When the first drop of Huo Feng's blood touched Wu Xin's lips, his entire body shuddered violently, as if thousands of trapped souls screamed through him at once. The air itself seemed to crackle with a dark energy, the faint hum of the Tree's life essence clashing with the furnace fire coursing through her veins.
This was no ordinary poison. It was a living shadow—a parasitic curse nested in the wound, feeding on light, devouring spirit. It coiled beneath his skin, cold and insidious, a black thread winding toward his heart with relentless hunger.
Huo Feng felt a scorching current rise from her palm, climbing along her arm into her chest. The furnace within her roared awake, a fire that burned both inside and out, threatening to consume everything. Her throat constricted, a scream caught there, swallowed by fear too deep for words. Wu Xin's body convulsed, each shiver slow and agonizing, his chest heaving under the weight of invisible claws. Dark veins spidered across his skin, spreading like ink across silk, blotting the light from his flesh.
She whispered, voice trembling against the oppressive night:"The Tree's blood is not enough… The furnace inside me rejects it… it burns everything…"
Her eyes sought Bi Hua, desperate for guidance, for even a hint of intervention. But the venerable master did not move. He observed silently, distant as stone, as if she were a brushstroke on a living canvas rather than a girl wrestling to keep someone alive. In that frozen instant, Huo Feng realized the cruel truth: she was utterly alone.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed her palm over Wu Xin's chest, closing her eyes. The words she spoke were ancient and jagged, sounding like sparks snapping across dry wood, voices long forgotten by the world. She chanted as the parasite pulsed beneath the skin, a living hunger approaching his heart like a starving beast sensing warmth. When it brushed the edges of his heart, she forced her hand deeper into his chest, feeling the black tendrils twist against her, clawing at her very essence.
Leaves drifted lazily around Bi Hua, whispering across the blood-stained ground, yet he remained unmoving, silent as an eternal sentinel beneath the white tree.
Wu Xin's breaths came shallow and broken, each inhale a rasping thread, a whisper of life fighting against the parasitic shadow. His lips were pale, a faint flicker of agony glimmered in his eyes, and every tremor of his body screamed of the poison's slow, merciless advance.
Huo Feng knelt over him, a single anchor in a storm, holding him as if she could hold the world together between her trembling fingers. She felt each heartbeat, fragile and uneven, like a small bird trying to resist the pull of a tempest.
Finally, Bi Hua spoke, voice cold, measured, echoing through the night like a bell of inevitability:"This is not an herbal poison. It is a spirit-leeching parasite, placed inside the wound to consume from within."
Huo Feng's palm glowed faintly with the living light of her blood. The first drop fell into the wound, and a silent scream echoed—not from his lips, but from deep inside him. The parasite drank greedily, swelling into a living knot beneath his skin. The sensation was unbearable: crawling, writhing, like insects burrowing in darkness.
She tried to feed him again, but the parasite was faster, devouring every drop she gave. Panic twisted her chest. She looked to Bi Hua for guidance, but he remained silent, unshaken, as though fate itself had paused to watch.
Clenching her teeth, Huo Feng pressed her palm harder and raised her voice. The chant became a trembling wail, a sound that seemed to shake the night itself. A cold current surged from her hand into Wu Xin, and the parasite reacted with violent hunger, lurching toward his heart.
Then, something extraordinary happened. Wu Xin's heart pulsed sharply, a desperate, defiant beat, as if something within him had awoken to fight the invader. Driven by instinct, Huo Feng reached deeper, seeking to seize the parasite. She could not destroy it, but she felt a flicker of its power, a breath of its spirit-devouring force, flow into her veins.
When she withdrew her hand, a thin thread of light arced from her heart to his—a golden-green filament that pulsed with the same life force said to have woven her grandfather, the Furnace Master. For a fleeting moment, hope surged inside her.
But then Wu Xin's eyes opened. Blood welled from his lips, a dark, heavy bloom spreading across his chest. He looked at her, weary and pained, yet a faint, reassuring smile softened the agony etched into his face.
Huo Feng steadied him with trembling hands, voice barely above a whisper:"Don't be afraid. I know its secret now… I will fight this parasite."
Wu Xin managed a weak, pained smile, teasing despite himself:"So… you won't fiddle with my heart again?"
Tears streamed down Huo Feng's face, her body taut with tension, her voice a mixture of anger and tenderness:"No— I won't fiddle. I'll… I'll kill it."