Chapter 240: Do It
Wei Lingyun wanted to set something on fire.
The urge had been growing steadily for the last fifteen minutes, and by now it was becoming almost too difficult to ignore.
Unfortunately for him... fortunately for everyone else, there was nothing in the living room he could burn without making the situation worse.
The couch belonged to Rouxi, the walls belonged to Rouxi, the entire house belonged to Rouxi, hell, even the idiot currently preparing to rebreak Rouxi’s leg technically belonged to Rouxi in some weird, roundabout manner that still sometimes confused him.
Which meant that everything on this side of the front door was completely untouchable.
Knowing that, and knowing that he needed to light something on fire just the same, he was left with no other choice but to stand against the wall with his arms crossed while his temper slowly got worse.
The entire situation was bullshit.
He still had no idea what was able to cause this amount of damage to Rouxi. And even if he did, even if he was there, he didn’t know if he would have been any help against it... or if he would have been nothing more than a liability in a fight that he had no business being in.
Lingyun had reached that conclusion several times already, and each time he circled back to it, his mood got worse and worse.
He wasn’t being humble, and he knew without a doubt that he was not weak.
But on a scale of one to Rouxi... he was somewhere around a seven.
That monster, whatever it was, had broken Rouxi’s spine. It had shattered her leg. It had nearly killed her. And even after all that, wasn’t finished causing problems.
Luo Xin had spent hours healing her in a way that shouldn’t exist and when he got too tired doing it the X-man way, he started stitching her back together the old fashioned way. That was fine. He got her theoretically walking again... only to then discover that her leg had started healing incorrectly before he could finish repairing the damage.
Now the only solution was to break it again.
And the more Lingyun thought about that, the angrier he became.
Across the room, Commander Li was pretending to study the damage to the wall. The commander hadn’t looked directly at the couch in several minutes. Lingyun understood the impulse. Looking at the couch meant looking at Rouxi, and looking at Rouxi meant remembering exactly how close they had come to losing her.
Chenghai wasn’t handling it much better.
That man sat in a chair beside the couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Every few seconds his gaze drifted toward Rouxi’s leg before immediately moving away again. He looked like Lingyun looked... like a man whose first intention was toward violence...
And this was not one of those situations that violence would be an acceptable solution.
Even Zhenlan seemed unsettled, and that, in and of itself, was impressive.
He had spent the last ten minutes reorganizing supplies that were already organized. Towels were folded and then refolded. Healing cores were arranged in a line, then rearranged into a different line.
At one point in time, Lingyun was fairly certain Zhenlan had sorted everything by size simply because it gave him something to do with his hands.
But still, nobody said anything. They all understood exactly why it was happening.
Everyone was nervous...
And Luo Xin was stalling.
The healer had every supply he needed. He had enough healing cores and bandages. He had already explained the procedure. There was nothing left to do but break the leg.
The problem was that preparation had never been the difficult part.
The difficult part was sitting on the couch.
Lingyun’s gaze drifted toward Rouxi.
She looked smaller somehow in a way that was definitely not her.
The blanket covered most of her lower body, and Yuche’s arm rested across the back of the couch behind her shoulders.
From a distance, the scene almost looked peaceful.
Only... it wasn’t.
Rouxi hadn’t spoken in several minutes.
The realization bothered Lingyun every time it crossed his mind.
Most people thought Rouxi’s silence was normal. They looked at her sitting quietly and assumed she was calm.
Lingyun knew better.
Rouxi was loud.
She had a sarcastic response when she was annoyed.
She had a sarcastic response when she was happy.
She had a sarcastic response when people interrupted her television shows.
She had a sarcastic response when they didn’t interrupt her television shows.
The woman could find some sort of sarcastic response to free food, perfect weather, and the apocalypse all in the same conversation.
Silence, for her, wasn’t normal.
Silence meant she was hurt.
Mind you, he understood what she was doing, every predator understood it on a fundamental level.
When something was wounded, it either lashed out or retreated... and Rouxi had chosen retreat.
She had folded inward the moment Luo Xin explained what needed to happen. The jokes had disappeared. The sarcastic responses had disappeared. Everything unnecessary had disappeared.
She was conserving energy.
Preparing herself.
Enduring what was going to happen next in the only way she knew how.
And that sight made Lingyun want to burn the world down.... only burning down the world wouldn’t do anything to change the situation... and now he was back to the start of the circular argument all over again.
Letting out a very controlled breath of air, he stopped being a statute and did the second best thing he could think of besides burning something.
He walked over to where Rouxi was sitting and stopped behind the couch. Spreading his feet apart, he crossed his arms in front of his chest and didn’t move.
Rouxi noticed him immediately, and for a second, neither of them spoke.
Then she rolled her eyes before turning her attention back to the hovering medic who couldn’t do what he was supposed to do.
The movement itself was small, barely even noticeable to the rest of the room. Lingyun felt something in his chest loosen just a fraction.
There she was.
His Rouxi.
Still annoyed.
Still herself.
Still alive.
"You look stupid doing that," she announced, cutting through the oppressive silence in the room. "You need to stop it."
"Not a chance," he replied with a shake of his head. "It would take a lot more than that garden outside to move me right now."
Before she could come up with a reply, Luo Xin finally stood. The poor man looked exhausted, but more importantly, he looked resigned.
The stalling was over.
He approached the couch slowly before kneeling in front of Rouxi. His attention settled on the damaged leg beneath the blanket. For several seconds he simply stared at it.
Then he looked up.
"Are you ready?"
The question hung in the room.
Rouxi met his gaze.
She didn’t hesitate.
She didn’t ask for more time.
She didn’t argue.
The decision had already been made.
"Hurry up and do it."
