Capturing My Demon King Costar

MY COSTAR DOESN'T WANT ME TO MEDDLE IN HIS AFFAIRS

Fan Wujiu falls unconscious again. Xie Bian tries to shake him awake, his pale face turning even paler.

The little girl pulls him back by the wide sleeves of his robe. "Please stop, my Master needs to rest. This happens sometimes, he wakes up but because he isn't fully healed yet he falls back asleep."

"Uh, can he die from these injuries?" Yao Shen asks, not entirely sure about the two Impermanences' roles in the Underworld hierarchy.

Xie Bian shoots him a withering look. "Of course he can. We are no different than the ghost kings, in that regard. We're not dead, we're immortal."

Ah, that would explain Xie Bian's panic, but not why the traitor kings haven't killed the other five.

He asks Xie Bian as much, and gets another incredulous look in reply.

"The post of ghost king is assigned by Heavenly decree! How would they dare? I and Wujiu have also been assigned our roles by the Jade Emperor himself, which is why those dogs didn't kill him outright away and merely incapacitated him." His eyes darken. "Likely to prevent him from immediately undoing the seal they forced him to create."

Faced with Yao Shen's blank look, Xie Bian directs his rage at the little girl. "What will heal him?"

She shakes her head. "A-Sui doesn't know."

"Do you at least know what injury he has?" he snaps, quickly losing his temper.

"A-Sui heard Master talk about the flower of troubled dreams. Uh, sometimes Master screams in his sleep, and A-Sui has to make a lot of noise until he wakes."

Her words must mean something to Xie Bian, because his eyes widen, and his red lips flatten into a tense line. "Those bastards."

He turns on his heel, his white robes rustling behind him like a solitary funeral procession, giving the room an even more dismal atmosphere.

"Come," he tells Yao Shen, his eyes heavily shuttered.

---

They go back to the Wuji pavilion. Xie Bian is silent through the whole journey.

Back in the pavilion Xie Bian seems to cut a path of destruction through it, rummaging through various shelves and chests until finally emerging victorious with a bamboo strip scroll.

He unfolds the scroll on top of a low table, his eyes scanning the text until he finally finds what he's looking for.

"The flower of troubled dreams can destroy those who consume its poison from the inside out. Plaguing them with terrible visions when awake, and awful, life-like nightmares when asleep. Eventually, the flower's effects will lead to the complete destruction of a person's meridians -- a slow agonizing death." Xie Bian's face goes from pale to red with rage the further he reads. By the time he finishes his hands are shaking on the thin bamboo strips.

"He wasn't going to tell me anything, he was just going to let himself die..." The words, spoken under Xie Bian's breath are filled with an unspeakable guilt.

Yao Shen reads over his shoulder, trying to find a solution. "Maybe he didn't know about the flower's full effects? He seemed convinced that he would heal himself."

After skimming the text for a moment Yao Shen finally finds a flicker of hope. He taps a vertical line, drawing Xie Bian's attention to it.

"The effects of the flower of troubled dreams can be countered by the turquoise nightshade, which grows in the Howling Plains just outside of Youdu!" Yao Shen turns to Xie Bian with an expectant look after reading the passage, but instead of the hopeful smile he expects to find, Xie Bian is once again scowling at him.