Chapter 241: You Taste Like Smoke
Lingyun stopped breathing the moment Luo Xin put both hands on Rouxi’s leg.
He hated that his body reacted before his mind could. He hated the way his fingers dug into his own arms. He hated the way heat crawled beneath his skin, looking for somewhere to go, because fire was what he understood.
Fire listened.
Fire answered him.
Fire made problems smaller.
But this problem could not be burned.
Luo Xin adjusted his grip with the careful precision, knowing that there were at least five men watching his every move.
One hand settled above the place where the bone had healed wrong, while the other braced lower, near the twisted angle that made everyone in the room look away sooner or later. He didn’t look away. That was probably why he was the one crouched in front of her while the rest of them stood there being useless.
Rouxi watched him with an expression that gave away almost nothing.
That was the part Lingyun hated most.
He would have given anything for her to complain. He wanted her to threaten Luo Xin. He wanted her to tell Yuche that his face looked constipated. He wanted her to call Chenghai a brooding mountain or ask Zhenlan why he looked like he was planning a funeral for a leg that technically still existed.
Instead, she only sat there.
Quiet.
Waiting.
Lingyun understood predators. He understood men who hid knives under smiles. He understood blood debts, territory, loyalty, and the kind of fear that made people dangerous instead of careful.
What he did not understand was standing there while his woman folded every part of herself inward because she had decided that showing pain was a luxury she couldn’t afford.
Luo Xin took a single breath. That was the only warning.
But Lingyun moved before the healer’s hands did.
He reached over the back of the couch, placed both hands against Rouxi’s face, and turned her toward him.
Her eyes widened for the smallest fraction of a second, but she didn’t pull away. She didn’t ask what he was doing. Maybe she knew. Maybe she didn’t. Either way, Lingyun didn’t give either of them enough time to think about it.
He kissed her like his very life... his sanity depended on it.
The crack came a heartbeat later.
Rouxi’s body jerked so hard that Yuche’s arm locked around her middle even as Chenghai caught her leg before it could twist away from Luo Xin’s grip. Zhenlan stepped forward with one hand already raised, the air in the room tightening around them like even his power wanted to hold her still.
Her scream hit Lingyun’s mouth a second before he swallowed it.
He kissed her harder, not because there was anything soft or sweet about what was happening, but because he needed to give her somewhere to put the pain. She could bite him if she needed to. She could claw him. She could hate him later for getting in the way. He didn’t care.
He would take whatever she gave him as long as she didn’t have to carry it alone.
Unfortunately for everyone... Luo Xin wasn’t quite finished yet.
The break had only undone what healed wrong.
Now he had to put it back.
Lingyun felt the moment Luo Xin twisted the bone, twisted the entire lower half of Rouxi’s leg, into place because that was the second she had stopped breathing against him.
Her fingers clenched around Yuche’s hand while her other hand caught the front of Lingyun’s shirt and twisted hard enough that the fabric strained. She didn’t push him away. She held on.
Good.
He could work with that.
Another adjustment came, and this time her teeth caught his lower lip. Pain flashed sharp and immediate, but Lingyun barely noticed it. Compared to what she was enduring, it was nothing. Compared to the way her entire body shook while she still refused to make a sound, it was less than nothing.
Yuche’s voice cut through the room, low and dangerous. "Luo Xin."
"I know," Luo Xin snapped back, sweat running down the side of his face. "But if I stop now, I have to do it all over again from the beginning."
That ended the argument.
No one in the room wanted that.
Lingyun kept his hands against Rouxi’s cheeks and forced himself to stay exactly where he was. He could feel the heat building under his skin. He could feel his control thinning. A small line of smoke curled from one of his sleeves before Zhenlan’s wind swept it away without a word.
Of course Zhenlan noticed... Zhenlan noticed everything.
The final twist was worse.
Rouxi made a sound then.
Small.
Broken.
Buried against Lingyun’s mouth.
It tore through him anyway.
For one horrible second, he wanted to pull away and kill everyone in the room, including himself, for letting this happen. Instead, he kissed her through it, because leaving her alone with that pain would have been worse than standing in it with her.
Then Luo Xin’s power flared.
White mist flooded the space around the couch.
Power poured over Rouxi’s leg, hot and clean and sharp. But it didn’t fluxuate for even a second. Luo Xin’s breathing went ragged as he forced the broken bone to knit back together in the position it should have been in from the start.
The second he felt his powers weakening, he grabbed one of the stone from the floor that Zhenlan meticulously arranged, absorbed it, and then continued to press forward.
Rouxi’s grip on Lingyun’s shirt slowly loosened and her shaking eased one brutal inch at a time.
Only then did Lingyun let himself pull back enough to look at her.
Her eyes were open.
That was the first thing he noticed.
They were wet, furious, and focused directly on him.
That was the second.
Relief hit him so hard that he almost laughed.
Then she licked the blood from his split lip.
"You’re welcome," he murmured, making sure to plaster a self satisfied look on his face. It was better than the tears of relief that were threating to make an appearance instead.
Rouxi stared at him for several seconds.
Then, in a voice rough enough to scrape the inside of his chest, she replied, "You taste like smoke."
Lingyun smiled. He couldn’t help it.
"That’s probably the nicest thing anyone has said to me today."
Luo Xin sat back hard enough that Commander Li had to catch him by the shoulder before he hit the floor. The healer looked worse than he had when he tried to fix Rouxi’s spine before he found out about the crystal cores.... and that was saying something.
His hands shook, and his face had gone nearly grey.
Yuche finally looked away from Rouxi long enough to ask the only question that mattered.
"Did it work?"
Luo Xin swallowed, but didn’t nod his head. Instead, he looked at the leg.
To Lingyun, it looked normal, maybe a bit swollen and a whole lot bruised. But you couldn’t see the twist in it that there was before.... you couldn’t see where she nearly lost it entirely.
Luo Xin closed his eyes for a moment before nodding.
"She’ll walk."
Rouxi, because she was Rouxi, ruined the moment of relief felt by everyone by lifting one hand and pointing weakly toward Luo Xin.
"I still get to hit you later."
Luo Xin opened one eye.
"Only if you can catch me."
Lingyun laughed, and Rouxi’s gaze shifted back to him for a moment.
Then she closed her eyes, leaned back into Yuche’s hold, and muttered, "Someone better make sure Meilan is having a worse day than me."
Lingyun looked toward the front door.
And, for the first time since Luo Xin touched her leg, he smiled like himself.
"That," he answered, "I can absolutely help with."
