Cheng Mingjiao was silent for a long while before saying, “You might have neurasthenia.”
One of the symptoms of neurasthenia was sensitivity to sound. Even the faintest noise could seem unbearably loud.
Zhang Xiyue pretended not to hear his baseless diagnosis.
The two of them did not speak again.
As expected, the temperature in the mountains dropped. Fortunately, the raincoat kept them warm enough that they did not end up shivering in the cold of June.
Zhang Xiyue had no idea when she fell asleep. She only knew that she was warm now.
More than warm, in fact. She was actually a little hot.
…Hot?
Zhang Xiyue’s eyelashes trembled. It took her a long while to struggle her eyes open.
The starry sky, the mountain forest, the hanging vines… and an Emperor burning with fever.
“Mr. Cheng, Mr. Cheng!”
Zhang Xiyue sat up and grabbed Cheng Mingjiao by the arm, shaking him vigorously. When he showed no sign of waking, she steeled herself and raised her hand high—
That was when Cheng Mingjiao opened his eyes.
Zhang Xiyue: “…Were you pretending?”
Cheng Mingjiao gazed at her silently, his eyes glistening with a pitiful sheen. Clearly, he had not understood what she was saying.
Zhang Xiyue lowered her hand. “Mr. Cheng, you have a fever.”
Cheng Mingjiao finally caught on. “You were going to hit me?”
Zhang Xiyue immediately denied it. “No.”
He was weak, but he still managed to accuse her. “I saw you raise your hand.”
“I was going to feel your forehead.” To prove she was not lying, Zhang Xiyue quickly touched his brow. “You have a fever. Did you know that?”
“I can feel it…” Cheng Mingjiao closed his eyes. His voice was terribly hoarse, and even his back, propped against the tree, seemed to have gone numb.
Although the champion of the underage division in wilderness survival had not been of much use during this particular wilderness survival challenge, as long as he was up and about, Zhang Xiyue had not been too worried about getting lost deep in the mountains.
But now that the healthy, lively Emperor had turned into a feeble, half-dead sick chicken, all the worries she had been forcing down suddenly sprang up like weeds.
When Cheng Mingjiao opened his eyes again, he found himself staring straight into Zhang Xiyue’s worried gaze.
The air suddenly grew a little quiet.
Zhang Xiyue held it in for a long time, but in the end she could not stop herself from anxiously reminding him, “Mr. Cheng, whatever you do, don’t die.”
When she was silent, it was one thing. But whenever she opened her mouth, she said something so unpleasant.
Cheng Mingjiao refused to speak to her.
Zhang Xiyue was already used to his moods, which changed from sweet to savage without warning. After setting the raincoat aside, she sat down beside him again.
“Cover…” Cheng Mingjiao reminded her.
“I’m not covering up anymore. You need to cool down.”
His lips moved. He seemed to want to say something, but no words came out.
Zhang Xiyue understood what he meant and casually declared her loyalty. “I’m not covering up either. I’m going to live and die alongside Mr. Cheng.”
Empty sweet talk.
Honeyed words.
A silver tongue.
Cheng Mingjiao had a whole string of idioms ready for her, but he was too tired and sleepy. In the end, he could only repeat them over and over in his dreams.
He did not sleep well. In a daze, he felt someone touching the back of his neck and heard her murmur in distress, wondering why his fever had not gone down yet.
Listening to her voice, he finally sank into a deep sleep.
The long night ended when the sunlight pierced the darkness. When Cheng Mingjiao woke, all he saw was a stretch of soft fabric.
It took him a long moment to realize that it was the clothing Zhang Xiyue was wearing.
He had actually spent the entire night resting his head on her thigh and holding her around the waist.
Zhang Xiyue was still asleep when she suddenly felt the weight lift from her leg.
The instant the stone pressing down on her nerves was moved away, the blood began to circulate again, and a wave of pins and needles surged through her leg.
She let out a soft groan and woke. When she saw Cheng Mingjiao, she paused, then reached out and touched his forehead.
“You’re still running a fever.” She furrowed her brows, looking rather troubled.
The sensation of her palm and the gentle lilt of her voice briefly pulled Cheng Mingjiao back into last night’s dream.
He was certain the fever had addled his brain. All of a sudden, he shook his head hard.
A minute later, dizzy and light-headed, Cheng Mingjiao stubbornly moved over to a tree. The moment he leaned against it, he let out a long breath of relief.
“…So why were you shaking your head for no reason?” Zhang Xiyue asked helplessly.
Cheng Mingjiao gave her a vague look. His throat felt burning hot, and he refused to speak.
Knowing he was uncomfortable, Zhang Xiyue stopped teasing him and made a circuit around the nearby area by herself.
This was a completely unfamiliar environment.
The vegetation was tangled and chaotic, the direction impossible to make out. There was no water, no food, and even the traces of the path they had taken the day before had vanished.
Zhang Xiyue didn’t dare go too far. After familiarizing herself with the surroundings, she hurried back.
Cheng Mingjiao had been watching her silently ever since she left. When he saw her return, he wordlessly turned his gaze away.
“Given our current situation, it’s basically impossible to retrace our steps along the path we took before. But I have a new idea. It might help us find our way back.” She sounded rather pleased as she shared it.
Cheng Mingjiao was still running a low fever, and his whole body felt limp and languid. “What idea?”
Zhang Xiyue: “Climb a tree.”
Cheng Mingjiao: “?”
Zhang Xiyue: “I’ll take your phone and climb to the top of a tree. Maybe I’ll be able to pick up a signal, and then I can call for help directly—”
Before she could finish, Cheng Mingjiao handed over the phone, which had already gone black and shut down in the early hours of the morning.
“It’s out of battery,” Zhang Xiyue said, smoothly changing tack. “Then Plan B. I’ll climb a tree to determine the direction and location of our camp, and we can walk straight back. How about that?”
Cheng Mingjiao closed his eyes. “Not a bad idea.”
Zhang Xiyue’s eyes lit up. “Then…”
“First, you’d need to be light as a feather and capable of climbing to the very highest treetop without any other branches blocking your view. Second, you’d need the stamina of a bull, since you’d have to climb another tree every so often to confirm your position and make sure you hadn’t gone off course. And finally, you’d need the climbing skills of a monkey, so you could move freely without any tools despite the moss covering the trunks.”
Cheng Mingjiao’s voice grew raspier and raspier, like a burned-out fire, its ashes covering the dying embers beneath.
The steadily rising sun shone over the hillside. As the light shifted, the surroundings grew so quiet that not even a bird called.
It took him a while to recover before he realized that Zhang Xiyue had been silent for quite some time.
Cheng Mingjiao’s lashes trembled. Before he could open his eyes to see her expression, she slipped something round into his mouth.
The taste of lemon instantly spread across his tongue. The sweet-and-sour flavor stimulated his saliva, finally soothing his throat, which had felt as though it were burning.
He stared blankly at Zhang Xiyue, who responded with a gentle smile.
“Your get-out-of-death pass,” she said, popping one into her own mouth as well.
Cheng Mingjiao’s lips moved, but he said nothing.
Zhang Xiyue sighed and sat down beside him again. “Climbing the tree is out of the question, so all we can do is wait here for rescue. I wonder what Dr. Liang and the others are doing right now. Have they realized we’re missing?”
Cheng Mingjiao was fairly certain. “Of course they have. Just wait. Rescue will be here soon.”
Zhang Xiyue nodded and waited with him.
His phone was dead, so there was no way to check the time. Fortunately, Cheng Mingjiao had plenty of wilderness survival experience and could estimate the time from the sun’s position.
When the sun climbed halfway into the sky, Cheng Mingjiao finished his candy.
When the sun reached its zenith, the lemon flavor in his mouth disappeared.
When the sun was about to set, Cheng Mingjiao’s fever finally broke. His muscles still ached, though, and he looked utterly listless.
Yet the rescuers still hadn’t arrived.
As a new night descended, Cheng Mingjiao’s expression grew darker and darker. Finally, after sulking for half a day, he said coldly, “They never called for rescue at all!”
“How could they not have? Lanlan Mountain is huge, so it probably just takes time to search the area. Be patient,” Zhang Xiyue coaxed.
Cheng Mingjiao remained certain. “They didn’t call for help.”
Zhang Xiyue couldn’t understand how he could be so sure. She was just about to comfort him again when she suddenly remembered something.
“Our car is in the parking lot.”
Cheng Mingjiao lifted his eyelids.
Zhang Xiyue stared at him in a daze. “All of their cars are at the campsite, but ours is in the parking lot!”
Cheng Mingjiao immediately understood what she meant.
Considering his reputation among his friends, the moment Liang Xiao and the others realized the two of them were missing, their first thought would definitely be that Cheng Mingjiao disliked the camping conditions and had gone home early.
The parking lot was a considerable distance from the campsite. As long as Liang Xiao and the others didn’t specifically go there to take a look, they would never realize that the car was still there and that its occupants hadn’t left.
But who would go all the way to the parking lot for no reason?
Once the two of them understood this, they fell silent.
After a long while, Zhang Xiyue ventured, “Um… Once they realized you were missing, they’d at least call you, right?”
Cheng Mingjiao: “Mm.”
Zhang Xiyue still refused to give up. “If you didn’t answer, wouldn’t they think something had happened to you?”
Cheng Mingjiao: “They’d think that was perfectly normal.”
After all, he often ignored their calls.
Zhang Xiyue took a deep breath. “Is there really not even the slightest chance that they’d connect the dots, realize something had happened to you, mobilize all their contacts to search for you, and then discover that you hadn’t actually come down from the mountain and immediately call for rescue?”
Cheng Mingjiao: “The longest I’ve ever unilaterally cut them off was seventy-three days.”
Zhang Xiyue: “...”
Perhaps the despair on her face was simply too obvious. Cheng Mingjiao thought for a moment, then said, “In my experience of cutting them off, if they can’t get through to me for more than three days in a row, they’ll come looking for me at the company or at home. Even if they don’t, once something comes up at the office on Monday that requires my decision, Li Dong and the others will contact me.”
Tomorrow was Monday.
That answer eased Zhang Xiyue’s mind a little.
Cheng Mingjiao lifted the raincoat, and she immediately scooted in beside him.
The raincoat covered their bodies, but it couldn’t cover the growling of her stomach.
“We have three candies left.” Zhang Xiyue hadn’t expected the candy she’d brought to coax Cheng Mingjiao to become their emergency rations instead. “Want one?”
Cheng Mingjiao rubbed his stomach. “Let’s save them until help arrives.”
Zhang Xiyue figured that since tomorrow was Monday, there was no need to make herself suffer. But after thinking it over, she decided to listen to him.
The night passed, and Monday came.
No one came to rescue them.
Zhang Xiyue and Cheng Mingjiao waited through the entire day, then used the same raincoat to keep warm again that night.
“They should have realized we’re missing by now, right?” she asked softly.
Cheng Mingjiao remained confident in his friends and employees. “Mm.”
Zhang Xiyue let out a quiet breath. “Good.”
She was drowsy and, without realizing it, edged closer into Cheng Mingjiao’s arms.
Cheng Mingjiao stiffened slightly, then instinctively wrapped an arm around her shoulders, keeping them from slipping out of the raincoat if they both fell asleep.
Yes, hypothermia was dangerous, so they had to do everything they could to prevent it.
His expression was solemn as he tightened his hold a little.
Another night passed, and Tuesday came.
Still, no one came to rescue them.
The last three candies had long since been eaten. Drawing on his extensive wilderness survival experience, Cheng Mingjiao found a little fresh water, some nonpoisonous wild greens, and a few fruits that were absurdly sour.
Zhang Xiyue was already dizzy and seeing stars. She barely managed to drink a couple of sips of water to stave off her hunger. The wild greens and fruit were simply too awful, and after trying one bite, she set them aside.
Cheng Mingjiao was deeply displeased.
“The most important thing right now is maintaining your vital signs, not being picky about the taste. Zhang Xiyue, you need to understand what takes priority.”
Zhang Xiyue really couldn’t eat another bite. She silently shook her head.
“No. You have to eat.” Cheng Mingjiao’s tone was firm.
A sudden wave of irritation rose in Zhang Xiyue. She forced herself to suppress it and glanced at him.
Cheng Mingjiao was taken aback by the look. He turned away and said nothing.
Zhang Xiyue knew he was angry again.
But she had no energy to placate him, and she didn’t want to, either.
She had inexplicably transmigrated into this awful novel world, inexplicably gone through all this trouble just to get home, and in the end, the progress of winning over the yandere male supporting character was still stuck at zero—while she was about to starve to death in another world.
How could she possibly be in the mood to coax him? Besides…
A faint crunching sound came from Cheng Mingjiao’s side. She didn’t need to think to know he was eating the fruit.
Apparently, he didn’t need coaxing after all.
Zhang Xiyue was silent for a moment, then tried to numb her hunger with sleep.
It was hard to fall asleep when you were starving. She struggled for a long time, and just as she was finally beginning to feel drowsy, Cheng Mingjiao suddenly spoke.
“Zhang Xiyue.”
“…What?” she asked, opening her eyes in exasperation.
In the moonlight, Cheng Mingjiao held out a fruit with a bite taken from it. “This one isn’t sour.”
Zhang Xiyue paused, noticing the fruit pits scattered beside him.
He must have taken a bite out of every piece of fruit, picked out the sweetest one, and eaten all the rest so they wouldn’t go to waste.
Zhang Xiyue stared at the fruit in his hand for a long while before saying, “About earlier… I’m sorry.”
“You should be sorry,” Cheng Mingjiao said, tilting his chin up arrogantly as he coldly listed her offenses. “You were ungrateful, threw a tantrum, and glared at me.”
Zhang Xiyue laughed. “I’ll reluctantly admit to the first and third, but I don’t think I threw a tantrum.”
Cheng Mingjiao: “You did.”
Zhang Xiyue: “Hm?”
Cheng Mingjiao: “You threw one inside your head.”
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
They’d been starving for three days, and the Emperor was still being difficult.
That was a good sign.
When he saw her fall silent again, Cheng Mingjiao looked displeased, but he still lifted his raincoat and motioned for her to sit a little closer.
Zhang Xiyue moved over.
“Once it’s light, we’ll look for a way out again,” Cheng Mingjiao said.
“Yesterday, you said it would be best to stay put and wait for rescue.”
He’d said that staying put would conserve their strength, help them avoid secondary dangers, and make it easier for rescuers to locate them.
“In theory, yes.” Cheng Mingjiao looked deeply conflicted. “But there’s been no sign of rescue. We can’t just sit here and wait to die.”
Zhang Xiyue was quiet for a moment, then decided he had a point.
Looking for a way out involved taking a gamble, but compared with waiting helplessly in the same place, at least it gave them another possibility.
Zhang Xiyue went to sleep early and, full of anticipation, made it to Wednesday morning.
They had already been in the mountains for three and a half days.
It had only been three and a half days, yet Zhang Xiyue felt as though an entire lifetime had passed. The hunger, thirst, and weakness had left her desperate to return to human civilization.
As for the yandere, the mission, and the real world—she didn’t want to think about any of them anymore. All she wanted was to leave Lanlan Mountain alive and eat a proper meal.
She woke just as dawn began to break.
Cheng Mingjiao was still asleep, his brows tightly knit and his lashes trembling as though he were having a nightmare.
Zhang Xiyue woke him.
Cheng Mingjiao struggled to open his eyes, but his brows remained furrowed.
“You look terrible,” Zhang Xiyue said.
Cheng Mingjiao: “…Let’s go.”
He braced himself against the tree and managed to stand. Then he bent down to pick up the raincoat, but the moment he lowered his head, he swayed lightly from side to side.
“Are you all right?” Zhang Xiyue hurriedly caught him, only to discover that his lips were deathly pale.
Cheng Mingjiao slowly exhaled a breath of warm air. “I’m fine.”
That was what he said, but his right hand was clamped tightly over his stomach.
“Does your stomach hurt?” Zhang Xiyue asked hesitantly. “Could it be those fruits from yesterday…?”
“The fruit was fine,” Cheng Mingjiao declared with absolute confidence. He had won first place in the under-twelve division of an outdoor survival competition, after all.
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
If the Emperor said there was nothing wrong, then she supposed there was nothing wrong.
After waiting for him to recover a little, Zhang Xiyue helped him forward.
“I really am fine,” Cheng Mingjiao emphasized again.
Zhang Xiyue smiled. “Of course you are.”
Realizing that she didn’t believe him, Cheng Mingjiao began sulking again.
Zhang Xiyue pretended not to notice. Supporting him, she walked with him in fits and starts, trying to find a path that looked familiar.
The sun climbed slowly higher into the sky. The coolness of night and early morning was driven away by the sunlight, but the moisture, warmed by the heat, lingered stubbornly. Before long, the entire mountain forest had turned into a steamer.
Cheng Mingjiao’s complexion grew worse and worse. At last, while passing through a patch of wild grass, he collapsed uncontrollably.
He looked thin, but he had a high proportion of muscle. When he hit the ground with a heavy thud, Zhang Xiyue couldn’t hold him up and fell down with him.
More precisely, he fell to the ground, while Zhang Xiyue landed on top of him.
They both let out a muffled groan. Zhang Xiyue was fine, but Cheng Mingjiao looked somewhat dead.
Zhang Xiyue hurriedly climbed off him. “Mr. Cheng, are you all right?”
“I…” Cheng Mingjiao had just managed to make a sound when he suddenly fixed his eyes on something in the distance and went still.
Following his gaze, Zhang Xiyue saw a round-faced tabby cat.
The little thief.
The little tabby wasn’t afraid of people. After glancing at them, it went back to playing with its own tail.
“Mr. Cheng…” Zhang Xiyue lowered her voice.
“Follow it. It can lead us back,” Cheng Mingjiao said.
Zhang Xiyue nodded. When the little tabby had finished playing and was about to leave, she immediately went to pull Cheng Mingjiao up.
His face had grown even paler. Even with her help, he couldn’t get to his feet after several attempts, and his breathing became increasingly labored.
“I can’t go on,” he panted. After steeling himself, he made a decision. “You go. Remember to call for help.”
Zhang Xiyue turned around and walked away.
Cheng Mingjiao: “?”
He had been the one to tell her to leave, but hadn’t she gone a little too quickly?
She hadn’t even hesitated for a moment.
As he watched her figure disappear among the tangled tree shadows, the entire deserted mountain was reduced to the sound of his own breathing. Cheng Mingjiao’s lips moved, as though he wanted to say something, but not a single word came out.
Forget it.
He lay on his back, letting the mountain forest swallow him up… swallow him up…
The sound of footsteps gradually drew nearer.
Cheng Mingjiao opened his eyes at once. In his upside-down field of vision, Zhang Xiyue was running toward him.
“Mr. Cheng, you have to hold on. We’ll leave together,” she said as she pulled him up with all her strength once again.
Acting on instinct, Cheng Mingjiao exerted all his strength as well. With her help, he finally stood. Zhang Xiyue immediately draped his arm over her shoulder and half-carried, half-supported him as they moved forward.
“You…” He was stunned for a long while before managing to utter a single syllable.
Zhang Xiyue glanced at him. “Mr. Cheng, you absolutely have to hang in there. The little tabby is waiting for us just ahead.”
His lips moved. After a long pause, he finally asked, “Why?”
Why?
Why was she waiting for him?
There were countless reasons Zhang Xiyue had done it.
Because the little tabby kept stopping and starting, moving so slowly that she felt she could probably catch up even with deadweight in tow.
Because she couldn’t be sure the little tabby would definitely lead her out. If they got separated and she still ended up lost, that would be true despair.
Because he looked as though he might die at any moment. She was afraid he wouldn’t survive until she could bring people to rescue him. If that happened, she would never be able to win over the male supporting character in this lifetime—and she would never be able to leave this world.
Zhang Xiyue had countless reasons for doing what she did, but she said only one thing:
“Because I don’t want to leave you behind.”
Cheng Mingjiao stared at her sweat-damp profile, lost in thought, when a tremendous roar suddenly rang out.
It was only when the little tabby cat playing with leaves ahead of them arched its fur in alarm, spun around, and leapt into the grass that Cheng Mingjiao realized the deafening sound had not come from his own heart.
As a sudden gale whipped around them, the two of them looked up and saw more than a dozen red helicopters. The people aboard were highly trained and were using instruments to search the area.
The commotion was so great that all of Lanlan Mountain could feel it. No wonder Cheng Mingjiao had been so certain earlier that no rescue team was coming.
Watching the helicopters, Zhang Xiyue was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of having narrowly escaped disaster—
Thank goodness she had come back to look for him.
She didn’t dare imagine what the Emperor would have done afterward if she hadn’t returned.
