Chapter 2265: Miao Border Youth's Fierce Love 28

The lamp flickered with a dim yellow light, Jin Que lay limp on the bamboo mat, his whole body soaked in cold sweat.

At the moment the worm left his body, he felt a hollow emptiness in his chest, as if someone had Shengsheng carved out a piece of flesh.

The wound at his chest and the punctured acupoint clearly still bled, yet it couldn't compare to the indescribable discomfort in his heart.

He glanced sideways, struggling to open his blurred eyes toward the other side.

Nan Yixing supported the drowsy Jin Chen, his warm lips lightly touching Jin Chen's sweat-damp forehead, his fingers brushing away the hair stuck to Jin Chen's face, straightening his collar, covering the old scar on his chest that was no longer ferocious.

"All right, from now on no worm will threaten you."

Under the suppression of Jin Chen's Spiritual Power, his body was exhausted to the extreme, so sleepy he couldn't open his eyes, he murmured a response and hugged Nan Yixing into his embrace, leaving only the sound of even breathing.

Jin Que struggled to sit up, staring intently at the sight of Jin Chen embracing Nan Yixing.

It started raining outside the wooden hut.

The rain sounded urgent, enough to wash away everything past.

Nan Yixing felt this rain was just right, very fitting.

"A San." Nan Yixing sat by the window, letting Jin Chen sleep more comfortably as rain soaked his sleeve, "Send Jin Que back; he also needs proper rest."

A San fumbled to help someone, but Jin Que suddenly grabbed the silver bell chain hanging from Jin Chen's waist as he leaned in Nan Yixing's embrace.

Nan Yixing didn't even lift his eyelids; a light flick of his finger snapped the blood-stained silver chain.

The shattered silver beads rolled onto the floor, making a faint clinking sound.

The rain grew heavier, pattering against the bamboo window.

Only then did Jin Que see the murky, tide-like darkness in Nan Yixing's eyes.

"Watch your boundaries," Nan Yixing said, his smile edged with cold, "Jin Chen never likes others touching him."

Jin Que pressed his lips tight and finally fainted.

A San carefully helped the person away, thinking.

He was probably annoyed by the Southern Physician, how pitiful.

——

Morning light filtered through the gaps in the bamboo blinds, casting speckles on Jin Chen's face.

He blinked open his eyes in a daze, finding Nan Yixing resting in the crook of his arm, black hair spread over the herbal pillow, still carrying a faint calming scent.

"Awake?"

Nan Yixing's voice carried morning laziness as his fingertip lightly brushed over the newly formed scab on Jin Chen's chest.

Where the worm pattern once coiled had vanished, leaving only a faint scar.

Jin Chen lowered his head to rub Nan Yixing's nose tip, the corner of his mouth lifting in his usual arc, "Not bad, this place is empty."

Before, whenever he thought of a worm residing in his heart, he felt uneasy everywhere.

After the worm was undone, Jin Chen's spirits improved considerably.

Nan Yixing chuckled, winding a strand of Jin Chen's hair around his finger, "Empty?"

"That's different." Jin Chen leaned in to kiss the corner of Nan Yixing's mouth, deliberately rubbing his nose against his cheek, "All right, no space left—filled completely with you."

Nan Yixing let him fuss, his fingertips lightly tracing the scar beneath the youth's collarbone.

"Does it still hurt?" he asked softly, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the scar.

Jin Chen grabbed his hand and pressed it to his own chest, "It doesn't hurt here."

"But other places hurt, Pusa Gege, could you take a look?"

Nan Yixing chuckled, pinched his nose tip, pushed him away, "You're impossible."

But his heart felt as if soaked in honey, those long-suppressed possessive desires finally able to grow unchecked.

That place would no longer suddenly split and bleed from another's pain; this realization let a secret satisfaction rise in his chest.

No need to worry that someone could harm his boy through the worm, nor to stay up late watching Jin Chen grow uneasy from another's suffering.

{Detected Villain Blackening Value -10, accumulated 50! }

"From now on..." Nan Yixing kissed Jin Chen's brow, his voice tinged with an oblivious possessiveness, "It's mine alone."

Jin Chen's eyes crinkled at the words, his youthful spirit intensifying as he pinched Nan Yixing's chin and kissed him back, "It always was."

Outside the window came the sound of A San drying herbs, along with a few early-rising tree sparrows chirping under the eaves.

Nan Yixing reached to tidy Jin Chen's messy sleep‑hair, "Hungry? I'll go make you porridge."

Jin Chen, however, pulled him tighter, biting his earlobe, "Lie down a while."

He yawned, burying his face in Nan Yixing's shoulder, "Anyway, there's nothing today; the time for the second blessing is this afternoon."

——

Things have become serious.

He hadn't even dozed for a moment when A San rushed to knock on the door, so anxious he seemed about to climb in through the window.

Jin Chen opened the door lazily, "What's up."

"Young Master! The Elders and the Grand Priest all know about the worm‑removal."

A San winked at those behind him, "They're all waiting at Jin Que's place, asking me to fetch you… saying Jin Que's condition is very bad."

"Tch, I'm not going."

Jin Chen leaned against the doorframe, gazing into the distance.

The inhabitable spots in the forbidden ground are all close together; without going far you can roughly see what's happening—those Elders waiting for him to come so they can lecture him or coax him into giving Jin Que's heart‑blood, whichever way, whoever goes is a fool.

But if he doesn't go to the mountain, the mountain will come to him.

They chose to come just as Jin Chen had finished his porridge; who would have thought that as soon as they arrived, they'd hear A San say the Young Master wasn't there, having taken the Southern Physician out to relax.

A San had taken bribes, deeply absorbed Jin Chen's true teachings, performed it so convincingly that before the Elders he portrayed Jin Chen as just having been freed from the worm, making himself feel like a pitiful egg that had just been reborn.

The Elders, who knew the Young Master's nature well, listened with bristling beards and glaring eyes, not taking in a single word.

Although the elders didn't know where Jin Chen had gone, seeing the red snake in the distance gave them a plan.

This red snake gu is Jin Chen's natal gu worm; it must be nearby!

So the elders quietly tailed the red snake, worried they'd be spotted along the way—yet the farther they went, the more distant it became.

The high priest suddenly stopped, glanced at the eerie deep mountains and old forest, stroked his beard, "Something's not right—what is the young master doing here?"

An elder also sensed something odd, "Could it be that...?"

Before they could react, a flash blinded them—when they looked again, the red snake's trace was gone, replaced only by a vine basket dropping straight down.

The high priest moved to push it aside, but an elder shoved him down, "Damn, don't touch this vine! There's..."

He scratched his head in anger, "Castor bean powder again!"

Elders: "......"

What a sin!