บท 13: Chapter 13 End of the Dry Well
"Drip-drop... drip-drop..." In the darkness, crystal-clear droplets fell one after another onto Xin Yun's face. Was it raining? Xin Yun struggled to open his cracked lips, thirstily catching the droplets, but they were bitter and astringent at taste.
When he opened his eyes in a daze, the first thing that caught Xin Yun's sight was Yi Luo Xiang's tear-streaked pretty face. Those bitter drops were Yi Luo Xiang's tears.
Seeing Xin Yun open his eyes, Yi Luo Xiang's eyes, large and brimming with tears, suddenly brightened. She quickly lifted her hand and brought a water skin to Xin Yun's lips, and sweet, crisp water gushed into Xin Yun's throat.
While gulping down the fresh water, Xin Yun looked around. It was clear... they had been rescued from the dried well. But both Xin Yun and Yi Luo Xiang knew that if the rescue team hadn't arrived in time, Xin Yun would never have awoken...
In fact, Xin Yun had made his judgment about the outcome. His only fear was that Yi Luo might also lose consciousness. Then, even if the rescue team arrived, they might not find him. Besides that, he felt quite safe—at least, he was certain that no one would die. To keep Yi Luo conscious, Xin Yun bit open his wrist several times to let the halted blood flow again, then fed it to Yi Luo. So the danger wasn't really that great.
But how could Yi Luo Xiang know all this? In her eyes, what Xin Yun did was tantamount to suicide. He was using his own life to give Yi Luo a greater chance of survival. After all... neither Xin Yun nor Yi Luo were immortals. Who knew when the rescue team would arrive, or if they would arrive at all?
To Xin Yun, everything was fraught with danger but ultimately safe. However, in Yi Luo Xiang's eyes, it was a completely different story. To her, what Xin Yun did at that moment was akin to committing suicide, leaving her everything he could. Had their luck not held, had the rescue team not arrived in time, Xin Yun would likely have never awakened if even half a day had passed.
Moved? No... The feeling Yi Luo Xiang experienced now far surpassed mere gratitude. Not only did he feed her blood from a broken wrist three times in succession, but he also gave her all of the last seventeen pieces of moss, not eating even one himself! How could such sentiments be expressed with mere thanks?
Someone might doubt how Xin Yun could possibly have survived after not eating anything for so many days and losing so much blood. After all, he was just a seven-and-a-half-year-old child!
In reality, it wasn't true that he had eaten nothing. Yi Luo Xiang had personally seen Xin Yun dig lots of soil from the cracks in the well's stone walls to eat. He was also very hungry, but he didn't eat any of the last seventeen pieces of moss, giving them all to her instead. How could such affection be described by merely feeling grateful?
It is easy to say the words "I love you" with your mouth. You could say it a hundred and eighty times a day without getting tired. But apart from one time when he was dazed, Xin Yun had always proven his love through actions. Just as the saying goes, love should not just be spoken, but it should be done...
As he drank a great amount of water, Xin Yun's spirit gradually revived. Clearly, even though he was reborn and his body had returned to its childlike state, along with a corresponding drop in his spiritual power, regarding the resilience of his soul, Xin Yun was far from a mere child. He wasn't even comparable to adults.
Counting this life, Xin Yun had now lived three lifetimes. Having been tempered through three lifetimes, Xin Yun's soul had become incredibly tenacious. Otherwise, no ordinary child could have endured the past fifteen days like Xin Yun did.
"Clang! Boom..." While he was drinking water, a cacophony of noises came from afar. Turning his head, he saw several figures constantly moving in and out of the village's dilapidated houses, rummaging through containers in search of something.
Xin Yun couldn't help but smile. In his previous life, he had a good relationship with this team. After all... it was them who had rescued him from the dry well. So even after Xin Yun became powerful, he never forgot them.
This was a small team of only seven people, and their strength was really not that impressive, just a Bronze One Star. Moreover, their aptitude was so poor that, until the moment Xin Yun was reborn, they had barely reached Bronze Eight Star, with the Silver Realm still an infinitely distant dream.
Of course, compared to ordinary people, they were still quite strong. For an average person, reaching Bronze One Star was already a dream, equivalent to a beginner just setting foot in the world of martial arts. If one couldn't even reach Bronze One Star, then they hadn't even found the threshold to this world.
These guys might not have been the most capable, but they were good people, all coming from the same village. Originally there were more than twenty of them, but as time passed, some died, leaving only seven. They usually shuttled between various villages, buying and selling goods, earning a bit of money to support their families. Although they couldn't be called wealthy, their lives were still fairly decent.
"Damn it... Damn disappointing, there's nothing at all!" While Xin Yun was lost in thought, several cursing voices came from afar. Hearing these sounds, Xin Yun couldn't help but pull at the corner of his mouth. The attackers of this village were bandits; with the thieves' professional looting skills, they wouldn't leave behind even a needle for them.
Sure enough, after searching continuously for more than an hour and meticulously scouring over a hundred houses in the village, the seven fellows muttered to themselves and headed towards the two people, each one empty-handed. Oh no... there was actually one with something in his hand, a stool missing a leg, but God knows what he intended to do with it.
As Xin Yun pondered, a boisterous voice rang out: "Old Seven, why the hell are you dragging that broken stool around? Throw it away quickly, don't you feel embarrassed…"
Hearing that voice, Old Seven grinned, hesitated while looking at the stool in his hand, and eventually threw it away. Actually... the stool could still be used if it were repaired.
Seeing Old Seven's reluctant expression, Xin Yun couldn't help but sigh. Just from this small act, one could see that their lives were far from affluent later on. In retrospective, these guys were able to make a small fortune later thanks to Xin Yun. It was Xin Yun's arrangement that gave them something to do, providing them with a stable income.
Like now, these fellows roamed around every day, not always finding proper deals to make. Generally, they would take some items from one village, such as animal pelts and meat, or fruits, then transport them to another village to sell. Not all the time were they making money; many times they would make losses, or the goods might even spoil and not sell at all, leading to a total loss...
"Hey... the little guy woke up! How are you feeling? All good..." As Xin Yun was reflecting, the leader of the gang came over with a guileless smile. To be honest, with their personalities, they really weren't cut out for business, but as the most bottom-tier martial artists, there wasn't much else they could do.
Although in this life, Xin Yun was meeting these seven for the first time, in his previous life, he had had too many dealings with them. Suddenly seeing them now, Xin Yun felt a real sense of familiarity.
In his previous life, Xin Yun was also one of the experts, and although he was no more than an ant compared to the Nine Great Experts, relatively speaking, he seemed quite superior compared to these seven, who in turn became the ants.
Weakly nodding his head, Xin Yun said familiarly, "I'm fine, Big Brother, seems like I won't be dying just yet. How about you... didn't manage to get anything good, huh, hehe..."
Hearing Xin Yun's address, the burly man was momentarily stunned and then chuckled in realization. In fact, these seven guys originally did not have names, so they were called Big Brother, Second Brother, all the way to Seventh Brother. Outsiders didn't know, but... the boisterous man thought Xin Yun might have heard them calling each other by these names and thus didn't mind it.
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