I don’t know how much time passed. I felt someone put a pill in my mouth.
As it melted, I felt my body slowly recover.
When I opened my eyes, Ling Ze was sitting at my bedside.
“Are you all right?”
I weakly propped myself up, dazed.
“Ling Ze…”
He gently pressed me back onto the bed.
“You’ve really suffered…”
“You knew about me and Lin Feng all along, didn’t you?”
Ling Ze nodded without hesitation.
“I saw your fate. I was the one who pulled you from the waterfall.”
I looked around, but Lin Feng was nowhere to be seen.
“If you’re looking for Lin Feng, he wasn’t here when I arrived.”
“I found you through our contract. You were barely alive, so I used a thousand years’ worth of spiritual power to save you.”
I lifted my shirt and saw the black veins were gone, the wound had healed with new flesh, though a red scar remained.
“Ling Ze… you used a thousand years of spiritual power for me?”
But that also meant Lin Feng had abandoned me again.
Ling Ze nodded, checking my pulse.
“Don’t overthink it, Mei Chen. Most of the poison is gone. Just rest here.”
I looked at the ice bed beneath me, remembering what had just happened.
“I don’t want to… Can you move me somewhere else?”
“Don’t worry about Lin Feng coming in. I’ve set up a strong barrier—only I can enter.”
Seeing the resistance in my eyes, Ling Ze tried to reassure me.
“The ice bed helps calm your wounds. Lin Feng used a lot of demon power just now, and now the whole heavenly realm is hunting him. Don’t worry, he won’t come here.”
“Thank you.”
Ling Ze patted my head.
“You gave me your true heart, and I’ll return it in kind. That’s what you taught me.”
“All right, I’m going to clear out Lin Feng’s demon aura so the heavens don’t bother us.”
After he left, I lay on the ice bed.
Hot tears streamed down my cheeks.
Lin Feng had abandoned me again.
Ling Ze left plenty of food and medicine for me in the cave.
For days, I didn’t see him.
My wounds healed day by day, and soon I could walk to the cave entrance.
One day, I found a basket of fruit outside the cave.
It was full of fresh peaches.
“Did Ling Ze bring these?”
I carried the basket inside.
These peaches were bigger and redder than any I’d ever seen.
I took a bite, and the sweet juice filled my mouth.
After so many days of bitter medicine, the peaches lifted my spirits.
The next day, another basket of peaches appeared at the entrance.
For five or six days, a basket of peaches waited for me every morning.
I was curious—if Ling Ze was bringing them, why didn’t he come in?
On the seventh day, Ling Ze finally appeared.
He looked exhausted, sitting beside me and sighing.
I handed him a peach.
“These peaches?”
“Weren’t you the one leaving them at the entrance?”
Ling Ze took a big, angry bite.
“Unbelievable… really unbelievable…”
“What?”
“Mei Chen, aren’t you bored being here alone?”
I didn’t understand why he asked.
“A little.”
He suddenly conjured a basket, and inside was a little black deer, wrapped in bandages.
The little deer seemed badly hurt, its tail had been cut off.
“What happened to him?”
“He’s one of my spirit deer. A hunter hurt him. Would you help me take care of him?”
I gently picked up the little deer.
He woke up, hissing at Ling Ze. I’d never heard a deer make such a sound.
Ling Ze smiled, stroking him.
“Don’t be afraid, Mei Chen. He’s a little skittish, but he can’t hurt you.”
The little deer bit Ling Ze’s finger in protest.
“I’ll leave him to you, Mei Chen.”
“By the way, since he doesn’t have a tail, his balance isn’t great. You’ll have to hold him often.”
After Ling Ze left, I cuddled the little deer, stroking his fur.
“You don’t have a name yet, do you?”
He was very docile in my arms. I turned him over.
“Hm… So you’re a boy.”
“Hiss hiss~”
“You’re a deer, why do you sound like that?”
The little deer looked at me with big, bright eyes.
I took him up onto the ice bed.
“Does your wound hurt? Let’s sleep on the ice bed together—it’ll help.”
I held him and fell into the deepest sleep I’d had since getting hurt.
Chapter 11
*