, stones, and vegetation tumbling down, it was very quiet. Mu Sui lay on the ground, not getting up for a moment. Meng Ruji knew that if he hadn’t been holding her, given her understanding of Mu Sui’s skills, he wouldn’t have broken any bones from the fall.
Meng Ruji said, “I could have handled this situation myself. You didn’t need to hold me.”
“Without cultivation techniques, your legs would have broken,” Mu Sui sat up. When he spoke, his expression showed no emotion whatsoever. If not for the sound of shattering bones that had just echoed right beside Meng Ruji’s ear, she wouldn’t have been able to tell that Mu Sui was injured.
“What about you then? Where did you break something?” Meng Ruji asked.
Mu Sui glanced up at her, then stood up without any visible disturbance: “I’m fine.”
Meng Ruji raised an eyebrow: “If it’s broken, it’s broken. What’s there to hide about that…”
Before she could finish speaking, she saw Mu Sui stand up, brace one arm against the wall to control his shoulder, then use his other hand to grab the front end of that arm and twist forward with a turn of his body. Another teeth-grinding “crack” sound followed. Mu Sui’s lips pressed tightly together for an instant, then he released his grip, letting his arm hang down naturally.
“I wasn’t trying to hide anything,” Mu Sui’s voice remained steady. “I’m just fine.”
Meng Ruji: “…”
She nodded and praised him: “Tough guy.”
Mu Sui didn’t respond to this praise, already turning to survey their surroundings.
However, Meng Ruji used the moonlight from above to pick up two relatively straight branches from the fallen vegetation, then tore a strip from her already tattered dress hem: “But no matter how tough you are, you still need to bind it. Come here.”
Mu Sui turned his head, looked at Meng Ruji’s eyes, then at what she held in her hands: “It will heal on its own.”
“I’ve already torn my dress hem, so you can’t refuse to let me bind it.”
Mu Sui remained silent for a moment, then extended his arm.
As Meng Ruji took his arm and skillfully began bandaging it, she said: “You seem to be quite accustomed to your body getting injured?”
Mu Sui didn’t make a sound, only quietly watched Meng Ruji under the gauze-like moonlight.
She was a head shorter than him. When she lowered her head to help him bind his wound, the skin on her forehead and nose tip was illuminated by the moonlight, appearing soft and bright. At this moment, even the eerie azure-green moonlight of the Realm of No Return transformed in her eyes into a pool of moonlit water.
Somewhat alluring.
Mu Sui’s uninjured fingertips twitched slightly. He suppressed the impulse to pull her into his embrace.
Naturally, Meng Ruji was unaware of Mu Sui’s wandering thoughts. As she carefully bandaged his wound, she continued speaking:
“Hengxu Mountain used to take in many homeless children. Some of the children were just like you. When they got hurt, they wouldn’t tell me, letting injuries heal on their own, but without proper bandaging, arms can heal crooked.”
“I’m not a child anymore,” Mu Sui said.
“They can still heal crooked.” As if remembering the past, Meng Ruji’s expression revealed a trace of nostalgia. “My Five Guardians were especially stubborn and tough, just like you…”
Mu Sui’s lips tightened: “Were you this good to every child?”
“Hm?”
The question came suddenly. Meng Ruji looked up at Mu Sui, and before she could answer, Mu Sui continued with a series of questions: “Would you bandage them, get this close to them, and be with them under moonlight like this?”
As he spoke, he stepped closer to Meng Ruji.
They were already close, and Mu Sui’s advance compressed the distance even further, forcing Meng Ruji to stop her bandaging motion. One injured arm and two of Meng Ruji’s hands holding the “bandages” were all pressed against their chests.
Meng Ruji instinctively stepped back, but Mu Sui moved forward again.
Until Meng Ruji’s back pressed against the damp earthen wall of the pit. With nowhere left to retreat, Meng Ruji stopped, and so did Mu Sui.
A sense of oppression and hidden intimacy filled the deep mountain pit.
Mu Sui stared at her like a beast eyeing its prey.
“Are you this good to everyone?”
Meng Ruji blinked, emerging from her brief bewilderment. She disliked this kind of proximity and pressure, so she pressed her fingers together into a palm and placed her fingertips against Mu Sui’s forehead: “Stop right there!”
She pushed against Mu Sui’s forehead, tilting his head back slightly, then continued applying pressure until Mu Sui began stepping backward.
When they reached an appropriate distance, Meng Ruji withdrew her hand and looked at Mu Sui: “What kind of baseless jealousy are you having?”
This calm rebuke and rejection brought Mu Sui back to his senses. Mu Sui touched his forehead where Meng Ruji had pushed him, only then realizing that his behavior just now had indeed seemed like baseless jealousy.
Whether Meng Ruji was good to others or not, whether she had been this close to other people, whether she had stood under similar moonlight with others – what did any of this have to do with him?
He only wanted to know how to use that Inner Core.
Mu Sui lowered his head, pressed his lips together, and thought to himself: It’s all because of this life-sustaining object’s fate binding him. In that moment just now, he wasn’t himself.
Meng Ruji continued bandaging the final section of Mu Sui’s “bandage.” She said, “If you hadn’t cushioned my fall, you wouldn’t have broken your hand. I’m just returning a favor.”
Meng Ruji tied a knot on the finished bandage, then looped the bandage around and hung it on his neck.
“I’m not good to everyone. For instance, that pit-digging rabbit of yours – it makes me want to eat roasted rabbit meat right now.”
As soon as she finished speaking, a strange wind suddenly blew through the deep pit.
Meng Ruji’s hair stirred, and she keenly detected the direction the wind came from – at the bottom of the pit, in a corner below, there was a dog-hole-sized opening. The tunnel entrance was pitch black, barely visible in the weak moonlight.