In that moment, Shen Manyun finally understood why Yan Feiguang hadn’t sought out a physician.
No human healer could treat his injuries.
“Yan Feiguang, Yan Feiguang…” Shen Manyun pressed on his wound, murmuring his name softly under her breath.
Her voice was faint, as she had little strength left in her body.
Even as she applied pressure, blood continued to seep through her fingers, soaking her entire palm.
Yan Feiguang was still conscious.
Soul beings didn’t lose complete awareness when injured, and he was no exception.
He looked down at Shen Manyun, his deep eyes calm and unreadable.
He hadn’t expected anyone to come to his rescue.
Shen Manyun’s presence felt more like a figment of his imagination, a dream.
Yan Feiguang couldn’t speak.
He could only weakly raise his hand, trying to push her away slightly.
Shen Manyun didn’t move.
She felt his resistance, and a pang of sorrow struck her heart.
She could heal him, couldn’t she?
Yet he’d rather endure this than let her know.
Of course, they weren’t close.
He probably didn’t want to entrust his life to someone he barely knew.
“Yan Feiguang…” Shen Manyun ignored his rejection, pressing firmly on his wound to stem the relentless flow of blood.
With trembling hands, she retrieved a silver case from her chest.
Inside lay the blood needles Yan Feiguang had given her.
After healing A’Lie’s injuries, she had realized her abilities weren’t entirely meaningless.
This box of blood needles gave her a sense of fulfillment she had never known, making her feel like she wasn’t useless after all.
She could help Yan Feiguang.
She could heal his wounds-this was the only thought left in Shen Manyun’s mind.
“I won’t… I won’t hurt you,” Shen Manyun whispered, her hand gently brushing the back of Yan Feiguang’s neck and spine.
It was an instinctive gesture of comfort, buried deep within human nature.
Even though she had never comforted anyone like this before, her hand moved on its own.
“Why didn’t you come to me? You know I can heal… I can try…” Shen Manyun took out a blood needle.
She leaned down, her gaze soft as the mist at the edge of a cloud, ethereal yet filled with genuine concern.
“Yan Feiguang, you can trust me. I… I’ll always help you. You saved my life. Without you, I would have died long ago.”
She wasn’t one for eloquent words, only these repetitive, rambling phrases, constantly trying to reassure him.
Shen Manyun slowly pushed Yan Feiguang’s hand away from her shoulder.
This time, he didn’t resist.
What she saw before her now was the hidden darkness behind the words of the original story.
A single line casually mentioned in the book “Yan Feiguang was severely injured while saving her”-was now vividly and starkly laid out before her eyes.
The abstract image had been given flesh and blood.
The person lying before her was no longer just a character but a living, breathing being who could feel pain or perhaps a soul being, but he was alive nonetheless.
Yan Feiguang’s hand slowly lowered, his downcast eyes watching Shen Manyun’s trembling hands.
But the moment her fingers touched the blood needle, her grip became firm, unwavering.
This was the most challenging injury Shen Manyun had ever treated, even more difficult than reattaching A’Lie’s severed limb.
Yan Feiguang was a cultivator, and the structure of his body was a hundred times more complex than that of A’Lie, a low-level cultivator.
Just untangling the network of his flesh and meridians would require immense effort.
Moreover, Yan Feiguang’s external body was entirely human-this was why he could use human wound medicine to stop the bleeding when he cut himself to give blood to Xinglan last time.
His muscles were firm, and Shen Manyun had to exert all her strength to close the gaping wound.
Shen Manyun half-squatted in place, her knees tightly clamping Yan Feiguang’s shoulders and back to keep the wound together.
Maintaining this awkward posture, she carefully stitched his wound with a blood needle, each step executed with utmost caution.
Yan Feiguang’s chest rose and fell slightly.
He was clearly in great pain, but he remained conscious throughout.
Shen Manyun tried to be as gentle as possible, her eyelashes lowered.
The bright blood from the wound stung her eyes, making them ache.
After a long time, her fingers hooked the blood needle, stitching the last part of Yan Feiguang’s wound that belonged to the soul race.
Now, Yan Feiguang’s most severe injury had been treated, leaving only a long, thin gash on the outer layer that continued to bleed.
Shen Manyun was helpless when it came to Yan Feiguang’s human injuries.
She wanted to take him to a clinic, but after working all night, she was utterly exhausted.
Her body went limp, and she collapsed onto Yan Feiguang, her head resting on his chest, fainting from exhaustion.
It was already the early hours of the morning, and the sky was dark, with only the faint light from the lanterns in the courtyard illuminating the scene.
Yan Feiguang leaned against the corridor, unable to stand, and let Shen Manyun rest on him.
After a while, his left hand moved, lifting slightly.
His fingertips touched Shen Manyun’s hand resting on the back of his neck.
Yan Feiguang seemed to want to remove Shen Manyun’s hand from his body.
But in her unconscious state, Shen Manyun, upon feeling his touch, seemed to seek something to hold onto.
Her fingers curled, hooking his hand.
Her grip wasn’t tight, but Yan Feiguang didn’t let go.
His long, dense eyelashes lowered, and he fell asleep like that.
Shen Manyun wasn’t exactly dreaming; she was merely recalling something that had happened in the past.
To be honest, it wasn’t anything particularly unusual-just a batch of fabric from their factory had a defect.
A pattern on one section of the fabric was incorrect, likely due to a colleague’s momentary lapse in attention.
Shen Manyun hadn’t made any embroidery mistakes; her work was always flawless.
But she had been keeping an eye on the situation, always worried that she might make a similar mistake someday.
In such a strict factory, the superiors quickly identified the employee who had made the mistake, and she was singled out.
“If you make a mistake, you have no reason to exist,” the supervisor said, staring down at the young woman.
The woman was taken away, and Shen Manyun thought she must have been fired.
But in this dream, her soul followed the girl who had been taken away.
She saw the woman being pushed over a large dye vat, and then she was shoved in, her blood drained by the machine.
Looking down, the vat was filled with a bright red, as vivid as the morning sun.
Shen Manyun felt her soul falling, falling.
She reached out, knowing she couldn’t grasp anything.
But in the endless fall, it seemed as if she had caught someone’s hand.
He didn’t let go, just held her like that, as if he could pull her out of the bottomless abyss.
When Shen Manyun woke up again, she found herself lying in bed, in a simply furnished bedroom.
She felt sore all over her body.
After running for so long last night and then exerting herself to heal Yan Feiguang, she barely had the strength to move.
Wait, where were the blood needles?
Shen Manyun remembered that after the healing, she had been too exhausted to pick them up.
Could they have fallen?
She struggled to sit up, intending to search for the blood needles, but when she turned her head, she saw the silver case resting safely on the bedside table.
Shen Manyun opened the case and confirmed that all twelve blood needles were inside, letting out a sigh of relief.
Only after ensuring that the important items were intact did she begin to wonder how she had ended up lying here.
Hadn’t she fallen asleep right after healing Yan Feiguang last night?
How had she ended up in bed again?
As Shen Manyun was pondering this, she heard a knock at the door.
Barefoot, she hurried to open it.
As the door swung open, she looked up and saw Yan Feiguang’s broad chest.