Chapter 6 — Giao Giao’s Covenant

Flame transformed into his true form, his fur glowing a brilliant, scorching red under the sun like a churning inferno. He sprinted forward on all fours, tossing me onto his back in one swift motion.

“Hold on tight, Master!”

Azure gestured with his hands, conjuring a massive wall of water to shield our rear. However, the beast tide was closing in from three sides, leaving us with only one path forward.

“There’s a cliff ahead!”

Azure’s warning echoed from behind us. We raced toward the precipice and skidded to a halt. Below lay a bottomless abyss, shrouded in thick, swirling mist that obscured any sign of the depths. Behind us, thousands upon thousands of ferocious beasts were surging forward like an unstoppable flood.

“Jump.”

Yun Ci spoke the word calmly.

“Are you insane?” Flame glared at him, his eyes wide with disbelief.

“There is a deep pool down there; I scouted it earlier.” Yun Ci’s voice remained unnervingly steady. “Jumping gives us a chance at survival; staying means certain death.”

He turned to look at me, his gaze locked onto mine with unwavering resolve. “Jiao Jiao, trust me.”

Before I could answer, the spirit beasts behind us lunged. Yun Ci pulled me firmly into his arms and threw himself into the void. The wind howled in my ears. His embrace was iron-clad, wrapping around my body to protect me from the elements. My face was pressed against his chest, where I could distinctly hear the rapid, heavy thrum of his heart. Suddenly, I saw a thin layer of ice crystallize behind his back, spreading out like wings to slow our descent. But he was not an avian beast-man; the ice wings could only hold for a fleeting moment. We collided with branches protruding from the cliff face. Yun Ci pivoted, using his own body to shield me from the impact, and I heard him emit a guttural groan of agony.

Then, we hit the water. The force of the impact was immense, and the freezing lake water swallowed us whole. Yet, Yun Ci did not let go. When I finally opened my eyes, my entire body ached with a dull, throbbing pain, but we were alive. We were in an underground cavern hidden at the bottom of the gorge, with faint beams of light filtering down through cracks in the ceiling. Beneath my feet lay slick, jagged stones; beside us sat the deep pool. Not far away, Flame lay gasping for air, his body covered in wounds but still breathing. Azure surfaced from the water, his merman physiology protecting him from the harsh conditions, and he began hauling an unconscious Yun Ci onto the shore.

Yun Ci’s face was as pale as parchment, his lips a deathly shade of violet. His left shoulder bore a deep, jagged gash, the blood turning his silver-grey uniform into a dark, crimson shroud. During our fall, he had used his own frame to buffer my descent, tearing his flesh against the sharp stones of the cliff. That was not to mention the countless lacerations across his back from the jagged branches. The air in the cave grew thick with the metallic tang of blood.

“Yun Ci!” I patted his cheeks, desperate. “Yun Ci, wake up!”

He slowly pried his eyes open. His pupils were unfocused at first, but as they cleared to reveal my face, the corners of his mouth twitched into a faint smile.

“Jiao Jiao… as long as you are safe… that is enough.”

“Stop talking!” I reached out, preparing to tear my clothes to bind his wounds. He reached out a cold, trembling hand and gripped my wrist.

“Are you in pain?”

“I am not in pain.”

“Don’t lie to me. Your bone is practically visible.”

He did not reply, his eyes drifting shut once more, his complexion fading to a ghostly white. Earlier, when the beast tide had descended, he had thrown me behind him, taking the razor-sharp claws of a giant beast directly into his own body. Had that strike shifted two inches further, it would have been his throat torn asunder instead of his shoulder.

“Shen Jiao.” He suddenly used my full name. I looked up at him. “Can you stop looking for those two beast-men now?”

“This is hardly the time for this conversation.”

“If I don’t say it now, once you return, they will just entangle you again.”

I took a sharp breath. “For the past three years, why have you been so cold toward me? No laughter, no companionship, always busy. Don’t tell me that’s just how you were born; you talk more to the others in the tribe than you do to me.”

He lowered his gaze, falling into a long, heavy silence.

Outside the cave entrance, the voices of Flame and Azure could be heard, yet Yun Ci spoke up suddenly. “Perhaps you do not remember, but before we truly knew each other, I had already met you.”

“That day, when you were sitting by the bonfire talking with your friends, you said you only liked the kind of man who was cold, silent, and arrogant, feeling that was the only way to be truly impressive.”

I paused to reflect, and realized it was true. I had indeed spoken such nonsense to my best friend back then.

“So you just copied that entire persona and acted it out for three whole years?”

“I was not acting.” His voice sounded slightly stiff. “I have always been reticent; I have never been fond of smiling. I simply thought I was being the type of person you admired.”

“Then why couldn’t you just smile at me? You can be cold all you want, but would it kill you to give me a single smile?”

He turned his face away, the tips of his ears flushing a deep, vibrant red. “If I smiled, it wouldn’t be cool anymore.”

I stared at him for three full seconds. “Yun Ci, is there something wrong with your brain?”

The tips of his ears turned even redder.

“Is there anything else?” I pressed him. “Don’t tell me that’s your only pathetic excuse.”

He turned his head back to look at me, then down at his mangled left arm. At the edge of his wound, ice crystals were slowly forming—his body was struggling to use his ice-elemental energy to stem the flow of blood.