I'm really not the Saviour! (我唔係救主囖!) [danmei/BL xuanhuan]

10 - In which there are stereotypical background characters

We've reached ten chapters!

CW: Body horror, I guess? Small discussion of wounds.

***

Sek Gon was out cold for five days.

When Gou Dzing went to wake him the next morning, there was no response. He had thought that the other cultivator had looked a bit tired the night before, but now in the light of day, he saw the full extent – Sek Gon's skin had a sickly greenish tinge and his eye sockets were dark and hollow. When the bandages on his hands were changed, the burns revealed themselves to have become large blisters, with the skin sloughing off and the raw flesh underneath weeping clear lymph. Occasionally, he would obediently cough up blood as a good cultivator with internal damage should.

Chan Bik came by later on the first day, her cheeks purpled but the swelling reduced. She grumbled angrily at Sek Gon's unconscious form but otherwise listened quietly to Gou Dzing's understanding of the situation.

In any case, the early morning patrol had headed out to the site of the campfire and come back with a report.

"I've never seen anything like it," Disciple Cheng recounted, having led the expedition. "There's a huge area, about one by one and a half bou that is covered in a thin layer of this strange crystal." She handed Gou Dzing a small piece of some hard silvery substance, formed of tiny crystalline columns. He turned it over in his hands, puzzled, and experimentally scratched it against a steel dagger used for training. The silver crystal easily left a clean gash on the steel surface.

"There's signs of fire all throughout the area, with one or two trees completely engulfed. But this crystal seems to have otherwise suppressed the flames and prevented them from going any further."

As they spoke, the younger disciples whispered amongst themselves.

"Cheng Si-dze and Gou Si-hing look so good together, right?"

"Right, Cheng Si-dze is accomplished and refined, and Gou Si-hing is the great Jade Exorcist and head disciple of our school, of course they're right together."

Chan Bik clicked her tongue and spoke loudly to no-one in particular. "I thought coming to a place like this, I would meet people who would teach me to be restrained and dignified. But apparently it's full of stereotypical background characters!"

Disciple Cheng stifled a laugh and clapped her hands. "Si-dai and si-mui, what happened to your schedules? Just because Master is in seclusion doesn't mean you can laze around! Go on, go and gossip about me elsewhere."

The young disciples quickly left, looking embarrassed, leaving Gou Dzing, Disciple Cheng and Chan Bik, who was at a loss. Disciple Cheng gestured her forwards.

"What a good girl! Or maybe... you were jealous?"

Chan Bik almost expected a pair of sharp ears and a fox's tail to pop out of this refined Senior Sister. Up close, she was treated to the full affect of the shapely disciple and her attractive face, although she could now see a teasing glint in those narrow dark grey eyes that she had not perceived before.

"Jealous? Cheng Si-dze, I'm not jealous!" she denied, her cheeks warming painfully. Disciple Cheng laughed heartily in a way very unbecoming for a Senior Sister.

Gou Dzing tweaked her ear reprimandingly. "Stop that."

"You don't have to call me Cheng Si-dze yet," the woman wiped away tears of laughter as she addressed Chan Bik. "My name is Cheng Baak-hap. You can call me Hap Dze-dze..."

Her ear was tweaked by Gou Dzing again as Chan Bik stood awkwardly with her mouth open, whole face on fire.

"Alright, enough messing around," Gou Dzing flicked the silver crystal up and caught it. "Call one of the juniors to take this to the smithy and ask if they know what it is. In any case, this could explain why Sir Sek is out cold today."