Legend of Fei

32. Your Husband Can Fight Too.

"He is going to attack someone to stablize his qi. We can't let him attack anyone else." He felt her hand slipping away and gripped tight around her fingers.

"No. He will not. He needs a medium to transfer qi with a martial artist. He is beyond his limit with direct absorption. With anyone else... Well, who else is there?" His eyes never moved from Feng Feuihui as he landed on the roof. A smile stretch across his lips, a sarcastic sneer when he saw martial artist surrounded him. The boyish man used his Qing Dong to escape the circle and few who had good Qing dong followed after.

"Let him be herded. Months of manipulating and herding us towards the central plain, he is now in our hands." His eyes followed every moment as Feng Feihui jumped on one of the thatch roof and a woman followed him, gaining with her Qing dong. He remembered the man on the island, the men snooping about his room. He remembered the faint shimmer in the air by the bathtub window, he remembered walking the streets feeling like there was a target on their back. Pushed and pressured, White Tiger had left no stone unturned in cornering  and mentally harassing them, in harassing A'Fei. Not only did he wanted to weaken her mind but also her body with the drug.

His intentions with A'Fei were more vial than they had guessed initially. He didn't want A'Fei, he wanted to resign her into accepting to be by his side, so that she could be his qi transfering medium next. It was mental manipulation, constant following, invasion in private space, fatal attacks on his and A'Fei's life, just shy of death. Irritation that was building up in him soothed today seeing Feng Feihui stumbled on the thatch roof, trying to find an escape or some room to attack without having to waste his blade and its drug on other martial artists.

Had A'Fei not been as mentally strong as she was, she would have long been frustrated and resigned to what was coming for her, for them. His grip on her hand tightened. A sense of relief washed over him, rising into his eyes. He had the urge to realize a big breath as a burden was going to lighten from his heart, burden he had refused to think about.

He felt A'Fei's hand tighten in his, he looked about but found nothing. He looked back at his wife. She had a hard expression on her face. Color has drained from under her skin, leaving a sickly pale white. Her eyes lost focus. For moment he thought it was the drug. He looked all over her but she had no wound.

"What is it?" Instead of answering, her figure swayed and her eyes closed. He caught his wife and looked at Feng Feihui, still struggling and fighting. Surely it wasn't qi manipulation. He laid her down on the wide beam gently and felt her pulse. No pulse. His heart dropped into his gut. Then he felt it, a feeble attempt at pulling away. A'Fei was pulling her wrist away from him. He let it down on her side gently. With great effort, she raised a trembling arm and retrieved the marble from within her lapels.

Her breathing was even and slow but her eyes had opened. She slipped it into his lapels. For a moment, color rose in his face seeing where A'Fei hand had dipped.

"A'Fei, don't be SUCH a bandit." He joked to cover his concern. Xie Yun realized that A'Fei was alright after all. A'Fei knocked her knuckles to his chest but he barely felt her touch. There was barely any warmth left, cold touch like that of approaching death. He felt the marble's effect on his qi. It took away his heat and replaced it with a chill that pressed into his chest. He felt the strange sensation of coolness spread over him and his own pulse drop a single beat. He realized what happened to him had happened to A'Fei faster. He helped his wife sit up. The removal of the marble had a profound effect in seconds. She wasn't better, but she could sit up and move with strength without swaying.

"Why are you giving me this?" he shivered a bit and the next thing he knew, she had removed her coat and pushed it into his hands. Tenderness filled his heart when he looked at A'Fei. He was long cured but she was still not over what had happened. It lingered in her simple actions. He simply put it back on her shoulder, "you need it more right now."