Chapter 163: Fallen into the Stream

With a plop, Zhou Shuo felt like a lump of lead, sinking rapidly after falling into the water, and thankfully the stream was deep enough; after he plunged down in one breath, it took a good while before he reached the lakebed. He pushed off underwater and was about to surface, but unexpectedly two figures plummeted down with two plops from above.

"Damn, lucky I didn't surface right away, otherwise that human‑shaped missile from above would have smashed me to pieces." Zhou Shuo watched the two figures falling from above onto the water, couldn't help but feel relieved, then swam forward, grabbed the two who had plunged in and were sinking below him, and pulled them upstream.

With a splash, Zhou Shuo hauled the two half‑drowned girls up to the surface, gazing at the incredibly deep stream cliffs; looking up from below, he felt immense relief—if he had hit the ground, he'd really have been screwed.

"Hey, how are you?" Zhou Shuo swam to the bottom of the stream, found a shallow spot, laid the two girls with disheveled hair stuck to their faces down, patted their cheeks, then pressed his hands on their chests to push out the water they'd swallowed, making them spit it out. Actually he didn't mind mouth‑to‑mouth, but if there was another way he'd use it first—taking advantage of someone's peril isn't great.

"You're not dead?" The female hero revived first, her face pale from the panic of rushing into the deep stream, but seeing Zhou Shuo eased her a little; she suddenly relaxed, yet as she lifted her eyes to the cliff bottom she felt a pang of dread.

"Cough cough." Feiyan Nü burst into coughing, the water she'd swallowed trickling from the corner of her mouth.

"I'm dead—your corpses would be feeding fish and shrimp right now, not sitting here. I've told you, I really can't fly, yet you keep pressing me. By the way, you and Feiyan Nü were flying, so how did you suddenly drop? Did you run into a demon?" Zhou Shuo looked at the gradually awakening Feiyan Nü, feeling both annoyed and amused, and joked.

"Get lost, it's all your fault—you obviously have martial skills, so why…!" The female hero glared at the soggy mess, glanced at her own wet clinging armor, felt both embarrassed and anxious, and covered her chest with both hands.

"But I really can't fly—I told you, you should be glad I was clever and lucky enough not to smash into the cliff above and shatter, but instead fell into the deep pool at the stream's bottom." Zhou Shuo looked at the girl covering her chest, turned away, and lectured with a grin.

"Even if you can't fly, you shouldn't take liberties and advantage of me." The female hero looked at his self‑assured chatter and felt a surge of anger.

"It's not like you didn't mean me harm first." Zhou Shuo shrugged, stepped over the dazed Feiyan Nü waking on the ground, leapt up and clung to a wet rock— the rock constantly soaked by spray, hard and damp, which his ten fingers pierced as if it were rotten earth.

"Hey, where are you going?" The female hero watched him talk and then scramble up the cliff, and anxiously asked.

"Of course I'm going up—do you want to stay down here? Hurry and look after Feiyan Nü; she's not doing well, seems to have internal injuries." Zhou Shuo dug his five fingers into the wet rock, climbing the cliff like a gecko, speaking as he went; hearing him, the female hero stepped forward to check on the dazed Feiyan Nü.

"Yanzi, Yanzi, how are you?"

"Sister Ying, I feel awful." Hair plastered to her face, Feiyan Nü stared blankly at the female hero, took a while to recognize her, and meanwhile moved her lips to utter two sentences.

"Hey, how are you? Come help us quick!" The female hero looked at the injured Feiyan Nü, her face tightening with worry, then glanced up at where Zhou Shuo had climbed and now disappeared.

"Hey, Zhou, are you there or not?" The female hero felt a bit annoyed, wondering if that guy had ditched her and run off.

"You annoying? I'm looking for vines to pull you up!" Zhou Shuo's voice drifted down from the cliff above, letting the female hero breathe a sigh of relief while she stared at the helpless injured Feiyan Nü—she wasn't a disciple of the Transformation Temple versed in miraculous healing, nor a disciple of Universal Salvation Mountain versed in compassionate arts, and for the moment had no way to treat such internal injury.

"Hurry up, Yanzi's badly hurt!" The female hero heard the voice above cut off and shouted.

"Hey, are you there?"

"Answer me—Yanzi's injury is severe!"

"You Square Inch Mountain folks have no healing arts?" Zhou Shuo gazed at the distant white sand beach and the waterfall‑fringed peach woods behind him, smirking, "Damn it, I can't find any vine‑like plants!"

"Our Return Origin Incantation works only on self‑regulation."

"Forget it." Zhou Shuo rolled his eyes at the woman's angry, urgent words, turned and walked back to the stream's edge, then leapt straight down.

"Why are you back again? Where are the vines?" The female hero stared at the jumper who had returned, eyes wide.

"You ask me, I ask who?" Zhou Shuo looked at the helpless girl, shook his head in irritation, then lowered his head to examine Feiyan Nü's injury.

"What do we do about Yanzi like this?" The female hero looked at Zhou Shuo who had jumped down, lost her temper for a moment, and helplessly glanced at her close friend.

"She won't die, don't worry." Zhou Shuo reached into the air, grasped nothing, and pulled out a fiery‑red lingzhi.

"Hell lingzhi?" The female hero stared at the lingzhi Zhou Shuo had casually plucked, eyes wide.

"You know it?" Zhou Shuo was a bit surprised; this thing grows in the labyrinth beneath the netherworld, and the Bone Sprite said outsiders rarely see it.

"I've heard my master mention it." The female hero nodded quickly.

"No time to refine pills now—just see if she's lucky; crush it and feed her, mouth to mouth." Zhou Shuo shrugged, tore the lingzhi apart and handed it to the female hero.

"Ah…" The female hero looked at Zhou Shuo, unable to help widening her phoenix eyes.

"Then let me do it." Zhou Shuo saw the hesitant girl, instinctively pulled his hand back, but before the lingzhi could enter her mouth it was snatched away.

"You bastard, turn around." The female hero snatched the lingzhi into her mouth, face flushed as she glared at Zhou Shuo, "Don't even think about taking advantage of Yanzi."

"Tch." Zhou Shuo turned his head away from the blushing girl, tilted his head slightly, and glanced out of the corner of his eye at the female hero feeding the crushed lingzhi to Feiyan Nü mouth‑to‑mouth; his heart fluttered inexplicably, and he suddenly felt like shouting "Yuri is supreme, yuri forever!"

Zhou Shuo turned his head in envy, waiting for the female hero to swallow the whole lingzhi before turning back to check on Feiyan Nü; he saw her complexion improve at a visible pace, her breathing gradually steadying, she coughed twice, sat up and spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm, then the whole person gasped heavily.

"All good, no problem." Zhou Shuo looked at the panting girl, gave her a pat, and remarked that his luck was fine—one stalk of hell lingzhi had done the trick.

"All right, take it easy, you okay?" The female hero stroked Feiyan Nü's silky back, helped her regulate her breath, and asked.

"No, no, I'm fine—scared the hell out of me. Sister Ying, where are we?" Feiyan Nü caught her breath after a while, looked at the damp, shady cliff bottom, and felt at a loss.

"We've gone to the netherworld together, sigh. Yanzi, what do you think we should do?" Zhou Shuo put on a bitter face, turned around, and tried to tease the little girl.

"Hehe, just looking at Older Brother Zhou's expression tells me we're safe now." Feiyan Nü glanced at Zhou Shuo's expression, didn't wait for the female hero to speak, and burst into laughter.

"Oh, why?" Zhou Shuo looked at the girl laughing her head off, feeling a faint curiosity.

"Older Brother Zhou, were you scared when a tiger ate you?" Feiyan Nü held back her laughter, cheeks flushed as she curled up in her wet, clinging clothes.

"Clever girl, let's not linger here; let's go up first." Zhou Shuo looked at the shy girl, smiled and shook his head, then turned and leapt up the rock face with his arms.

The female hero watched the guy swim up to the wet rock, saw the flushed Feiyan Nü, felt a strange twinge of jealousy, and softly asked twice how her recovery was going; after confirming three times that she was fine, the two rose and climbed the cliff along the crevice Zhou Shuo had gouged out.