He had just pushed the door open when a hand shot out of the darkness, gripped him tight, and slammed the door shut. Zhou Zishu did not put up any resistance, and let the man crash them down onto the bed. He lifted his gaze slowly to meet Wen Kexing’s.

After a long stillness, Wen Kexing suddenly dipped his head, and attacked his lips in a biting kiss. His breathing, a little frenzied, had an indescribable danger to it. A long moment later, Zhou Zishu abruptly shoved him away, lifted his elbow to ram it under Wen Kexing’s ribs, and flipped them over to cage Wen Kexing in between his hands below him. His loose, disheveled hair draped from his temples, and came to rest on Wen Kexing’s chest. In the darkness, there was only that pair of eyes, startlingly bright.

Zhou Zishu asked, “If I die, would it not be a loss for you?”

Wen Kexing did not speak. Abruptly, he turned his face aside, and clamped his teeth down on Zhou Zishu’s wrist, as though he wanted to drink his blood and feast on his flesh. Zhou Zishu’s brow scrunched in pain, but he did not pull away, and let Wen Kexing bite him without a single word. Blood seeped out slowly, sliding down the corner of Wen Kexing’s mouth onto the bed sheets, soaking a large patch of it in an instant.

After an indeterminate period of time, when Zhou Zishu’s braced arms were starting to quiver slightly, Wen Kexing finally closed his eyes slowly, loosened his jaw, and licked at the wound that he had inflicted. Then he sat up, pulled Zhou Zishu into his arms, tapped on his acupoints to stop the bleeding, and said, “I will. I will have never been this ravaged by loss in my whole life.”

Zhou Zishu smiled soundlessly, and said, “You madman.”

The madman tore a strip of cloth from his own inner robes, bandaged Zhou Zishu’s wrist, then whipped the blanket open and wrapped them up in it. And just like that, they fell asleep in each other’s arms, steeped in the smell of blood.

After another three days, Lord Seventh and the Great Shaman finally arrived.

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Chapter 64: A Gamble On Life

The two, with a weariness from hasty travel weighing down on them, seemed to have paid a visit to every corner of the Central Plains.

Upon meeting them, the Great Shaman did not waste any time on words, and started his examination of Zhou Zishu. Reflexively, Zhou Zishu presented his left wrist first; it was only halfway through bringing his arm up when he realised that this wrist was currently a little unpresentable, and silently retracted it for the other wrist.

Casting a glance at this, the Great Shaman asked offhandedly, “Did you injure your wrist?”

Zhou Zishu replied impassively, “Oh, it’s nothing. A dog bit me.”