The Second Meridian
763 Words
Chapter 9: The Second Meridian***
Xie Wuchen’s blood didn’t clot.
It froze. Black ice crusted over his palm where the divine blade had cut him. He flexed his hand once. The ice cracked, fell away. The wound was already closed. Demon Lords didn’t scar.
Li Chen did.
He sat on the floor where he’d collapsed, staring at the dark stain on his robes. Xie Wuchen’s blood. On him. _In_ him, if you counted the qi still carving through his spine.
“You should rest,” Xie Wuchen said. He hadn’t moved from Li Chen’s side since the Enforcers vanished.
“I am resting,” Li Chen answered. “On the floor.”
A beat. Then, quietly, “Get on the bed.”
It wasn’t an order. Not really. It was the closest Xie Wuchen got to _please_.
Li Chen let himself be hauled up. Every muscle protested. The new meridian in his back pulsed with each step, a hot wire under his skin. He bit down on a groan and failed.
Xie Wuchen’s arm tightened around him. “The first is always worst,” he said. “It has to teach the body how to hurt.”
“Great teacher.” Li Chen fell onto the mattress. The cold silk helped. A little. “What’s the second meridian like?”
“Worse.”
Li Chen laughed. It came out as a wheeze. “You’re terrible at comfort.”
“I’m not trying to be comfortable. I’m trying to keep you alive.” Xie Wuchen sat on the edge of the bed. Not touching. But close. “The second is the Lung Meridian. It runs through the chest. Near the heart.”
“Of course it does.”
“It will feel like drowning.”
Li Chen turned his head. Studied him. Eight red threads were braided into Xie Wuchen’s hair now. The ninth bud was on the tree outside, unopened. Waiting for tomorrow. Or failure.
“You’ll stop if I tell you to,” Li Chen said. It wasn’t a question.
Xie Wuchen’s jaw locked. “No.”
The word hung there. Honest. Ugly.
“I won’t,” Xie Wuchen continued. “If I stop, you die. Slowly. Your body is still mortal. The first meridian will eat you from the inside out without the others to balance it. I’m not giving you a choice, Li Chen.”
Li Chen stared at the ceiling. Counted the ice crystals on the beams. “You said ‘he walks. He breathes. He chose to stay.’”
“He did.”
“Did I?”
Silence. Then Xie Wuchen reached out. Touched two fingers to Li Chen’s wrist. Not taking his pulse. Just... contact. Skin to skin. The first time without pain as the reason.
“You chose to stand up,” Xie Wuchen said. “In front of Heaven. You could have hidden. You didn’t.”
Li Chen looked at him. Really looked. Three hundred years of grief lived in that face. But so did something else now. Fear. Not of Heaven. Of the next breath Li Chen took.
“I’m scared,” Li Chen admitted. Whispered it. Like a secret.
“I know.”
“Are you?”
Xie Wuchen’s thumb moved. Once. Across Li Chen’s knuckles. A ghost of a caress. “Every second.”
The ninth bud on the pear tree split. Not open. Just a crack. A hint of white inside.
Li Chen saw it through the window. “Tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow.” Xie Wuchen pulled his hand back. The air was colder without it. “Sleep. You’ll need it.”
Li Chen closed his eyes. Didn’t sleep. Listened to Xie Wuchen breathe. Counted it. One. Two. Three.
When he was sure Xie Wuchen thought he was under, he spoke.
“Wuchen.”
A sharp inhale. “What.”
“If I don’t wake up after the second one...”
“You will.”
“If I don’t. Don’t freeze for another three hundred years. Okay?”
Xie Wuchen didn’t answer for a long time. When he did, his voice was wrecked.
“No promises.”
Li Chen smiled into the pillow. “Liar.”
He felt it then. A hand, carding through his hair. Gentle. Like he was something precious. Like he wasn’t a stolen soul or an anomaly or a vessel.
“Rest, A-Ze,” Xie Wuchen murmured. And this time, it didn’t sound like grief.
It sounded like hope.
Outside, the ninth bud bled one drop of sap. Red as the thread. Red as blood.
- Writer
