WangXian Forever Book 8

Chapter 68 Tracking

Hui Gai was pleased to see that his tracking talisman worked, because now he was standing in front of the most rickety, dodgy rope bridge he had ever seen.

Wen Ning wasn't wrong when he had described this place as ancient.

Time appeared to be at a standstill but there was an energy all around him. This place...the Dragon's Graveyard ... it reminded him of his first time in the Nether World when he had been urged to say his own name.

That same kind of power was in abundance here, thrumming through the trees and the branches of this aged woodland. It was in the very air that he breathed.

But he was confused.

The tracker was showing up across the rope bridge...far away on the other side, and so was Wen Ning...but he picked up the presence of more familiar heat signatures not too far away.

And then he remembered Wen Ning had told him that his PengYou's ducklings had managed to follow their mother here.

Maybe he should go see what they were up to first, before checking on Wen Ning.

After all, he was already dead...so what was the worst thing that could happen to him?

**********

SiZhui opened his palm and saw to his amazement that the dragon pearl was split in two, a perfect separation in half.

It had worked!

Jin Ling hadn't noticed anything, lost in thought.

SiZhui watched him for a while. They both had had difficulties growing up. Absent parents was just one of many hurts they had in common...but still SiZhui thought they had come out of their hard times much better people.

He had fallen in love when he was still a teenager and didn't even know the word for what he was feeling. This boy held his heart and SiZhui wouldn't have it any other way.

Jin Ling was beautiful to look at, in his eyes. SiZhui had seen various paintings that his Father Wei had done in the past, of people he wanted to remember and SiZhui had often studied Jiang Cheng, wondering which parts of Jin Ling was Jiang roots and which was Jin. He was fairly confident that he could pick out the parts which belonged to Jiang YanLi and which came from Jin ZiXuan.

But it wasn't just his face.

Jin Ling was inherently kind, hidden under all those layers of frustration and trying to be a good leader. That was what had attracted SiZhui to him in the first place.

A night hunt long ago...he had forgotten the name of the place...but not what had happened. They were just about to head home when a sound had caught Jin Ling's sharp ears.

SiZhui followed him to the mouth of a dark alley and wanted to protect him, aware that JingYi was following them too.

There was an empty box next to piles of rubbish and rotten vegetables, but Jin Ling (mistress to his friends) had bent down and removed a dirty blanket to reveal a litter of abandoned puppies.

Barely two or three days old, the poor things were starving, yapping and whining  all the way to JinLinTai.

SiZhui had watched Jin Ling take the puppies to their ostentatious kitchens and make a servant help him feed the little babies, wrapping them in a warm blanket afterwards and taking them to his rooms to look after them.

Those babies were now fully grown dogs and loyal to him.

He knew from then on that Jin Ling had a soft heart. Just like his mother had...from what his Father Wei used to tell them about his Shijie.

Now, SiZhui tugged on his sleeve, waiting until those beautiful burgundy eyes turned to him. His hand opened and Jin Ling threaded their fingers together, bringing their joint hands up to his lips.

"Hmm?"

SiZhui opened his palm and Jin Ling gasped, enough that everyone looked at them.

"How did you manage to cut it in half?" Jin Ling demanded, in awe of him.

SiZhui was throwing out surprise after surprise today.

"I don't know." SiZhui whispered, ducking his head shyly. "I just thought about what Gu Xing had said...that the Dragon pearls are priceless. Whatever happened...I wanted to share everything with you."

He didn't say any more, too shy to continue.

Jin Ling looked at him and wondered how he was so lucky.

He was conscious of the other people in the room and so only pressed his lips to SiZhui's cheek.

"Thank you." He whispered softly.

SiZhui gave him one half and prepared to swallow his part.

"Together?"

"Together." Jin Ling vowed.

They both swallowed their parts, just as Hui Gai appeared.

JingYi shrieked.

Jin Ling rolled his eyes.

"And you call me mistress." He muttered.

SiZhui stood up and hugged Hui Gai.

Hui Gai did not like touching others.

The ones he was familiar with...they were not so bad, and his PengYou's hugs were a necessity now...but even so, he extricated himself as soon as possible from the young man's arms, grinning to hide his discomfort.

"So...what are you guys up to here?" He asked brightly.

SiZhui filled him in, explaining about the poisonous vegetables and the Dragon's golden pearl.

Hui Gai went up to the wooden chest and opened it.

"NO!" Everyone shouted at him.

Even the Dragon Babies hooted, a shrill sound of warning.

But Hui Gai ignored all of them and picked up the weird plant, crinkling his nose in distaste.

"Don't touch it!" Jin Ling repeated, looking severely disappointed.

"Oh...don't worry about me!" Hui Gai grinned, running his hand over the corn-like pieces on the inside. "I would know if it was harmful. And it's not." He clarified. "Not to me, anyway."

The children remained unconvinced.

"Why do you want that, anyway?" JingYi asked him, worried.

"Oh...I dunno...it might come in useful...with lesser beings." Hui Gai beamed as another idea popped into his head. "But that's for another day. Right now, do you wanna go home?"