Chapter 36
For Huan Zheng, the incident was more than just a fleeting farewell.
He, who had piled questions in his mind, was forced to grasp emptiness as an answer.
Ling Xu's impatience was no longer something unfamiliar, but this time, the way she left seemed to close every door of communication.
Her gaze, previously full of mystery, was now out of reach, replaced by a back receding, merging with the vast sky.
And what remained for Huan Zheng was only the trace of the coldest wind, forcing him to ask himself whether the promise of obedience still made sense, understood only if what was being obeyed was a shadow that kept vanishing.
The remaining soil, swirling through the air, slowly fell, marking Ling Xu's absence in the harshest and loneliest manner.
Huan Zheng, his face stained with particles of earth, felt not only abandoned but also diminished, measured as something no longer important.
That anger first trembled in his chest, then ignited a spark, merely burning through the veins of Huan Zheng.
He looked up at the sky, seeing Ling Xu's figure growing distant, and there his wrath coagulated, demanding release.
The feeling of being treated like a slave so quickly, so openly, made the wounds of his pride flare, as if every drop of blood flowing through his meridians wished to scream vengeance.
He had just been recognized as a subordinate, yet that treatment seemed to erase all dignity.
In an instant, the desire to swallow Ling Xu alive, to reverse the situation, surged like a poison about to erupt from within.
But behind the wave of fury, the remnants of sanity still endured.
Huan Zheng knew well, understanding that immersing himself in anger would bring nothing but destruction.
So he chose to restrain, letting his emotions remain tightly woven, locked within a seal created by reason.
His breath was heavy, each inhale like a struggle between logic and instinct, yet ultimately rationality prevailed.
He did not want to lose footing, for losing control would only transform him into a puppet more easily broken by Ling Xu.
In the quiet filled with pressure, he glanced at the sky once more.
The shadow that had left him now served as a guide, not a trigger for explosion.
Though his soul still burned with injustice, his body could not resist, defying the subtle commands left by the circumstances.
Following, pursuing, fulfilling the role that had already been bound to him.
The spiritual wings hidden behind his body unfurled, extending a power that only manifested when he chose to fly.
The air shook around him, carrying his body upward, toward the trail Ling Xu had left behind.
The sky became a stage for two souls testing each other's limits. Ling Xu shot ahead, her body seemingly merging with the wind currents, breaking through clouds as if they were mere thin screens to be parted at will.
She did not look back, indifferent to the widening distance between herself and the figure trailing behind.
There was only momentum, acceleration continuously urged until it pierced the imagination, wanting to prove that delay had no place in the journey.
Behind the silence of unseen wings, a cold conviction was etched: anyone who failed to keep up was not her concern.
Meanwhile, Huan Zheng flapped his spirited wings with full vigor, always channeling them under pressure.
Every movement contained forced determination.
Not merely a push of loyalty, but fear, deeply worried about losing all compensation from the contract he had agreed to.
He refused to end up empty-handed, refusing to allow this subordinate relationship to collapse without leaving any benefit.
So he drew energy from the Lintang Kemahaesaan, fragments entrusted to him by Ling Xu, now the only functional resource remaining.
His Humanity Lintang had gone numb, frozen for who knew how long, and precisely because of that, Ling Xu's fragment became a pulse, a new heartbeat forcing his body to keep moving forward.
"Chase," whispered the thought restrained within the gusting wind.
He knew well that Ling Xu sped up not to invite, but to test how far he could endure within his limitations.
Huan Zheng refused to surrender, even as each breath felt as if swallowing a razor blade.
His body shivered, nodding from cold struck by extreme tension, trapped between the foreign force coursing through him and his own flesh.
So fragile.
Yet his eyes remained locked, fixed solely on the figure shooting ahead.
The remnants of pride, promises, and hatred fused into one, transformed only into fuel to pursue, making the sky a silent witness to a chase never equaled.
"Can you slow down just a bit? Regardless of appearance, fatigue surely sets in, proposing levels upon levels if the cycle continues as such."
"Unwilling to care."
Wusssssh!
"Oy, wait!!"
Duffffffh!
"Why is loyalty sworn, engraving devotion on a vile, barbaric bastard like this?!
"Such misfortune!!"
Beneath a sky that knew no bounds, Huan Zheng kept acting, striving to preserve the fragments of reason.
He forced himself to think positively, trying to instill the belief that there was a reason why Ling Xu continued to accelerate her flight, as if the distance stretching between them was a test, a form of training that must be endured.
Not merely humiliation.
Though the distance grew, in minutes he again fell behind by what felt like millions of rotting trees lined up as silent witnesses, he refused, unwilling to let his reason crumble.
In exhaustion, he clung to a faint hope, that falling behind did not mean being cast aside.
But a body newly recovered could not deny reality.
Fragile stamina, muscles not yet rested from the torment of tumors, and meridian flow, still pierced by Mastruya poison, gradually demanded compensation.
A sigh escaped his chest.
Not from weakness, but from prolonged effort, merely restraining a voice that had been gnawing at him.
His itchy vocal cords urged him to speak, his tongue trembled with the simple desire to voice objection.
Slowly, his lips parted, letting air slip through, as if his own body sought to reassure itself that he was still human, not merely a silent instrument pushed forward without feeling.
Weakness overtook his movements, making each flap heavier than before.
He knew well that his flight speed had decreased.
Not from a desire to surrender, but from the limits forced upon his body.
Nevertheless, his awareness remained intact.
He would not faint, could not fall, because the will to survive was still stronger than the gnawing pain.
Only the rhythm of his journey began to falter, slowly lagging yet still striving to catch up.
A contradiction fulfilled.
A weakened body, a soul still refusing to collapse.
The silence of the sky gave no space for Huan Zheng's complaints.
A request that had slipped between the roaring wind seemed to vanish, swallowed by the heights, gone without ever receiving a response from Ling Xu.
Whether she did not hear, or chose not to care.
Whatever the case, the chase continued, forcing Huan Zheng to shake his head, continually rejecting his deepest desire to maintain distance, to remain in the safe zone established from the start.
To be continued…