Yuche had seen people die before.
He, himself had killed hundred, if not thousands before the world ca to an end.
So he killed quickly, so slowly. So died screaming, so died begging... and so still tried to crawl away with half their bodies missing because human beings were stupid enough to keep fighting long after they should have stopped.
He had watched n bleed out in alleyways, choke to death in their own blood, burn alive during territory wars, and overdose in the back rooms of clubs while music kept playing outside the door.
And yet, none of that had prepared him for this.
Shen Rouxi lay motionless on a pile of blankets in the middle of the living room while everyone circled around her like moving too far away might sohow make things worse.
Nobody sat down.
Nobody relaxed.
Even Lingyun, whose body count was probably more than his, paced between the kitchen and the living room carrying supplies nobody asked for because at least it was sothing to do.
Sothing that might help.
Chenghai kept checking the windows and front entrance every few minutes before imdiately coming back to stare at Rouxi again like he didn’t even realize he was doing it. Zhenlan stood near the sectional with his arms crossed while Commander Li and his n stayed just far enough back not to interfere.
Even the plants seed restless.
The vines wrapped loosely around Rouxi’s body shifted constantly against the blankets while smaller roots pushed slowly through the hardwood floor nearby. He dropped to his knees and whispered to them when the mistook Luo Xin as a threat and not her only hope.
He listened absently as Lingyun and Luo Xin joked about career choices.
But everything faded into the background the mont Luo Xin sat beside Rouxi with one hand pressed lightly against her spine and the other braced against his knee hard enough that his knuckles looked bloodless.
His healing light flickered weakly between his fingers.
Not steady. Weak. He was weak, and no one needed to say it out loud to make it any less true.
Yuche hated that more than anything.
"Talk," he said finally.
Luo Xin didn’t look up imdiately. His fingers moved carefully over Rouxi’s lower back before shifting down toward her ruined leg. The skin there looked wrong. Torn open. Swollen. Bruising dark beneath shredded flesh where the creature’s teeth had ripped through muscle like at caught in machinery.
Luo Xin exhaled slowly through his nose.
"The leg is bad," he admitted quietly. "But the spine is worse."
The room went completely still and Yuche felt Lingyun stop moving sowhere behind him.
"Define worse," Chenghai said flatly.
Luo Xin finally looked up.
"The vertebrae shattered," he said honestly. "There was nerve damage before I even touched her. If I hadn’t started stabilizing things at the hotel..." he stopped talking, but Yuche and the others could read between the lines.
She had already be permanently paralyzed before they even got to her in that chamber.
Nobody spoke. Not because they were calm, but because every single person in the room understood exactly what that ant.
Luo Xin looked back down at Rouxi again. "I can reconnect so of it. I can stabilize the damage. I might even get enough healing through the spinal cord to restore movent eventually."
"Might?" Yuche repeated.
Luo Xin t his eyes directly. "I can fix so of this," he said quietly. "Not all of it. And not in a way that would guarantee she would ever walk normally again."
For the first ti since bringing Rouxi ho, Yuche felt sothing cold settle into his chest.
Fear.
She might never walk normally again.
Lingyun swore softly under his breath and dragged both hands through his hair before turning away hard enough that flas flickered briefly across his fingers.
Commander Li’s n looked grim.
Even Zhao Rui had stopped scanning the room and was staring directly at Rouxi now.
Luo Xin rolled his shoulders once before lowering both hands back toward Rouxi’s spine. "I need to start before the damage settles any further."
Then the healer closed his eyes and white light flooded outward from his palms.
Rouxi jerked violently against the blankets, her mouth opening in a silent scream.
Yuche reached out to touch any part of her that he could while the vines wrapped around her arms tightened hard enough to crack the wood beneath the blankets.
"Easy," he said quickly. "Easy. He’s helping."
Rouxi didn’t wake up, she didn’t do the one thing he desperately needed her to do. But her breathing changed just a bit. And not in a good way.
It was sharp, uneven, and scread pain when her voice couldn’t.
Luo Xin’s face went pale almost imdiately.
The healer’s hands shook visibly while the white light spread slowly down Rouxi’s spine in thin branching lines that reminded Yuche unpleasantly of cracks spreading through glass.
Minutes passed, but still nobody moved.
Sweat started running down Luo Xin’s face heavily enough that droplets fell onto the blankets beneath him while his breathing turned rough and uneven.
Then suddenly the healer choked hard and nearly collapsed forward.
Sun Ming caught him before he hit the floor completely.
"Luo Xin!"
The white light vanished instantly and Luo Xin shoved himself upright again with obvious effort while blood dripped slowly from one side of his nose.
"Lower spine is stabilized," he rasped. "Nerve pathways partially reconnected."
"Partially?" Lingyun snapped.
Luo Xin looked exhausted enough to fall unconscious himself. "Do you want honesty or comfort?"
Nobody answered that... mostly because there was no good answer.
The healer wiped blood from his face with the back of one shaking hand before looking back toward Rouxi again.
"I need rest. When my powers fill back up, I’ll be able to work more. But I am tapped. There is nothing left."
Commander Li nodded his head, his expression grim. But Yuche could understand his position. Luo Xin was one of his n... he wouldn’t put him in danger for a stranger.
But that didn’t an it was acceptable for him.
He stood up without a word and Commander Li watched him carefully as he crossed the living room toward the entertainnt system beneath the massive television. The Dragon Head crouched down, reached behind one side of the cabinet, and pressed sothing hidden near the back panel.
A soft click echoed through the room.
Then Yuche started pulling out boxes.
One after another.
Wooden storage boxes.
Plastic containers.
tal lock cases.
The entire room slowly went silent again as he stacked them across the floor.
Lingyun stopped pacing a bright smile appearing on his face while Commander Li stared openly in confusion... like he didn’t know how this would help.
Even Chenghai looked caught off guard.
Yuche opened the first box and crystal cores almost spilled out of the top, it was filled up so much. Then he opened the second to show more cores. Then the third, fourth, fifth.
By the ti he was done, there were hundreds of cores, and it looked like a rainbow or a unicorn puked in the living room.
Commander Li felt Zhao Rui stop breathing beside him.
"Where the hell..." Wang Junjie whispered.
Yuche ignored everyone completely and kept opening even more boxes.
Rouxi had sorted them, she had gone through them and decided what would work for them and what wouldn’t. And then, every morning, more plants would spit out crystal cores like so sort of offering for their Goddess.
That was the part that hit hardest.
Different colors separated carefully into containers labeled in her handwriting. Fire. Water. Earth. Spirit. tal. Mutated. Unknown.
She had planned for this, only none of them realized it until right this minute. Then again, she was always a few steps ahead of any of them.
Zhenlan moved first, crouching beside one of the containers before digging through the glowing cores carefully until he pulled out several pale opalescent stones swirling faintly with white light.
"Healing," he grunted as he handed them toward Luo Xin calmly. "If you aren’t used to using cores, make sure you only take one at a ti."
Luo Xin stared at the cores for half a second before taking the first one carefully. "What is it?" he asked, holding the crystal up to the light.
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