CHAPTER 99: CHAPTER 99; HER FINGERS TWITCHED

He thought of the child they had lost, the blood, the burning, the silence.

And somehow, he understood.

This wasn’t about love anymore. Or redemption.

It was about duty. Damage control. Survival.

So he agreed.

He married Yueyao.

Not because he loved her.

But because she needed saving.

And he.....

He needed to be needed....

— — — — — —

PRESENT

The room was thick with silence now, but it wasn’t peaceful, it was stifling.

So heavy.

Like the aftermath of a scream no one heard.

Shen Xiao sat there on the polished floorboards, unmoving. One arm wrapped around Bai Zhi’s trembling shoulders, the other one wrapped up tightly around her bleeding wrist, firm but gentle, the way someone might hold a bird with a shattered wing, in fear of breaking its tiny body.

Her tears had slowed, but her breathing still hitched like the sobs were trying to crawl back out from her throat.

Her face was hidden against his chest, her knuckles white where she clutched at his shirt. That grasp was so weak, yet so desperate, it was the only thing anchoring her to the world. The only thing holding her little life on Earth.

He could feel the rhythm of her heartbeat through the fragile bones of her wrist. It was unsteady and scattered. Like it was trying to outrun her pain.

Like she was trying to outrun him.

And he let her, for too long.

The blood hadn’t stopped yet from gushing out of the open wound. Without her life, his life would also vanish.

A thin stream trailed down her arm, soaking into the silk of her sleeve. Shen Xiao heavily swallowed, the sight burning itself into the back of his eyes.

He could still feel the faint echo of her pain in his own flesh, not bleeding, but aching, like his soul had flinched.

"Bai Zhi," he muttered her name again, quietly this time with some fondness. "Let me call Doctor Han over to dress the wound up."

She didn’t respond to him and didn’t even make the slightest movement. It was as if she were somewhere far away, not dead, not unconscious, but detached. Floating just out of reach.

He shifted, reaching into his pocket with his free hand and pulling out his mobile phone.

One-handed, quickly he got the mobile phone, like he had done it a thousand times. Maybe he had countless moments. Maybe emergencies like this had become a rhythm in his life too.

He dialed the doctor’s number, which was answered immediately.

"Doctor Han. Come now, to my study room. Bring a trauma kit and no questions."

Then he hung up, letting the phone fall beside them on the floor.

And still, Bai Zhi said nothing.

He glanced down at her again, brushing his thumb softly over the inside of her wrist, just beside the cut, avoiding the wound itself, but staying close. Her blood clung to his skin like a warning.

"You weren’t supposed to bleed for me again," he whispered feeling heartache.

He said it like a prayer. Or maybe a confession.

His throat tightened, and he forced himself to breathe slowly, evenly, to steady the chaos rising in him.

She had been just a girl, just nineteen years old, the night she took the priest’s curse in his place.

He remembered the blood pooling at her feet, the copper smell of incense and ash, the priest’s voice reciting syllables that didn’t belong to the world of the living. He remembered how she screamed when the curse took root in her, not from fear, but from pain, unearthly and vast.

She had collapsed in his arms just like this. That same unbearable weight.

And now, years later, she was still bleeding for him.

Still paying for the moment when he couldn’t be strong enough to protect themselves.

He let his hand drift to her hair, slowly combing through the tangled strands that had fallen over her face. His voice was barely audible now.

You were just nineteen. I was supposed to protect you and not the other way around..."

The words scraped out of his throat like broken glass.

"And instead I watched you become the vessel for my survival."

He hadn’t spoken those words aloud in years.

Because saying it made it real.

Because guilt is easier to live with when it’s quiet.

He looked down again, brushing the hair gently from her cheek.

"You were five months pregnant when the priest sealed the curse. And I never even knew."

His jaw was tightly clenched.

"I thought the convulsions that night were from the ritual. I didn’t know you were carrying my child. I didn’t know it was our son you were bleeding out."

Her breath caught in her throat; it was the slightest reaction, but she didn’t speak.

"And I never once said sorry. Not for the child we had lost, not for the binding. Not for everything you lost because of me..."

The silence that followed was vast. It pressed in from every direction.

"You asked if I would have let Yueyao take your place. If she had been the one who stood there, instead of you."

He exhaled, slow and unsteady.

"No," he whispered. "I wouldn’t have let her. I wouldn’t have let anyone. But you didn’t give me the chance to stop you. You chose death that night before I even realized what was happening, I wouldn’t want to owe anyone apart from you, it was because you are my only one..."

He bowed his head, forehead resting against hers.

"And maybe I was a coward for letting you do it. For letting the curse bind your life to mine. For lying still while the girl I loved destroyed herself in my name."

Her fingers twitched.

A flinch, or was it forgiveness? He didn’t know.

The door suddenly creaked open.

Footsteps echoed, they were quick and professional, it was Doctor Wu with his medical kit.

But Shen Xiao didn’t move.

He simply looked at Bai Zhi, her face pale, her body limp, and gently brushed the blood from her fingers one last time.

"Save her," he said to the doctor without looking up. "Whatever it takes."

"Mmnnh..." One look at Shen Xiao’s expression, and he didn’t ask questions.