Chapter 158: The Sickly Fake Young Master Doted On by the Real One 53

Chapter 158: The Sickly Fake Young Master is Doted On 53

The sound inside came to an abrupt halt.

However, this made Lin Huaiqing even more certain that Qin Li was inside—but his situation right now had to be bad, bad enough that he didn't want Lin Huaiqing to see him like this.

Lin Huaiqing braced to shove the door open, only to find it locked from the inside—it wouldn't budge.

But at a moment like this, he couldn't afford to care. Lin Huaiqing backed up a few steps and, without hesitating, slammed his shoulder into the door.

His heart was pounding, but there was no tightness in his chest—just a raw surge of adrenaline.

The inn's door was old and rickety, and after a few good hits, he actually managed to bust it open!

Lin Huaiqing rushed in and sure enough, there was Qin Li, writhing in agony on the bed.

Lin Huaiqing was genuinely shaken. Qin Li had always been tough as nails—even when hurt, he'd grit his teeth and act like nothing was wrong.

He'd never seen Qin Li in this kind of pain. The guy was drenched in sweat, and even the sheets were soaked.

"Qin Li! Qin Li! What's wrong?! Don't scare me like that!" Lin Huaiqing shouted anxiously.

Qin Li, barely hanging onto consciousness through the pain, saw who it was and immediately yanked the blanket over his head.

He didn't want Lin Huaiqing to see him like this—all broken and pathetic.

But the more he cocooned himself, the more frantic Lin Huaiqing got.

Wait—wasn't this in the original story? Qin Li gets hit with some weird illness, and Chu Mo's the one who cures him!

Right! Go find Chu Mo!

"Qin Li, you can't just lie there like this! I'm going to get Chu Mo—she can definitely fix you!"

Just as Lin Huaiqing turned to go, a scorching-hot hand clamped down on his wrist.

"Don't... don't go."

Lin Huaiqing's eyes instinctively dropped to the exposed stretch of Qin Li's arm.

Near his shoulder on his upper arm, there was now an intricate dark brown totem tattoo.

He'd seen Qin Li shirtless before, and there hadn't been anything like this on him back then.

Could this tattoo be what was causing Qin Li this kind of agony?

Lin Huaiqing threw caution to the wind and yanked off most of Qin Li's already loose clothes.

He was stunned to find the tattoo covered Qin Li's entire back, unfurling like a painting—whole and breathtaking right in front of him.

Lin Huaiqing reached out cautiously and touched the tattoo. The second his fingers made contact, he flinched—Qin Li's skin was burning hot.

And just from that touch, the dark brown tattoo seemed to react, slowly starting to glow with a faint shimmer.

The moment he pulled his hand away, the faint glow vanished.

How the hell did Qin Li have such a creepy tattoo? And Lin Huaiqing was a hundred percent sure his symptoms were tied to it.

This looked exactly like some kind of witchcraft or a curse someone had put on him...

"No! Qin Li, let go of me! I need to find Chu Mo to check you out!"

"No need to go looking for her!" Chu Mo's voice suddenly came from the doorway.

Lin Huaiqing spun around, and there was Chu Mo standing in the doorway—who knows how long she'd been watching.

"This is the backlash from the Same-Life Curse. It's agonizing, but not life-threatening. Once the backlash period passes, he'll recover."

Chu Mo's words left Lin Huaiqing totally confused. So Qin Li really had been cursed—the Bronze Beast Curse? Why did that name sound so weird?

Seeing Lin Huaiqing's confusion, Chu Mo continued to explain:

"The Same-Life Curse is the oldest spell in our Qiangyue Kingdom. The caster can split the remaining years of life evenly between the cursed person and the one they love. They can't live together, but they can die together. The catch is, the cursed person suffers backlash."

"You... you're saying Qin Li had you cast this curse, splitting his lifespan with me? So that's why I..."

"That's correct..."

Once it all clicked, the hand clenched under Lin Huaiqing's sleeve started trembling uncontrollably.

So that was it...

No wonder that bowl of medicine worked like a miracle—it turned out Qin Li had burned his own lifespan to save him.

Why? What had he done to deserve this? Was he even worth Qin Li sacrificing himself like this?

"That's why I told you—you shouldn't have doubted him... I'm the princess of Qiangyue, but I'd never cast this curse before. Plus, the ancient texts about it were lost in the war. It took us a ton of effort just to track down the records."

Tears had long since blurred Lin Huaiqing's vision. Watching Qin Li on the bed, barely conscious from the pain, still calling his name in his fevered haze, his heart felt like someone had wrung it out.

"Remember that flower? It was the key ingredient for the Same-Life Curse medicine. That flower is called the Same-Life Flower. It has to be watered with the cursed person's blood to grow. Once it matures, you harvest the stamen and use it as medicine to complete the curse."

Hearing all this, Lin Huaiqing's heart was in shreds. Qin Li had done so much behind his back, and all along he'd been stupidly thinking Qin Li was into Chu Mo.

"Why... why didn't you tell me earlier..."

Chu Mo's clear, shimmering eyes looked like they'd seen too much of the world's sorrow.

"How was he supposed to tell you? If he'd said he was going to use his own lifespan to save you, would you have let him? If he hadn't hidden it from you, would you have just stood there and watched him suffer like this?"

Of course not...

Not only would he have refused—if he'd known what Qin Li was planning, he might have begged for a quick death to escape this world.

He never wanted to owe anyone anything, but in the end, he'd racked up a debt to Qin Li he could never repay in a lifetime.

After Chu Mo finished explaining, Lin Huaiqing didn't even notice when she left.

The two grown men crammed onto that tiny, run-down bed in the inn. Lin Huaiqing wrapped his arms around Qin Li's chest from behind, pressing his cheek against Qin Li's back, feeling the scorching heat radiating off him.

He couldn't take Qin Li's pain away, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let him suffer alone in a corner, silently toughing it out.

"Qin Li, I'm sorry... I love you."

Tears streamed down his face. At that moment, he wished he weren't a transmigrator, weren't a host—just a tiny speck of dust in this world. Only then could the two of them truly belong to each other.

And so the two of them quietly rode out Qin Li's backlash period together in that cramped, shabby inn room.

During that time, Lin Huaiqing whispered every love confession he could think of into Qin Li's ear, over and over.

Even though he had no idea if Qin Li could hear him in that state. He just needed to say it—needed to pour out everything he'd been bottling up, all at once, straight to Qin Li.

Telling him over and over that Lin Huaiqing loved Qin Li—that even after taking that special medicine, he'd love him just the same.

He didn't know if falling for a character in his mission was right or wrong. But since it was the "Little Cripple Wants Love Too" system, falling in love didn't seem like that big a mistake.

"Ding-dong! System notice: Teleportation device glitch fixed. Mission progress at 100%. Would you like to log out?"