Chapter 82

Ye Xiao looked pretty rough. Even though most of his wounds had healed, his tattered, blood-stained clothes made him appear as if he'd suffered grievous injuries. He didn't stay out long and went back first.
Once in the car, Lin Tantan began thinking about where to get ability-infused ingredients.
Although Ye Xiao hadn't left the base in recent days, others had. Lin Tantan was pretty much aware of their daily finds, and she hadn't heard of anyone finding items that possessed abilities, ability-bearing flora and fauna are like ability users: rare. Running into them is a matter of luck.
With the rise of hunting, the base had set up several trading markets. Every day people brought things they'd found outside that they couldn't handle themselves to these markets to trade. There was one not far from here, and Lin Tantan wanted to take a look.
Ye Xiao suggested having someone else buy them, but Lin Tantan shook her head. "Most people can't tell if something has an ability." Lu Jianping has lots of people and money and could buy up all manner of mutated plants and animals that flow into the base and sort through them later, but they can't. If someone tried to sweep the markets in the base, they'd probably spend their entire savings buying things and still only get a few ability-bearing ingredients.
So Lin Tantan decided to go see for herself.
Ye Xiao fell silent, indeed, their manpower and resources were still too limited.
He insisted on accompanying her. Lin Tantan told him to go rest first, but Ye Xiao refused. This was supposed to be a trip to buy things for him; how could he let her go alone? Besides, he didn't feel comfortable leaving her.
Ding Jinbo and his group had been dealt with, but it was unclear whether there were other ill-intentioned people in the base, and whether Ding Jinbo had accomplices remained unknown. Bai Cheng would question Wang Shuo and He Fan separately.
Seeing him insist, Lin Tantan asked, "Can you hold out?"
"I'm fine, I'm doing well now." Ye Xiao glanced at himself, his appearance wasn't great, but it didn't matter. There were spare clothes in the car. He dug them out, and Lin Tantan immediately turned her face toward the window.
Ye Xiao smiled and swiftly changed clothes; he didn't change his pants, with a woman sitting beside him it would be impolite to change trousers in the car. Fortunately his leg wounds were few; the pants had a few tears he could pass off as fashionable, and being black the bloodstains weren't conspicuous.
Dressed, they arrived at the nearest market. It was like a large produce market, big, bustling, and chaotic. Stalls of every kind were set up across many rows, leaving narrow paths for people to walk through. Some vendors simply placed their goods on the ground, others spread a cloth first; the more meticulous ones built wooden or earthen tables.
For sale were ordinary, modest things, books, jewelry, clothing, cosmetics, phones, bags, bedding, tents, furniture of every size and even appliances, and items more suited to an end‑of‑the‑world setting: all kinds of knives, hammers, axes, guns without bullets, compound bows, homemade weapons. But the stalls that drew the most envious, lingering glances were those selling food.
A hulking mutated pig lay eviscerated with its parts heaped on a chopping block; featherless pigeons the size of full‑grown roosters were caged, waiting for buyers; variously patterned housecats, pets that once fetched absurd prices before the collapse, sat scrawny and filthy in boxes stamped with a sign: "Sold per head, one cat for three jin of fine grain."
Some stalls displayed a tangle of things that looked like weeds, their stems and leaves were plump, probably mutated wild greens, though whether they were edible was anyone’s guess. Other tables were piled with brown, rootlike objects: some resembled yams, some cassava. One vendor sold all manner of fungi: ordinary mushrooms of normal size, and enormous caps that barely resembled any mushroom she'd seen before.
Anything potentially edible rarely looked perfectly normal at a glance; foods that were obviously safe and desirable, the kind that could fetch high prices and that everyone clamors for, simply didn’t turn up in a chaotic market like this.
Even so, strange or exotic food attracted crowds; people who couldn't afford to buy still lingered to stare. The stall owners, accordingly, were wary, many stations were guarded by a few burly men.
Lin Tantan and Ye Xiao drew a lot of attention the moment they stepped in. There was no mystery: they were too clean, nothing like the mass of people who were scrabbling to survive.
The man in charge of keeping order recognized them and came trotting over, all smiles. "Captain Ye, Miss Lin, what brings you here? Tell me if you need anything."
Lin Tantan glanced at him uncertainly, then looked to Ye Xiao. Ye Xiao gave the man a slight nod. "We're just looking."
He took the hint, muttered something about calling for him or his men if they needed help, and went back to his post.
Lin Tantan asked who he was. Ye Xiao said, "Don't know him. He's one of Lu Jianping's people. This market used to be run by Li Qun's crew; Lu Jianping's only took over today."
Lin Tantan nodded and headed straight for the food stalls.
It was easy to tell if an item had an ability: touch it, probe with powers. Anything with an ability, even if dead, retained residual energy. Most ability‑users couldn't perceive this, but Lin Tantan could.
Of course, picking things up annoyed stallholders. One vendor selling some unknown beast's meat bristled and started to object, but Ye Xiao gave him a brief look and the man fell silent.
Lin Tantan, however, stopped at a bright red liver on a stall, poked it, sensing wood‑type energy, and asked, "What animal's liver is this?"
The vendor hurried to assure her: an ordinary calf's liver, not mutated, perfectly safe to eat.
Lin Tantan gave him a look, neither affirming nor denying, and asked the price.
The vendor sized her up, she looked clean and well‑fed; he wanted to fleece her. But glancing at Ye Xiao's towering frame and intimidating gaze made him break out in a cold sweat. Tentatively he said, "Two jin of fine grain, rice, millet or flour, that'll do. If it's coarse grain, three jin."
Lin Tantan looked at Ye Xiao. He was holding a bag that, as it happened, contained a sack of rice. He weighed out two jin of rice and traded for the liver. The little hamster on Lin Tantan's shoulder watched longingly as the rice was taken away, that's his rice!
Lin Tantan smiled and pinched it gently, tucking it into her pocket.
After they left, the vendor couldn't help asking the men beside him if they knew who the pair were. One answered, "You don't know? Do you know Ye Xiao? No? Then you must know Lin Tantan, she started the free flu clinics, right? That girl."
The vendor froze, that was Lin Tantan, then remembered a rumor: Commander Lu's favorite lieutenant had been poisoned and needed to chew some ability‑bearing plant to detoxify; Lin Tantan had been specially brought in to pick those plants.
It was only then that people realized plants could have abilities too. You could tell an animal's ability by the energy it released when attacking, but many mutated plants don't attack; they just stand rooted in the ground. You can guess mutation by size and appearance, but whether they possess an ability is mostly a guess.
And the one person who could judge abilities had specifically bought his calf liver.
He drew a breath and told his comrades in haste, "Weren't they going to feed that offal to the two dogs? Stop them! And the beef, see if you can buy it back. Never mind, forget it, I'll handle it myself!"
Lin Tantan had no idea she had caused the commotion. She walked on and eventually stopped at another stall covered with white, oddly‑shaped radish‑like things. She focused on one as thick as an arm, grotesque in shape; it was earth‑type.
"This one?"
"Yeah." She nodded, and Ye Xiao paid for the ugly radish and tucked it away.
They made another circuit without finding any more ability‑bearing food, and as the crowd swelled they returned to the car and drove back to the villa. The little hamster clambered out of Lin Tantan 's pocket and dove into the rice sack, squeaking loudly.
Lin Tantan, slightly exasperated, said, "You hoarder. Fine, stash the rest away."
Delighted, the hamster immediately chomped down the remaining rice, bag and all.
The creature was smaller than Lin Tantan's fist, yet its mouth could stretch impossibly wide. In an instant, the rice sack was gone.
Yes, the little thing had spatial ability, plus a knack for finding people, which is why Lin Tantan carried it. Its pocket dimension was tiny, under half a cubic meter, but relative to its size it was enormous, enough to store years' worth of food. Still, most of that space had been given over to Lin Tantan to stash crystal cores, weapons and food.
Lin Tantan stroked the little one and said to Ye Xiao, "That piece of beef liver carries wood-type energy, and the white radish is earth-type. I'll cook them right away, you eat them and see if they do any good."
Ye Xiao smiled. "All right."
Back at the villa, Ye Xiao went to wash up thoroughly while Lin Tantan watched the hired chef handling the two ingredients.
The chef, once he heard the ingredients were infused with abilities, got excited and kept asking Lin Tantan if he should treat them as ordinary food. Lin Tantan told him to be bold and just make them taste good.
Reassured, the chef set to work. The liver had a strong, gamey smell, so he sliced it thin and stir-fried it with garlic, using heavy seasonings to mask the odor; the earth-type radish was stewed with pork into a soup.
While Lin Tantan watched the ingredients become dishes, Ye Xiao upstairs received a message from Bai Cheng. Bai Cheng said Wang Shuo and He Fan had been questioned repeatedly and it was confirmed their group only numbered five, no other accomplices. After prolonged interrogation, He Fan finally broke and laid out their entire plan.
There wasn't much of a plan, really, mainly they mentioned a certain "divine craft" nearby.
“That 'Shenji’ flew specially from the capital; after capturing Tantan it would fly straight back to the capital," Bai Cheng said, sounding a little shaken. This place was only a few hours' flight from the capital; if they had taken her quietly and we hadn't located her within a few hours, Lin Tantan could already be in the capital, and then it would be too late.
Ye Xiao stared toward a corner of the distant construction site from the balcony, his face ice-cold. He squeezed the walkie-talkie-like communicator until it squeaked. "Did he say where it was?"
"He didn't know either. They don't have direct channels to the craft's pilots; they have to use the capital as an information relay," Bai Cheng sighed. "What we can be sure of is that the craft is still within Ning City's borders, and it was sent by Min Yande, those five were indeed hired by him."
Ye Xiao let out a silent, bitter laugh. Wonderful.
Bai Cheng continued, "He Fan also knows another thing: the capital seems to have found that the core of abilities lies in a specific brain structure. One, they want to see what differences there are in that tissue among single-, dual-, and triple-type ability users; two, they want to transplant that part to give non-ability people abilities. Supposedly it's theoretically possible, they've already run clinical experiments on deceased ability users and ordinary people."
So that was why, upon hearing Tantan was a triple-type, they were so eager to seize her: they could study her brain tissue, assuming they could keep her safe, and secondly, when transplant techniques mature, multi-type ability users would be the best donors.
Because she's a multi-type, her potential is enormous; the earlier they capture her, the less developed her powers will be.
A storm gathered behind Ye Xiao's eyes; they were dark as night. He sneered, "In your dreams!"
Then he said, "Don't let He Fan have contact with outsiders."
"Understood." Bai Cheng paused. "He said Tantan is a five-ability user, is that true?"
Ye Xiao was silent for a moment. "It's true."
Bai Cheng exhaled. "Well then... no wonder Min Yande went to such lengths. Ye Xiao, it looks like our pace of development is far too slow, it really doesn't match the caliber of your girl."
Ye Xiao smiled. "I know. Tell everyone to meet tomorrow."
"Okay."
Ye Xiao stood for a moment longer, then turned and went downstairs.
By then the two dishes were already on the table. Lin Tantan hurried over to usher him down. "You're here, it's ready. Come eat; it's about dinner time, so let's eat together."
"All right." Ye Xiao smiled and sat opposite her. Under her expectant gaze he tasted the two dishes. She was so nervous she nearly forgot to pick up her chopsticks and couldn't help asking, "Do you feel anything?"
Ye Xiao didn't feel much at first, so he ate a little more to be sure. "I feel warm and comfortable all over, like drinking a big pot of hot nourishing soup." Beyond that, there was nothing.
Lin Tantan checked and found the toxin in his body remained, not a bit less. She was a little disappointed.
Ye Xiao smiled to comfort her. "Don't worry so much. Here, you try some too."
Since it wasn't a cure, Lin Tantan picked up her chopsticks. Not bad, it actually tasted quite good. Because it was their first time eating ability-infused ingredients, they had set aside plenty for others who hadn't returned yet to try.
As it turned out, though, the others didn't come back that night.
Bai Cheng still had to inventory the armory, Xu Qin was with the institute folks working on the ability detector, Jiang Xiaotian was installing an all-round surveillance system at the site, and everyone else had their own tasks. So after the chef left, the villa was left with only Ye Xiao and Lin Tantan.
Oh, and a nest of mutant rats.
But those could be ignored.
For the first time, the two of them spent the night in the same house alone together.
Lin Tantan felt oddly unsettled and a little fluttery, and went to check on Ye Xiao. He, however, seemed perfectly at ease and rummaged through the liquor cabinet.
Two bottles of liquor, one 39%, the other 56%.
As he pulled them out he said, "Luckily Bai Cheng thought the cabinet looked too bare and that it needed some bottles to set the mood, so he slipped a few in here. Otherwise it would've been hard to find decent liquor on short notice."
Hearing Bai Cheng's name, Lin Tantan's peculiar nervousness melted away and was replaced by a little disappointment. She fell silent a moment, then brightened and said, "As long as it's liquor. Do we really need the good stuff?"
Ye Xiao smiled. "I don't drink often. If all I ever had was lousy liquor, wouldn't that be doing myself a disservice?"
Lin looked worried. "You don't drink much? How's your tolerance?"
Ye Xiao answered with full confidence, "Don't you worry about that."
It looks like that’s settled, Lin Tantan relaxed, then suddenly thought of something: "You’ll probably be soaking in water tonight, don’t you need a big container? A large tub? A bathtub?"
This villa’s three bathrooms didn’t have bathtubs.
They couldn’t very quickly find a bucket big enough for that.
The two of them looked at each other, as if realizing this was a rather serious problem.
Lin Tantan tapped her palm. "I’ll make one for you!"
So in Ye Xiao’s room they pushed the bed to one side and cleared a large enough space. Lin Tantan used her earth ability to form a hollow cylinder there, half a person high, like a tub. Its base was fused to the floor and couldn’t be moved. It was impossibly smooth and rounded, not a single rough edge; though it was made of soil, it felt polished and solid like glazed pottery.
She’d spent a lot of thought on it. When she finished she felt something was missing and asked if it needed a place to sit. Before Ye Xiao could answer, she’d already formed a step inside so someone could sit down.
She had been worried and a little down at first, but as she worked her mood lightened. She even had Ye Xiao get in right away to see if, when seated, his arms would rest comfortably on the rim.
"How is it, more comfortable like this?" After asking she looked at the round "tub" and seemed a bit unsatisfied, muttering, "It should be longer, bathtub-shaped, so you can lie down in it."
Ye Xiao gave a laugh that was half exasperated: "I’m not here to take a bath. Any shape will do."
"That won’t do. We might be in for the long haul, we should make it as effortless as possible." Lin Tantan waved her hand and started reshaping the "tub."
She made it a long oval, trying to approximate ergonomic proportions without books or images to consult, and with no internet on her phone. Ye Xiao’s role proved useful again; she had him lie down from time to time to test whether this would work or whether he’d bump an edge.
Ye Xiao felt like he’d become a prop.
Of course, he was enjoying the process.
As dusk deepened into night they goofed around until after eight, when Lin Tantan finally produced a bathtub she was pleased with, every curve soft and comfortable; lying in it felt just right. She topped it with a huge water bladder and laid a few soft blankets over it. Done!
She began filling it with water.
She didn’t even need to worry about a water source; when she put her hand in, water gushed out with a splash.
Ye Xiao watched and laughed. Then he suddenly reached under the stream she produced and cupped a handful: clear, crystalline water. It looked like tap water but held a brightness the water from pipes didn’t have, as if it were mountain spring.
Curious, he turned her hand over and saw water welling from her palm. He was surprised. "So that’s how it is. I’ve always wondered how water-type users produce water but never got a good look."
"Wood users summon vines, fire users throw fireballs, isn’t it all the same?"
Ye Xiao shook his head. "No. Those don’t surprise me, some are just energy-produced illusions. What fascinates me is this: it’s real water, drinkable and usable, capable of lasting. How does an ability turn into something like H2O?"
He spoke earnestly, almost childlike in his wonder. The small puzzled frown between his brows struck Lin Tantan as unexpectedly endearing, and she couldn’t help laughing. "You have that question too!"
Ye Xiao said, "That’s normal, right? The curiosity most people have, of course I have it."
Lin Tantan couldn’t stop smiling. When she finished she said, "Even though I’m a water user, I can’t answer that. Some things simply can’t be explained by science. All we can do is learn the rules as best we can and use them to our advantage."
Ye Xiao looked at her steadily, his eyes shining faintly.
Lin Tantan grew a little uneasy. "What are you looking at?"
Ye Xiao leaned in, resting his chin on her shoulder and sighed. "I was thinking, Tantan, you’re really smart. You see things clearly and thoroughly."
His breath brushed her; his low, soft voice sounded right by her ear. Lin Tantan couldn’t help trembling; her face flushed.
She instinctively wanted to pull away, but she only moved slightly and stopped herself.
Her lashes fluttered. Not meeting his gaze, she focused on producing the water and said softly, "No, everyone understands these things. Also, you’re not mad I hid the fact that I’m actually a five-ability user, are you?"
Ye Xiao noticed she wasn’t used to his closeness. Smiling, he sat back down and propped an arm on the rim of the "tub", looking relaxed and happy. "Everyone has secrets. If you went around blithely telling everyone you’re a five-ability user, I’d be the one worrying myself bald. You’re good the way you are, as for me, I feel ashamed in comparison."
Lin Tantan looked at him; he said with some chagrin, "You have so many abilities and I only have one. I have to work even harder."
Lin Tantan rolled her eyes. Then his expression suddenly changed and she noticed right away. "What’s wrong?" She checked the time, nine o’clock. So punctual?
She asked quietly, "Has it started?"
Ye Xiao blinked and after a few breaths said, "Yeah. It has."
"What does it feel like?"
"It’s like, it’s like countless ants running through my body." He spoke slower than usual, as if worried a quicker tone might change his voice or let out sounds that shouldn’t be heard. His hands gripped the tub’s rim; veins stood out faintly and the artery at his neck throbbed with each pulse, far more pronounced than normal.
Lin Tantan was startled and hurriedly quickened her pace, rapidly filling the bathtub. "Hurry and get in," she urged.
Ye Xiao shook his head. "Wait a moment, no rush." His voice and tone were still steady, but his face went progressively paler. He drew a long breath and let it out slowly, smiling wryly. "This is indeed a little serious."
Lin Tantan watched him with concern and laid her hand on the back of his.
Ye Xiao said, "Talk to me for a bit to take my mind off it."
"Mm." Lin Tantan thought for a moment, came up with a subject, hesitated, and asked, "Why do you like me?"
Ye Xiao paused, turned to look at her, and reflected, "Why I like you... that's hard to explain. Do you remember when we first met?"
"I remember." Of course she remembered, she hadn't recognized him at first, and when he later introduced himself as Ye Xiao she was nearly dumbstruck.
She'd probably never forget how she felt then; she thought herself utterly foolish.
Yet Ye Xiao said, "My very first, deepest impression of you was that you seemed like the sort of girl who could be easily fooled."
"?" Lin Tantan blinked. "Huh? Why?"
Although she admitted she had seemed a bit naive, that wasn't the same as being gullible, right? Lin Tantan puffed her cheeks in defiant disbelief.
Ye Xiao couldn't help pinching her cheek, but as he did his hand suddenly cramped and he relaxed. He sighed. "Come here and let me hold you, then I'll tell you why."
Lin Tantan stared, but when she saw sweat beading on his forehead and how strained he looked, she softened. Feeling both tender and worried, she edged closer.
She was folded into his arms.
Ye Xiao sighed. "When we first met you shared with me, without holding anything back, your knowledge and experience with abilities. Who does that? I wondered if you were too quick to trust strangers, if you'd be easily deceived. I thought I'd better properly thank you someday and keep a closer eye on you so nobody would take advantage of you."
Lin Tantan frowned. "I don't do that with everyone. I shared because you seemed trustworthy and dependable."
"Mm, good eye, Tantan." Ye Xiao laughed. "Later, when we went to the University City, we worked together quite well. Aside from the female soldiers and a few others, my usual impression of women was that they were a bit fragile, but you were entirely different. You... stayed calm in crisis, could help in so many ways. You're impressive, completely unlike anyone else."
Lin Tantan felt a little embarrassed. "It's not that dramatic." Inside, though, she understood: she had acted so differently. If she'd been ordinary, or all delicate and shrill, constantly calling and screaming, she'd surely have been dismissed, how could she have won his approval then?
She asked, "So just because of that, you fell for me?"
Ye Xiao looked down at the girl in his arms. It wasn't that simple, admiring her competence was one thing, but what first truly moved him came during the retreat from the University City, when Xu Qin told him she had left the convoy and was turning back to find him. It was the first time a girl, even surrounded by danger on all sides, had turned back for him.
The day and night she spent treating Mei Baisheng kept him on edge. Seeing her struggle so hard filled him with worry, and he told himself then that whether the treatment succeeded or failed, he would be grateful to her for the rest of his life.
The most shattering moment was finding her with a severed hand, kneeling in a pool of blood yet still smiling at him. The image still pierced him whenever he thought of it, gratitude entwined with guilt. Later, through a day and a night on the first floor of the cafeteria, he watched her sleep peacefully while his own mind was in chaos.
It was around then that the first faint stirrings of affection began to grow.
But he suppressed those feelings; he didn't plan to act on them, at least not so hastily.
After all, they had known each other for barely ten days.
And there was so much to be done that he had no head for romance.
But Bai Cheng made things clear.
Ye Xiao realized he couldn't remain undecided. He thought calmly and quickly, then gave Bai Cheng, and himself, an answer.
He liked Lin Tantan. She was decisive and composed; brave and generous. She was capable without being arrogant. She gave so much yet never made a fuss about it. She didn't wallow in self-pity over a wounded hand or refuse to burden others. She was broad-minded, willing to teach and uplift other ability-users. She was lively and endearing, sometimes a little absent-minded. She was easy and kind with her people and unflinchingly blunt with those she disliked. She...
In short, she was different in every way and utterly lovable. He felt curiosity for her, concern, a sense of duty, and a deep fondness. Put together, it was love, the kind that wanted to pursue her. The thought that someone else might win her, even a close brother like Bai Cheng, filled him with jealous, burning longing.
He'd always been the sort to tackle any obstacle once he decided on something, but with this he dared not act rashly. And as it turned out, he was right, his girl was adept at avoiding him. If he'd come straight out back then and been flatly refused, he probably would have given up.
After all, he hadn't been that deeply in love yet.
Luckily he held back. In the days that followed, the more he was with her, the deeper his feelings grew, deep enough that he couldn't bear to let her go. He would rather lie and perform than not inch closer to her.
It was probably... a little obnoxious of him, wasn't it? Fortunately she hadn't come to hate him; she had come to him as he'd wished, and now lay quietly and obediently in his arms.
Ye Xiao felt particularly satisfied.
But Lin Tantan hadn't heard the rest and looked up to ask.
He met her gaze, his expression soft and his voice dropping without him noticing. He didn't continue the last thread of thought; instead he said, "Actually, from the start I felt very unfamiliar with these abilities. In front of Bai Cheng and the others I acted calm and confident, but inside I was empty. I couldn't show any weakness, if even I panicked, what would everyone else do? It wasn't until I met you, when you told me about abilities and shared everything you knew, that I truly began to understand them and stepped into this entirely new field, and I did it properly, steadily."
He had heard of it and had even seen with his own eyes how others approached crystal cores with trembling caution, how some lost their lives to them, and how many were left bewildered and exhausted in the attempt to fathom them.
None of that had happened to him.
Because he had met Lin Tantan.
He turned his hand and took Lin Tantan's, their fingers loosely interlaced. His gaze was unbearably gentle, threaded with gratitude and solemnity. "Tantan," he said, "I don't think I've ever told you, meeting you is the greatest fortune of my life."
The light was soft, the water sparkling; his face was both bathed in the lamp's glow and kissed by ripples of reflected light, giving him an almost dreamlike handsomeness.
Lin Tantan was stunned.
Ye Xiao inclined his head slowly as if to kiss her, then faltered, finally resting his forehead against the hollow of her collarbone and letting out a heavy breath.
Lin Tantan came back to herself and heard his heart pounding like a drum, rapid and urgent. She asked, worried, "Is it unbearable?"
"A little. I'll hold on." If one could see inside him, they'd see strand after strand of black, hair-thin energy racing through him, slicing past the resistance of bone, muscle, and blood as if it weren't there, coming and going without hindrance.
Wherever that energy passed, bones, muscles and vessels suffered nearly imperceptible twists and remoldings. Because it moved so swiftly, that distortion filled him almost constantly, bringing a horrifying, crawling sensation like insects gnawing, and sending his body temperature steadily higher.
He endured until ten o'clock; Ye Xiao was burning up, his head muddled, he couldn't tell whether it was heat or itch. He couldn't hold out any longer and began drinking water. The water eased him a little, and by sipping it he managed to keep going for a while, until finally he submerged himself in the tub.
By then his pulse had climbed past 180 and his fever had risen further. He had no strength to speak; he twitched from time to time. He clenched his hands tight, as if that were the only thing keeping him from scratching.
Lin Tantan was frantic, she couldn't feel his pain, but watching him filled her with an unbearable worry. All she could do was hold his hand to soothe him.
He seemed to find a little relief in the water, but after only a few minutes he grew restless again. Lin Tantan touched the water; the coolness was warming. Thinking quickly, she lifted her hand and drew the warmed water out to the balcony, sending it splashing down to the first floor, then hurriedly filled the tub with fresh water.
The icy water seemed to soothe Ye Xiao more. Lin Tantan asked, "Would colder be better? Shall I find an ice-type ability user?"
"No…" Ye Xiao's voice trembled. "This is fine."
Lin Tantan held herself back until she couldn't anymore and a few tears slipped free. She wiped them away and, in a gentle voice, said, "I'll talk to you, okay?"
But what to say? Her mind was blank. Stories, yes. When she was a child, the five-element energies had tormented her and her parents would tell her fairy tales, which helped. She searched her memory and began to tell stories while she kept changing the water. Repeating that again and again, simply by swapping out the water, Ye Xiao astonishingly held on until three in the morning.
They didn't even need the alcohol.
When the time came, Ye Xiao calmed. Lin Tantan immediately leaned over, lifted him from the water and carried him to the bed. His skin was wrinkled from soaking, and he was exhausted. He opened his eyes and looked at her. Her eyes were rimmed in red, full of tenderness. She used her water ability to draw every last drop from him, touched his forehead, and in the husky voice of someone who had been telling stories whispered, "Sleep now. It's alright."
Ye Xiao blinked slowly, slipped his arm around her and buried his face in the hollow of her neck. Lin Tantan let him hold her, patting his back gently, smoothing his hair, comforting him like one would a wronged child.
Ye Xiao fell asleep quickly. Lin Tantan, exhausted as well, the six hours had left her just as strained, finally relaxed and felt a boundless weariness wash over her, and she too drifted off.
They slept deeply; when sunlight poured into the room the next morning, Ye Xiao awoke first. He felt odd about his position, and when he looked up he met her sleeping face. He was momentarily stunned; memories of the night flooded him and he felt a soft warmth. He realized, to his surprise, that his head was resting on her arm and that he lay there wrapped in her embrace as if being cared for.
More memories rushed in, being cradled like a child, her hands soothing his head, her reddened eyes full of concern and affection, her soft voice telling one fairy tale after another?
Ye Xiao's expression immediately grew strange.
Although he reflected that if their positions were reversed he would have comforted her the same way, something still felt off.