Chapter 12 Still Have to Endure Six Days

Chapter 12: Six More Days to Endure

Jun Xueyi was jolted half-awake by the cold, a chill that seeped into his bones, making him tremble. He hazily opened his eyes, but all he saw was an icy mist—blurry, indistinct, and beyond his grasp.

This cold spread from within, permeating his internal organs, meridians, and dantian, as if they were all sealed shut.

He slowly exhaled a cold breath, struggling to blink his eyes. Cold.

So cold.

So cold his teeth couldn't even chatter.

Suddenly, a flicker of warmth emanated from his chest, spreading from there to his very core. The instinct for survival made him desperately yearn to draw closer, to absorb more of this warmth.

So, stiffly, he reached out and clutched this palpable source of heat.

“Jun Xueyi!”

Jun Xueyi’s mind was muddled. Who was calling him?

No sooner had the thought formed than a dull ache shot through his chest, as if someone had landed a heavy blow.

This punch, too, was warm.

Like sunlight.

He couldn’t let go. He mustn’t.

Inside the Water-Repelling Pearl, Chu Ji was nearly suffocated by Jun Xueyi’s tight embrace.

He punched him, but instead of loosening his grip, Jun Xueyi pressed Chu Ji’s face against his own neck.

He hadn't noticed it through the clothes earlier, but now he felt that this person’s neck was colder than a corpse several days old.

Hard and icy.

Chu Ji tried to struggle, but Jun Xueyi’s hands were like ice, fused to him.

One hand pressed against his back, the other against his head.

Unable to push free, he resorted to fiercely kicking Jun Xueyi’s legs. “Jun Xueyi, let me go!”

“Let go!”

Reasoning with a dead man was impossible, and reasoning with Jun Xueyi was no different. Jun Xueyi’s legs pinned his down, leaving him no leverage to kick.

Truly…

He wanted to kill someone.

He channeled spiritual power, pushing Jun Xueyi away and sending him flying.

Chu Ji scrambled up from the ground and looked up. “Jun Xueyi, you—”

The figure blurred, moving too fast to track. Almost as soon as Chu Ji sat up, Jun Xueyi was before him again, pulling him tightly into an embrace.

Chu Ji couldn’t break free, so he resorted to his previous tactic, using spiritual power to blast him away.

This time, Jun Xueyi slammed directly into the Water-Repelling Pearl’s barrier. Chu Ji’s heart skipped a beat—*don’t die, our fates are intertwined these days.*

Seeing that Jun Xueyi hadn’t moved for a long while, Chu Ji hesitated but walked over. “Jun Xueyi, are you dead?”

The person on the ground slowly lifted his eyes, their glazed, foggy look indicating unconsciousness. Before Chu Ji could react, he was yanked down again.

Jun Xueyi maintained a possessive posture, half-sitting as he wrapped his limbs around Chu Ji, greedily absorbing the warmth from his body.

Almost immediately upon contact, he let out a contented sigh.

Chu Ji was forced to crane his neck as Jun Xueyi held him. He wanted to throw him off again but noticed frost patterns on Jun Xueyi’s jaw, where the mask didn’t cover.

He recalled examples he’d heard in the demon palace: cultivating extreme techniques was highly dependent on one’s physique. Ordinary people who forced themselves to practice such techniques would eventually suffer a backlash.

He stared hesitantly at these frost patterns. *Had Jun Xueyi suffered a backlash?*

*Wasn’t he the protagonist?*

*If the protagonist cultivated an extreme ice-based technique, it meant his physique was suited for it.*

But now these frost patterns glowed with an eerie cold.

*Perhaps Jun Xueyi was different. Protagonists always had something unique about them.*

*What if he was the type to force himself to cultivate an extreme technique in an attempt to defy destiny?*

*Those texts often said protagonists would defy heaven and change their destiny.*

*Would he die?*

*If he had to die, it had to be after seven days!*

*He didn’t want to be buried alongside Jun Xueyi, let alone die here.*

*Dark and desolate, with no one else but him and Jun Xueyi.*

*It gave him the unsettling feeling of being buried in the same coffin.*

*Too disgusting.*

Watching as the frost patterns on Jun Xueyi’s jaw grew deeper, spreading upward beneath his mask and extending down into his clothes.

Chu Ji reached out to rip off that damned mask. *Did he wear it all the time because he was too ugly to show his face? He wanted to see just how ugly Jun Xueyi was.*

He tried for a long time, but the mask didn’t budge.

He stared in shock. *The mask was actually fused to his face.*

He tried again with more force and noticed blood trickling from Jun Xueyi’s temple.

He imagined a bloody face appearing before him, as if tearing off the mask would rip Jun Xueyi’s skin off with it.

He paused. Jun Xueyi was holding him now. *If it really looked like that…*

*No, Jun Xueyi could be as ugly as hell, as long as it didn’t disgust him.*

*Forget it!*

He instead tried to pry open Jun Xueyi’s robes, but the embrace was too tight—there was no room to even try undoing his clothes.

“Jun Xueyi, ease up a little. I won’t throw you out.”

Whether it was the words or something else, Jun Xueyi indeed loosened his hold slightly, his hand still wrapped around his back, but at least it allowed him some movement.

Chu Ji used both hands to forcefully yank open the other's robes.

This person's chest was so pale it seemed to glow!

He really is a pretty boy.

…A fair face makes a pretty boy, but what do you call a fair body?

Before he could figure it out, a hand shoved him forward.

Chu Ji slammed face-first into Jun Xueyi's chest, his nose stinging from the impact. He struggled to turn his face and rub the tip of his nose, tears springing to his eyes from the impact. His face was numb from the cold, so he could only channel his cultivation technique to resist the chill.

"Jun Xueyi, I… are you stupid?"

No one answered him. Chu Ji's hands pressed against this chest, but they slid off.

He was startled to realize it wasn't that Jun Xueyi was so pale it gleamed—it was that a layer of frost had formed all over Jun Xueyi's body.

His face had gone numb from rubbing against it.

Not caring about anything else, he felt across Jun Xueyi's body, from chest to back, and found a thick layer of frost everywhere. In sudden humiliation, he shut his eyes. Fine, if he wants to hug, let him hug.

Just don't die.

Would holding him like this even help?

Should he channel some spiritual energy into Jun Xueyi's body?

Their energies were incompatible—what if it backfired?

Chu Ji was torn. He was here to kill, yet now he had to find a way to save the other's life.

Nothing could be more ironic.

He took several deep breaths, biting his lower lip as he raised and lowered his hand repeatedly. After several attempts, like a man walking to his execution, he roughly ripped open Jun Xueyi's belt. His own technique had made him very warm, and he actively pulled himself into the embrace.

Resting his head on the other's shoulder, he silently repeated to himself:

This isn't Jun Xueyi, this isn't Jun Xueyi.

It's just a hug—it's not like I'll get contaminated.

Since when can't a villain hug the protagonist?

He's saving a life. There's a saying among humans: saving one life is better than tearing down ten temples.

A voice echoed in his mind: *You're the villain? Since when does the protagonist need saving by a villain?*

Right, he was the villain.

The protagonist was so weak he needed a villain to save him.

Chu Ji lifted his eyelids, shooting Jun Xueyi a look of contempt. So what if he's the protagonist? Right now, he still needs me to save him.

Save him first, kill him later. What a saint I am.

Chu Ji convinced himself and quietly stayed in the other's embrace, pretending he was just a heating talisman, not a person.

The Little Demon Lord had gone to such lengths, fancying himself the noblest demon under heaven.

Too bad good demons get no good karma.

Jun Xueyi's spiritual energy suddenly went wild, most of it rushing into Chu Ji and depleting his spiritual energy entirely, with a wisp of it lingering inside him, refusing to disperse.

Chu Ji felt no pain, but this strand of energy happened to suppress the demonic energy Xiong Qun had sent into him. The demonic energy couldn't convert into spiritual energy, leaving him instantly frozen by Jun Xueyi's cold.

Chu Ji: "?"

Shaking off the thin ice on his body, he cursed loudly, "You asshole, I should have let you die just now—"

"Gurgle, gurgle—!!!"

Without spiritual energy, the Water-Repelling Pearl failed, and the pond water came flooding in violently.

He didn't know how to swim! He didn't even dare open his eyes underwater, only daring quick glimpses before closing them again, repeating the process over and over.

This made him clutch the person against him even tighter.

A drowning person always grabs onto something for reassurance, and Chu Ji was no exception.

Before Chu Ji could adapt to keeping his eyes open, Jun Xueyi's spiritual energy mixed with a foreign spiritual energy burst out, throwing the pond bottom into turmoil. The currents caught them both in its pull.

He could only summon his sword, relying on it to keep himself and Jun Xueyi from being thrown apart.

In this critical moment, Jun Xueyi's arms around him were like iron bands, saving him the worry of Jun Xueyi being swept away.

After these seven days, he's going to flay Jun Xueyi alive!

Chu Ji kept both of them steady in the center of the whirlpool, unmoving. A faint light flashed at the bottom of the lake, streaking straight for Jun Xueyi's brow.

At the critical moment, Chu Ji swapped their positions. He couldn't tell if this faint light was good or bad, but if it entered him, he'd survive. If Jun Xueyi died, he might really die.

The moment the light entered his body, in less than a heartbeat, Chu Ji's hand holding the sword went slack and fell behind Jun Xueyi's neck, and he collapsed unconscious against Jun Xueyi.

The pond bottom returned to calm, but Chu Ji and Jun Xueyi were gone.

The water, once deep blue, gradually turned black, the biting cold never easing.

-

The chill was broken by sunlight.

Beside a cave deep in the Neverfall Mountains, two young men lay collapsed.

The masked young man lay on his back, while the other nestled against his chest, a faint light flickering at his brow.

This light struggled to break free from this body and return to its intended host.

The light flickered for a long time, growing weaker until it vanished.

At the same time, a faint red thread encircled the two.

The first to wake was Jun Xueyi.

Jun Xueyi opened his eyes, a momentary daze flashing through them before he became fully alert.

Not dying was something he had expected.

The warm breath on his chest told him that Young Master hadn't died either.

This was to be expected.

It wasn’t that his opponent wouldn’t die—it was that the man had many ways to preserve his life.

"Get up," Jun Xueyi lacked the strength to move momentarily, feeling as though one of the bones in his chest had broken.

No one responded.

Something felt wrong…

Jun Xueyi immediately sat up, bringing the person in his arms up with him.

He looked at his hand, still firmly gripping the other’s waist. This surprised him—during their fall, he had only used his whip to bind them together, but now the whip was entirely wrapped around the other’s waist.

His hand had been gripping so tightly that it had gone numb, which was why he hadn’t noticed it immediately upon waking.

Jun Xueyi looked at the water below, then lifted the person and carried them to dry ground.

As he set the person down, the sword struck him hard—the other’s hand was tightly gripping the hilt, pressing it against the back of his head.

With effort, he managed to hold the person with one arm while using his other hand to move the sword-wielding hand from the back of his head to the front, finally setting the person down.

Just as he straightened up after putting the person down, his clothes suddenly fell open.

Jun Xueyi: "......"

He looked down at the Young Master on the ground—though soaked, at least he was still clothed.

Then who had removed his belt?

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he looked at the other’s waist and saw his own belt wrapped around it.

Author's note: