Chapter Seventeen - Silver Needle Nettle

Nie Ruyi

https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png [https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png]

Nie Ruyi honestly doesn't know how it happened, exactly. She'd taken a moment to think after one of the chases came too close. She was slower than before, one of those wicked claws having sliced a line through her calf, and she'd had to limp away. She was pretty sure the creatures were tracking her blood scent now, and she'd decided to try and use the new sense she had gained to track them in return.

She'd opened herself to the heaviness in the air, the feeling the book called spiritual power. She felt around, but this time, when she found the special heaviness that signified it was the monster, she pushed just a little harder, trying to cement where they were. And then, like the click of a door closing (or maybe opening?), she felt it.

The creature connected to her. She could feel it, there was a line between them, now. It... wanted something. Unsure what else to do, she shoved some of the qi she'd gathered at it. And sure enough, she could feel a thrumming, almost like a purr, at the other end of the connection.

She tried it again, this time with the second creature, and sure enough, the click happened when she pushed just a little too hard. And feeding it the energy had the same result. She should have been paying attention because they'd gotten closer, drawn to her by the blood, or perhaps the connection. Her heart sputtered in fear, but it turned out to not be the fatal mistake her instincts shrieked at her it was.

In fact... The strange creatures came to her and laid down at her feet. Her terror at seeing them faded slowly, as they stared up at her with those innumerable eyes. She could feel that link, that line between them and the thrumming contentment in it. There was a small undercurrent of hunger, and she took a leap of faith.

Pulling out two pieces of jerky, she tossed them at the creatures. They gnawing them to bits quickly in those sharp jaws, and then, as one, they crawled closer, nuzzling their spiney bodies up against her sides. They were... warm. And oddly, not prickly as she thought they'd be, considering one of their quills was still lodged in her arm. In fact, as she tested her finger against one of the spines, she realized that they were... oddly like gelatine.

She pushed a feeling of insecurity at them, through that tentative thread connecting them, and their response was immediate. Pushing themselves away from her, they turned away from her, growling lowly and staring into the dark. She had the hysterical thought that they were guarding her. She laughed, exhaustion overcoming her, and incapable of deeper thought, she sent thanks to them, and closed her eyes.

She wouldn't have been able to go on anyway. So if they ate her, well. That was that.

But later she woke, and they were not eating her alive. One, in fact, was laying next to her, warming her with its gel-like body, as the other paced the edge of their little hollow. She gave a stretch and took out a bite of jerky for herself and one each for her new pets. She held them out, and as if they had been raised from birth by her, they ate from her hand. She was awed by how gently they took the jerky.

"Nie Ruyi!" An unfamiliar voice called into the silence of the caves, echoing and loud. She flinched, but then recognized her own name in the echoes, and stood, shakily. One of the beasts pushed against her side to help her get upright, and she leaned against it as she walked.

"Here! I'm here!" She called, limping towards the voice. They kept calling for her, and she realized it was Lao Xiaojun just before he reached her. To her new sense, he felt like a boulder, thick and dense. As soon as he was in sight, she laughed, which turned into a choked sob as she fell into his hold. The tears came harder at the fresh jolt of pain through her pierced arm.

One of her beasts let out a yelp of alarm, and she straightened like a shot, watching him try to skewer one of them with his sword. "No!" She cried, too loud and echoing in the cave. "They're mine! They're my friends! Stop!"

"Friends?" His voice was laced with confusion. But, he didn't attack them again. "Fine. I need to get you out of here. Come with me."

He didn't give her a choice, locking one steel-chord arm behind her back and the other under her legs, lifting her into a princess carry that would have had her blushing before she came into this cave. But now, she just wanted to be warm again. He had been careful to put the uninjured arm against his chest, which meant she could cradle her injury properly, blackened fingers curled against her breast.

His steps were sure and fast and she was pretty sure he was bouncing off of the stalagmites to hurry them along. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sounds instead. Her eyes were so heavy, and she was so tired. She could hear the click-slllsss of her slime-puppies, so she knew they were following without having to dive into that heaviness, to feel for the connections they had.

When she felt the freezing gale of open sky above her, she slit open her eyes, trying to adjust them to the sheer brightness of the world outside. Confusion wrang through her cranium like a bell. Hadn’t there been water to go through? Had there been another way out? Even shaded by the trees as they were, it was still far brighter than it had been in the caves. "Where-" She croaked.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"...Liang Lanlan is missing. I was unable to locate any sign of her within the caves." Lao Xiaojun answered the unfinished question, even as he threw his sword down, stepping up onto it. His voice rumbled through her skull like drums. "I'll be returning you to the sect, and then returning to search for her again."

She must have lost consciousness again after that because the next thing she remembered was opening her eyes to the bleary sight of mountains and trees beneath them. She closed her eyes, and then when she opened them, it was too loud to sleep well. Voices crowded all around her, and someone jostled her in Lao Xiaojun's arms, shaking a pained cry from her.

"Over here. Set her down here." A strong voice called, and it seemed a little familiar, but her mind skittered away from a name.

"A-Jun, did you see any signs of-" A very familiar voice, Lao Minghui, was asking her brother something, but someone else's voice was closer and she lost the sound of hers.

"Nie-shijie... Nie-shijie, can you hear me?" Tearful and croaking like her own, she still recognized the voice of Song Fengling and wondered what they were thinking, letting a kid in an emergency room.

"What?!" The raised, growling timbre of Lao Xiaojun's voice cut through the noise going on around her, and she opened her eyes (so heavy), to look for him. "She was here? How long!?"

"She arrived back the same day you three left. Did you really not see her leave?" Lao Minghui questioned, confusion making Nie Ruyi whine with fear.

"Shhh, shh, it's alright." That first voice cooed to her, before turning harsh and angry, "If you all are going to upset my patient you can LEAVE."

She saw flurries of colorful flowers flowing around her, and then they were gone, leaving just the little face of Song Fengling looking at her with watery dark eyes. She forced herself to smile for him, "It's oka-" she tried to manage, only for the words to turn into a shriek.

Someone in a white set of robes, someone she felt like she'd seen before, ripped the quill from her arm. Part of her realized she had missed entirely the part where the would-be-medic had removed the tourniquets she'd tied. Pain swarmed through her arm and up her shoulder and into her neck and chest. She couldn't help it, little punched out sobs and squeals of pain were leaking from her.

A hand, warm and large, slipped into her good hand, and she squeezed it tight, against the pain. She turned her head to face that side, leaving Song Fengling looking at the back of her head. She was surprised to see Lao Xiaojun on his knees next to her, her hand in his. His face was scrunched like he was suffering the same pain she was, and she knew he wasn't because she wasn't strong enough to squeeze that hard.

The unfamiliar voice was back. "Keep her awake. I can't have her soul slip away while I repair the damage left behind. Song-Shidi, make yourself useful. There is a jar labeled "Silver Needle Nettle" in the cabinet there. Get it, and brew a tea with what is inside. It must be a deep, deep brown, so add a full fistful of leaves, do not skimp."

Something was pushed into the wound and her shoulder was twisted, ripping another scream from her throat. More of that something was pushed in, even as Nie Ruyi tried to pull her hand from Lao Xiaojun's grasp to push the doctor away. She was mumbling nonsense pleas, panting desperately.

"The tea." Song Fengling's voice called her attention, and Nie Ruyi's head rolled to look at him again. "It's done."

"Good, now, get her to drink as much as she can. Lao-Shixiong, if you could lift her up to sitting so she doesn't choke." The medic's voice was so calm, it actually felt like something she could hold on to. She was being taken care of, now. It knocked something loose in her chest, and she sobbed softly.

Between Lao Xiaojun and Song Fengling, she drank the disgusting, bitter concoction down, only choking once or twice. As she did, her head swirled, but the pain... it seemed to almost instantly ease, and she sobbed in thankfulness. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She repeated, tiny helpless noises leaving along with the praise.

"What were you thinking, leaving a tourniquet on this long?!" The medic griped, and Nie Ruyi managed to scrape together the presence of mind to reply.

"Wasn't sure... how long it had to stay. Didn't want to die of blood loss."

"...We are going to have a very serious talk when you are capable of cognition again." The medic mumbled. "Song-Shidi, go get me the bandages from that shelf, and the jar labeled 'Blood Fern Leaves'."

"What are you doing?" Nie Ruyi asked, leaning heavily against Lao Xiaojun, who still hasn't set her down. His chest was firm against her back, and she felt the warmth off of him like it was a furnace. It was comforting, and helped her keep her woozy eyes open.

"The Blood Fern leaves will melt into your own flesh inside the wound, helping to repair the missing and damaged flesh. We'll bandage it after rubbing some of this 'Sun and Dew Moonflower ointment' on your limb. That should heal the dead flesh and hopefully bring it back to life."

"Oh." Nie Ruyi answered, overwhelmed by the information. "Could... you write all this down for me, so I can read it later?" She asked, hoping that she'll understand it later.

"...Maybe." The medic mumbled, and then came the unfortunate and strange sensation of something being shoved beneath her skin. Nie Ruyi watched as the medic (He Qina, a little memory supplied for her) packed the open hole in her arm with little herbs that looked like plump rosemary leaves. It felt strange, ticklish and not unlike the sensation one gets stuffing a pillow into a pillowcase if one were in fact the pillowcase and not the stuffer.

Then, He Qina took a scoop of some strange golden-colored ointment and started smearing it all over Nie Ruyi's arm. Everywhere the ointment touched an uncomfortable almost-stinging took up, and she yelped, "H-hey-hey! Is it supposed to-"

"Sting? Yes. It's literally bringing your dead flesh back to life. That's going to sting a little. Endure. The tea will help." The medic rubbed it up and down her arm, and feeling anything in her fingertips was an awful sort of relief, even if it hurt now. Once that was done, bandages were wound from her shoulder down over the leaf-packed wound, and all the way down her arm.

Another cloth was used to bind that to her belly and shoulder, so she couldn't move the arm at all. "How... am I going to bathe?" Nie Ruyi had no idea why that came to mind, but she did know it would make it difficult.

"You won't. Not until I say you can. Now, Nie-shimei, if you could drink this." He Qina offered her a smaller vial, this time. This one had a viscous green fluid inside. Nie Ruyi swallowed it, and the moment it hit the back of her tongue, it seared down into her belly like alcohol. And then, she knew nothing.

https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png [https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png]