Chapter 52
Chapter 52: Blood-Drained, Near Death
Just as Mo Ting Feng was about to break the surface and plunge into the blackwater, the river split.
Gu Cang Yue rose from it, floating upward with Song Wei Chen in his arms.
His hair shone like silver moonlight. Their white robes caught the night and glimmered faintly. For a heartbeat, it looked as if the blackwater had birthed a second moon.
Mo Ting Feng saw her and shot up, hovering above the river. His left boot and the hem of his robe were soaked through despite the barrier. A bone-deep chill crawled up from his foot and burrowed toward his heart meridians.
Blackwater was vicious.
He didn’t stop to think. He flew straight toward them.
“That’s Brother Wei!” Ding He Ran yelled the moment he recognized who Gu Cang Yue was holding.
Gu Cang Yue’s eyes flicked up, sharp with irritation. A streak of silver light flashed.
Ding He Ran jerked as a deep gash opened across his shoulder. Blood sprayed into the night.
“In the middle of the night,” Gu Cang Yue said mildly, “you’re unbearably loud.”
His tone stayed calm as he delivered a threat that froze the air. “Make another sound, and I’ll make sure you never speak again.”
Mo Ting Feng’s eyes were no longer blood-red. He steadied himself and spoke with a technique that carried far, clear, and cold.
“Take Nian Niang back for interrogation. Keep Bao Er alive. I’ll bring Wei Wei back later.”
Then he closed the distance in an instant.
He looked down at Song Wei Chen—pale, unconscious, but breathing. Only then did something in his chest loosen, just slightly.
“Lord Cang Yue,” Mo Ting Feng said, forcing the words out cleanly, “thank you for saving our White Robe. I’ll remember this debt.”
His gaze sharpened. “But you’ve also injured our comrades more than once. I’ll remember that as well.”
Gu Cang Yue arched a brow. “So, dust warden official—are you here to thank me, or to accuse me?”
“Either way, I’m sincerely grateful you saved her,” Mo Ting Feng replied. “I’m taking her now.”
He reached out.
Gu Cang Yue drifted back, keeping deliberate distance, Song Wei Chen still cradled against his chest.
“Lord,” Mo Ting Feng said tightly, “what do you mean by this? She’s lost too much blood. She needs treatment immediately.”
Gu Cang Yue’s gaze was flat. “My woman doesn’t need you to save her.”
He turned as if to leave.
Then his eyes dropped to Mo Ting Feng’s soaked boot and trouser hem, and faint amusement touched his expression.
“Dust warden official should worry about his own leg. Do you think the River of Oblivion is just decoration?”
His voice sharpened on the last words. “Once blackwater poison eats into your marrow, you won’t die—but you’ll be crippled. And I have no interest in saving you.”
Cang Yue Manor.
Song Wei Chen lay on a wide bed in the master bedchamber, dressed only in an inner robe. Her lips were bloodless, her breathing shallow, her skin cold with exhaustion.
Gu Cang Yue sat at her bedside, his expression dark and unreadable.
Beside him stood an elderly medical officer invited from the Upper Realm—one of the most senior and renowned. White hair, long brows, and the faint aura of an immortal sage. Yet right now he looked like a student before a ruthless examiner, sweating so hard he barely dared to blink.
“Lord Cang Yue,” the old man said, voice trembling, “this miss has exhausted her qi and blood. Even immortal pills and spirit medicines are… like a cup of water on a blazing cart. Forgive my incompetence. I truly have no solution…”
He swallowed, then brightened as if he’d seized a lifeline. “Lord Si Kong must have an answer! If Lord Cang Yue permits, I will go invite Lord Yu Heng at once!”
A calm voice answered from the doorway.
“Immortal Physician, no need. I’ve already come uninvited.”
Zhuang Yu Heng stepped into the bedchamber. Behind him came Mo Ting Feng, followed by several guards from Cang Yue Manor.
The captain of the guard bowed, shame written across his face. “Lord Cang Yue, forgive us. We failed to stop them.”
Gu Cang Yue flicked his hand. “All of you, out.”
Then, without even looking at him, he added to the old medical officer, “You too. Leave.”
It was like being granted a pardon. The old man bowed deeply to Zhuang Yu Heng, gratitude bright in his eyes, then fled as if chased.
Zhuang Yu Heng sat and took Song Wei Chen’s pulse. His expression sank.
Something was wrong. Even if she’d bled to break the formation and save people, she shouldn’t have collapsed this far, this fast.
He hesitated, then lifted the quilt and checked.
The bedsheet was soaked red. The source was her wrist.
The cloth tied there was drenched through. When Zhuang Yu Heng untied it, two deep cuts were still bleeding steadily, as if her blood had forgotten how to stop.
All three men’s brows tightened at once.
“Why won’t her wound clot?” Mo Ting Feng demanded, his voice rough with disbelief. “It’s deep, yes, but it shouldn’t be—”
“It may be linked to that past-life imprint,” Zhuang Yu Heng said, eyes fixed on the wound. “But the fact remains: her blood won’t coagulate. And the spirit pills she was fed earlier accelerate essence and blood production. That means the bleeding only speeds up.”
He looked up at both of them. “If we don’t stop it now, she’ll…”
His jaw clenched. “I have to put her into a false death state to slow the bleeding enough to seal it. But it’s extremely dangerous. One misstep… and she’ll truly die. I can only do my best.”
Gu Cang Yue’s gaze reddened at the edges as it fixed on Mo Ting Feng.
“This is all your doing.”
He moved.
In a blur, he seized Mo Ting Feng by the collar and slammed him back with brute force of cultivation. Mo Ting Feng crashed into the far wall, and a thunderous crack rang through the copper-hard barrier.
Blood slid from the corner of Mo Ting Feng’s mouth. He didn’t strike back. He didn’t even lift a hand.
Normally, that impact would have been nothing. But ever since Song Wei Chen fell into the blackwater, backlash had been flaring in waves. Worse, the medicine Zhuang Yu Heng had given him was gone—lost at some point without him even noticing.
Without it, the emotion-severing ward was triggering. His cultivation could only function at half strength. If he fought Gu Cang Yue now, he would lose.
Gu Cang Yue didn’t let go.
He leaned close, voice soft enough to sound intimate, cruel enough to be a curse. “Listen carefully. If anything happens to her today, I’ll bury you with her.”
“Enough!”
Zhuang Yu Heng’s temper snapped—rare, sharp, uncharacteristically fierce. “Saving her comes first!”
Gu Cang Yue shot Mo Ting Feng one last murderous look, then blinkshifted back to the bed. Mo Ting Feng followed, guilt dragging at him like chains. He couldn’t bring himself to look closely at Song Wei Chen’s face.
Zhuang Yu Heng began casting Heaven-Ice Soul-Congealing Art with painstaking care.
Song Wei Chen’s temperature dropped. Her heartbeat slowed, thinning toward silence.
Zhuang Yu Heng checked her pulse again. Her heart was barely there. The bleeding had slowed, but it still wouldn’t stop. Yet her temperature and heart rate couldn’t safely drop any further.
A thin tremor ran through Song Wei Chen’s body—an instinctive twitch, the first sign her heart was about to stop completely.
Zhuang Yu Heng’s face tightened. “No. I have to stop the Heaven-Ice Soul-Congealing Art now, or she’ll really die.”
He withdrew the spell.
As Song Wei Chen’s body warmed and her heartbeat returned, blood surged from the cuts again—fast, relentless. Zhuang Yu Heng stared at the wound and let out a heavy sigh.
Mo Ting Feng grabbed his sleeve, eyes blazing with a question he couldn’t force past his throat.
Zhuang Yu Heng met his gaze—and shook his head.
He’d only met Song Wei Chen once, but he’d liked her immediately: clever, stubborn, bright in a world full of shadows. Seeing her like this hurt more than he wanted to admit.
“Prepare yourselves,” he said quietly.