Dead Cannon Fodder
Yingshi tried hard to recall the memories she had only recently integrated. Combining them with the descriptions in "I See Frost and Snow," she finally realized that the uninvited guest before her was a minor cannon fodder from the early stages of the novel, named Sun Xuanyi.
He was born into a wealthy family in the mortal world and had no talent for cultivation, but thanks to his family's massive bribes, he was sent into the inner sect of the Cloud Water Sect.
However, he couldn't fit into the cultivation environment of the inner sect. He usually just liked to hang around with the outer sect disciples, seeking a sense of superiority among those who also had poor aptitude and whose status was far beneath his.
Among the outer sect disciples, the male lead—a pretty boy with an excellent appearance who refused to kiss his boots—naturally became a massive eyesore to him.
Usually, Sun Xuanyi would often cause trouble for the male lead. After accidentally seeing his secret crush, Xu Yingshi, smiling sweetly at the male lead, he became even more furious and led a group of lackeys to continuously bully him.
This time, Han Shuangjian was severely injured and picked up by the Yingshi of the novel to be cared for in the thatched cottage, precisely because of the teasing and oppression by this bullying gang.
The Cloud Water Sect was, after all, not a proper, high-end, prestigious major sect; it had quite a few gray areas internally.
Looking at it from a modern perspective, the sect's teaching staff was average, and the quality of students was poor. Masters and disciples gathered here only because they had no other choices.
The group led by Sun Xuanyi gave off the pure vibe of little hooligans messing around in a vocational college.
Seeing this person standing there dumbly, Yingshi's face turned cold. She immediately put her hands on her hips, blocked the front of the straw stack, and angrily said, "What do you think you are? Who allowed you to barge in?"
"...Sister Yingshi, I..."
Sun Xuanyi's face turned red and white. He mumbled for a long time, not knowing how to explain. Out of embarrassment and anger, he could only glare again at Han Shuangjian, who was leaning back on the bed coughing. "I heard from his roommate that Han Shuangjian hasn't returned to his room since last night. It seemed he fled to this cabin to avoid cultivation. I just wanted to take him back. I never expected you to be here..."
"Who is your sister? Are we that close?" Seeing that he still dared to widen his bull-like eyes to threaten Han Shuangjian, Yingshi grew even angrier. She grabbed the broom leaning against the foot of the straw bed and swung it at Sun Xuanyi. "Get out!"
"Hey! Sister Yingshi... Senior Sister Yingshi, don't be hasty!" Sun Xuanyi slowly recovered from his initial embarrassment. He wasn't a thin-skinned person to begin with, so he immediately backed away with a forced smile. "I'm close friends with Brother Xiaoran. His sister is naturally my sister. If you don't like it, I just won't call you that anymore..."
The Xiaoran he mentioned was Xu Xiaoran, Xu Yingshi's biological brother in the novel's setting and the son of the Cloud Water Sect's Sect Master.
Birds of a feather flock together; this cheap brother of hers was naturally also an incompetent good-for-nothing.
"If Brother Xiaoran saw you lowering yourself to care for another man in this godforsaken place, he would probably be angry..." Sun Xuanyi kept talking. "And the Sect Master too. When I came over, I heard that the Sect Master seemed to be looking for you!"
While he was speaking, Yingshi had already forced him completely out of the thatched cottage with the broom. Sun Xuanyi hunched over and brushed the weeds off his chest, his expression extremely ingratiating.
Originally, seeing Yingshi angry, he really felt a bit humiliated and scared.
But now, seeing that Yingshi was clearly red in the face with anger but still refused to attack him, only driving him away with a broom, it felt almost like a flirtatious sort of tenderness...
Could it be that Yingshi also had some feelings for him?
Otherwise, with her cultivation level, if she really wanted to teach him a lesson, she would have beaten the crap out of him long ago!
Sun Xuanyi's heart beat a little faster. He hurriedly looked up into those eyes that seemingly brimmed with disdain and anger, increasingly feeling that there was a deep-seated adoration waiting for him to uncover!
Mustering his courage, he snatched the broom and reached out to grab Yingshi's hand—so white, so small, so soft, as if it were born to be toyed with by him...
"Are you still hanging around here because you can't understand human speech?!" Yingshi felt this person was incredibly annoying. She naturally wanted to teach this cannon fodder a good lesson, but she had only just transmigrated not long ago and didn't even know how to use spiritual energy.
Although her body had an instinct and there was a rough impression in her memory, when she tried to mimic it, she felt as if there was a thin membrane separating her will and spiritual energy. The more anxious she got in the short term, the less she could break through that membrane.
Seeing Sun Xuanyi's attitude gradually growing bolder, even trying to pull her hand, Yingshi felt anger rush to her heart and hastily took two steps back—
"...Close your eyes, follow the meridians and go with the flow..."
She didn't know how that weak voice from behind her ear was sent into her mind, but Yingshi subconsciously obeyed.
Chun Ri
She closed her eyes, as if seeing a small black figure identical to herself appear in her mind.
At this moment, golden lines were flowing within the small figure's body. They moved extremely fast and were quite restless, ready to spray out at any moment!
"Smack—"
The broom that had been snatched by Sun Xuanyi was swept back into the air by a sudden gust of wind. In the next instant, it thrust fiercely toward the dumbfounded man like a sharp sword, pointing straight at his neck and shoulder!
"Ah!"
Sun Xuanyi cried out in alarm and turned sideways to dodge, but his movements were too slow. The blunt, thick end of the broom actually pierced through the clothes on his shoulder and forcefully pinned him to a tree several steps away. His body collided with the trunk, making a heavy thud.
After his back violently slammed into the tree, Sun Xuanyi fell to the ground in a sorry state, and the broom that caused all this dropped beside him... Everything happened so fast that the pain he felt was secondary; the main thing was shock!
He clutched his shoulder and looked up in a panic, finally realizing that the emotion in Yingshi's eyes was definitely not flirtatious anger; it was the purest disgust and fury!
Meanwhile, Yingshi, who had somehow managed to use her spiritual energy, only felt that her entire arm was numb. It was as if she had accidentally hit her funny bone, but it came with a much greater sense of exhilaration.
Her hand beneath her sleeve trembled non-stop, but she tried hard to put on an experienced, stern expression. After quietly swallowing, she warned in a deep voice, "Get out!"
This time, Sun Xuanyi finally scrambled away, crawling and rolling, without saying another word of nonsense.
Yingshi calmed her breathing, deeply understanding a truth: in the cultivation world, one could only speak with their fists.
When she couldn't show her strength, even if she was the daughter of the Sect Master, her harsh words carried no weight.
The smell of blood permeating the air pulled her consciousness back. Yingshi intuitively felt something was wrong and hurriedly rushed back to the thatched cottage, only to see that Han Shuangjian's face had grown even paler, and a trail of fresh blood was indeed trickling from the corner of his lips.
"What happened?!" Yingshi turned pale with fright. For a moment, she even wondered if the spiritual energy she had just haphazardly used had split into two paths.
Why would Han Shuangjian, who hadn't joined the battlefield at all, suddenly turn into this pitiful state of deteriorating health?
She then remembered the guidance she heard during her confrontation with Sun Xuanyi. At that time, Han Shuangjian's voice already seemed extremely weak...
"...It's nothing. I just need to rest quietly for a moment."
Shuangjian wiped the blood from the corner of his lips with a handkerchief. He raised his eyes to look at her, a fraction of strength returning to his voice.
"Why did your condition suddenly worsen? Could it be..."
Yingshi looked down at the "remains" of the medicine bowl on the floor and the dried-up medicine stains, feeling a prickle of guilt down her spine.
The original owner of her body had brewed that medicine for Shuangjian, and she had spilled it. What if it had been a life-saving remedy?
Just by following the direction of her gaze, Shuangjian knew exactly what she was thinking. He immediately shook his head to comfort her, "It has nothing to do with you. I was just a little anxious a moment ago and accidentally triggered my old injuries."
He wasn't lying.
He was genuinely anxious.
Ever since Yingshi moved further away from him, ever since her gaze shifted to someone else's face, ever since her scent faded from the thatched hut, he could feel those threads slowly binding him once again—he was going to become a controlled puppet once more!
That feeling of being tightly bound could have been ignored before, but when it returned after being interrupted for a while, it became exceptionally unbearable.
He was still leaning back on the straw bed, maintaining the exact same posture as when Yingshi had spoken to him earlier, but his soul felt as if it were shrinking, completely imprisoned.
Even though he had confirmed it long ago, at that moment, Shuangjian realized once again that every "deviation" symbolizing freedom was tied to Yingshi.
Only to her.
Talking with her, interacting with her, even the lingering of her gaze or the proximity of her body, could bring him back to life.
He could not let go of this opportunity that had finally been granted to him after three reincarnations... He absolutely could not!
Han Shuangjian stared intently at the scene outside the hut, watching Yingshi confront Sun Xuanyi.
This was a plotline that had never occurred in his previous lives, a passage that did not belong in the "novel." After being cut off from Yingshi's influence, he couldn't even manage to actively participate in it.
The taste of blood slowly seeped into his mouth, and he could feel his vision gradually blurring. A bowstring seemed to be drawn tight at his temples, threatening to bring unbearable agony when it snapped...
"...Close your eyes, follow the flow of the meridians..."
When he spoke those words, his mouth was already a bloody mess. His vision was pitch black, and the meridians in his body were in chaotic turmoil, as if trying to make his body explode—fighting against the chains that bound his limbs and sealed his nose and mouth came with a heavy price.
But he knew that Yingshi did not know how to use spiritual power; she would have a hard time dealing with Sun Xuanyi's relentless pestering.
He wasn't even sure if he had spoken the words out loud, or if Yingshi could truly hear him and understand.
His brain felt as if it had been struck by a heavy iron hammer, the sharp pain excruciating. Accompanied by overwhelming dizziness, the threads wrapped around his body seemed to tighten further as if provoked, so tight they were about to sever his limbs...
"What's going on?!"
It was Yingshi's voice.
So clear, so close.
The iron hammer vanished, and the threads snapped.
Shuangjian opened his eyes, his vision restoring to clarity. He looked as if he had just narrowly escaped death, coughing up a mouthful of blood.
No one knew the myriad of twists and turns he had just experienced in his heart.
He merely stared into Yingshi's eyes, seeing his own reflection within them, and said lightly, "I am fine."
"...If you took your medicine, you would definitely feel a bit better. How about I go brew you a bowl right now?"
Yingshi was deeply worried. As she spoke, she turned to leave, wanting to make amends.
"There is no need!" Shuangjian's voice was uncharacteristically loud. He had stopped her a bit too anxiously, and realizing this himself, he quickly covered it up, "I really am much better, Yingshi, you do not need to worry... Staying here all by myself makes me feel unbearably lonely. I just want to talk to you."
Yingshi could completely understand this feeling.
In this strange world, she and Shuangjian only had each other to rely on; it was best to stick together! Not to mention, the two of them, as fellow transmigrators, had barely exchanged a few words before being interrupted by irrelevant people.
She hadn't even properly introduced the plot to Shuangjian yet!
After observing that Shuangjian really did seem much better—his breathing was steady, his coughing had eased, and he didn't look like he was in any serious danger—she quickly nodded and grabbed his sleeves with both hands. "By the way, thank goodness you taught me how to use spiritual power just now! Otherwise, I would have been taken advantage of by that dead cannon fodder... How did you know how to use spiritual power?"
