Of Mountains and Rivers 25
Volume Two: The Other World
He Soon Discovered He Was Worrying Too Much. Nanshan Didn’t Let Him Fall; Instead, He Caught Him Into His Embrace.
Chu Huan may have picked up some psychological traumas from his previous fall; the moment he fell from the horse, his mind, which had been wandering between senselessness and lucidity, responded by sharpening under the immense stress.
Making use of this moment, Chu Huan was scared witless as he recalled that time. Did I jump again?
Only after remembering he hadn’t did he let out a sigh of relief and continued falling with a clear conscience.
Although the left side of Chu Huan’s body was failing, he still tried to fine-tune his posture to prevent himself from breaking his neck or dying in some other shameful way when he landed.
But he soon discovered he was worrying too much. Nanshan didn’t let him fall; instead, he caught him into his embrace.
Nanshan’s palms were warm and stable, bringing a strong sense of security, but this sense of security couldn’t soothe Chu Huan’s current mood. He felt extremely gloomy, unable to accept that each time he appeared before Nanshan it’d be in such unheroic ways.
The stigma that he was stabbed by a branch still hadn’t washed away yet!
With a ‘hu-la’, several clans-people surrounded them. Xiao Fang’s expression was extremely serious; Chu Huan wasn’t sure how crappy he looked right now, but judging from Xiao Fang’s expression, it appeared he was going to (1) fly a crane to the Western Paradise soon – this big brother stretched out a slightly trembling hand to check Chu Huan’s breathing.
Chu Huan strenuously raised his right arm; he weakly hung it over the other’s wrist and shook it. “I’m still breathing.”
The clans-people immediately exploded. Chu Huan heard them begin discussing in low voices.
“How can he still move?”
“Didn’t the Patriarch say he didn’t receive the ‘ritual’?”
“Ankarayiye, what’s the meaning of this?”
Nanshan couldn’t bear it anymore, so he softly said, “Shut up. Why are you being so noisy?”
The clans-people were immediately silent.
Nanshan tore off the clothing covering Chu Huan’s blood-pasted wound. The wound had been sliced by Chu Huan, mutilating it to the point the original cut was almost indiscernible.
Nanshan frowned. He immediately clasped his arm and licked the wound.
Chu Huan was shocked. Common sense told him Nanshan had absolutely no bad intentions doing this, but common sense was also like a tiny boat; it was soon flooded by an ocean of irrationality. His heart was in a perilous situation. A thousand words clustered together and formed a stupid, “H-h-h-h-he licked- Licked me!”
This kind of lecherous reverie soon made Chu Huan feel a little dirty. It was quite unfortunate – he was a gentleman who infallibly believed himself to be a villain.
Seemingly wanting to avoid suspicion, Chu Huan subconsciously moved a little and strenuously used half of his disharmonised body to pull his arm away.
Nanshan tightly held his hand. Due to the numbness, Chu Huan wasn’t sure how much strength he was using, but he saw the veins on the back of his hands continuously undulate from the strain.
Nanshan’s expression was rarely this angry; he was almost spitting in anger as he glared up at Chu Huan and coldly said, “Stop moving around, do you want to die?”
Little Bald-Head’s father carried his wild child with one hand and moved closer worryingly. “What kind of wound is it? How is it?”
“Wind wound,” Nanshan replied. He untied a small bottle from his waist and moved it towards Chu Huan’s lips. “Open your mouth.”
This lead to Chu Huan almost choking. He thought it was some kind of herbal medicine; instead, what entered his mouth was warm and fishy, with a unique flavour of rusty iron – this was obviously a mouthful of blood!
And he didn’t know where the blood came from.
“Swallow it.” Nanshan pinched his chin, his hand’s strength completely unceremonious and almost forcibly pouring that mouthful of blood down Chu Huan’s throat.
His abnormal roughness repressed his anxiety. He was almost urgently forcing the blood down, his beautiful eyes appearing to have caught on fire and his long hair, that'd fallen whilst he hurried, covering Chu Huan.
Chu Huan immediately fell in a trance; within the flash of that moment, he thought: let’s not mention a mouthful of blood – even if Nanshan was choking me and feeding me a mouthful of (2) Upas poison, as long as the other looked at me with such wholehearted eyes…
Then, if Nanshan was willing to feed, he was willing to swallow.
Tut, he’s made an illustrious name this lifetime…
In the next moment, Nanshan embraced his shoulders with one hand and reached out for the back of his knees with the other.
Chu Huan could see what this movement meant and suddenly sobered from his lovey-dovey trance; he promptly stretched out his hand to the ground, cleverly avoiding Nanshan’s move to directly carry him. “Hey… Wait, wait, wait, wait, that- That, um, I- I-”
Nanshan interrupted him. “You don’t like it? Then I can carry you on my back.”
Chu Huan firmly rejected this suggestion. He spurned his vanity whilst exhausting his last bit of strength to staggeringly climb up.
Indeed, he’d already acknowledged that even heroes were weak for the charms of beauty, but the subject was still ‘heroes’ – if it was changed to ‘coward’, it’d no longer be proper!
Chu Huan the Hero succeeded with a heavy head and light feet, on the verge of collapse. Seeing this, Xiao Fang immediately rushed over, planning to let Chu Huan use him as a walking stick, but his heartfelt ‘Serve the People!’ intentions were immediately pinned to place by one of Nanshan’s glances.
Nanshan silently put Chu Huan’s uninjured arm around his neck before stretching out his hand and hovering it across Chu Huan’s back, modestly protecting him without touching him.
Chu Huan didn’t say a word even though the doubts in his heart had already arranged a (3) 3000 Whys of Blue Cat.
But at this time, he was completely relying on that one determined breath in his chest for support; afraid that if he opened his mouth the breath would dissipate if he opened his mouth, he could only suppress his doubts and continue walking inattentively.
Soon, his left arm, which had numbed to the point he couldn’t feel a single trace of touch, seemed to unlock – the toxicity should be fading.
But this wasn’t a good thing. As the numbness slightly withdrew, his wound, in addition to fragmented itchiness, suddenly felt as if ten-thousand ants were boring into the core; this feeling gradually spread from his wound to the rest of his body, not missing a single inch, ceaselessly lingering especially between his joints and almost making him want to roll around the floor.
With every step Chu Huan took, his bones felt as if countless numbers of bugs were meticulously gnawing into them.
Purple-black blood began flowing from his wound, but Chu Huan no longer had any strength to attend to it; the blood quickly dyed through his sleeve and dripped down to his hand.
His complexion was becoming increasingly more ugly and the cold sweat on his body began to accumulate, soaking through the wind jacket draped over him.
This was just detoxification and healing, so Chu Huan didn’t expect it’d lead to such a big disturbance – perhaps heroin withdrawal was nothing more than this.
Chu Huan’s body maintained an inertial stiffness; those who didn’t know would’ve thought he was standing with an indomitable spirit.
In the other Liyi Clans-people’s eyes, this scene and situation were almost shocking.
Everyone present understood the detoxification process; some had even, unfortunately, experienced it before. As for those who hadn’t experienced it before, every year they’d get an opportunity to see others experience it – the scene of men as strong as iron wailing in anguish as they rolled on the floor was a shadow in every Liyi Clans-people’s hearts.
It was said if one reached the peak of pain, they’d unhesitatingly slam their head on the wall; in the past, someone died in this way.
Chu Huan was deluded into thinking he was near-death and subconsciously reached out his hand to grasp whatever he could – he just happened to grip the Patriarch’s bald truncheon.
The top of the truncheon was still on fire. Afraid he’d burn himself, Nanshan gently pried open his fingers.
Chu Huan’s knuckles weren’t very prominent, so his fingers weren’t the type to have rings stubbornly fastened around them; after chafing against the rough truncheon, the ring on his finger suddenly fell and smashed against a rock with a clank.
Chu Huan’s heavy footsteps immediately stopped and his pupils suddenly shrank. “Chu… Chu Aiguo.”
His voice was deep and hoarse and his words were almost contained in his throat; Nanshan momentarily couldn’t hear him clearly. “What?”
Chu Huan: “Ring… Ri-”
The little venomous snake was quick to act according to the circumstance; it immediately slithered over and held the fallen ring in its mouth before flatteringly spitting it out to Nanshan.
The plain, platinum ring was warmed by someone’s body temperature; it seemed to hold an indescribable value.
Nanshan remembered once when he chatted with Chu Huan, the other had half-jokingly mentioned the ring’s role. His footsteps paused; he took the ring and handed it to Chu Huan.
Chu Huan immediately clenched it within his palm as if the thing that just dropped wasn’t a plain insignificant ring, but his soul.
Nanshan watched his subconscious reaction and was stupefied for a moment. Then – who knew what he thought of – his expression suddenly turned bleak.
Seeing his footsteps stop, Xiao Fang turned around in puzzlement. “Patriarch?”
Nanshan responded with a hum before lowering his eyes. The arm he’d been using to modestly protect Chu Huan behind his back wrapped around his waist. He half-supported, half-hugged Chu Huan back to the clan and resettled him at his own home.
Nobody was sure if it was an illusion, but at this time, the fog seemed to appear less dense.
Xiao Fang led the great white horse away to deal with its wounds with an aching heart whilst Nanshan sat on the edge of the bed. Although Chu Huan was unconscious, his hand still tightly clenched around the ring. Nanshan suddenly covered his own hand over it as if wanting to pry open his fingers.
However, this was just a feint move; Nanshan didn’t put it into practice.
His shoulders suddenly fell and he loosened his finger’s strength; in the end, he just gently stuffed Chu Huan’s hand under the quilt.
Then, Nanshan attentively watched Chu Huan and fell into a long daze.
By the time Chu Huan awoke, a day and night had already passed.
(1) Fly a crane to the Western Paradise – an idiom meaning ‘die’.
(2) Upas poison – the Upas tree (Antiaris) secretes juice that is known for its deadly toxicity.
(3) 3000 Whys of Blue Cat – an animated Chinese cartoon that educates children on a variety of scientific subjects.
