Quick Wear: Cousin, Come to the Bowl Quickly

The night was as dark as ink, swallowing up the crisscrossing alleys of Tianjin.

The clash of swords and the carnage in the club just now seemed like a distant nightmare. Only the burning pain in her lungs and the sticky cold sweat on her palms reminded Lin Xi that everything that had been so terrifying was real.

She wasn't sure if Shen Jingyuan had ever been to Tianjin before, because he was clearly very familiar with the terrain of the concession. Those alleys that looked almost identical to her and smelled the same damp and musty odor were as clear to him as a butcher dissecting an ox.

However, after turning a few corners, the noise that had been chasing behind quickly subsided and eventually disappeared completely.

But Shen Jingyuan ahead didn't seem to have any intention of stopping.

Lin Xi could feel that the grip on her wrist did not loosen at all; on the contrary, it tightened as they continued running, to the point that her wrist bones ached.

The gradually tightening force, combined with the unusually hot temperature of his palm, made her feel vaguely uneasy, but due to the urgency of the situation, she could only suppress it for the time being.

However, the intense physical exertion quickly pushed her pampered body to its limits.

Lin Xi felt as if her ankles were filled with lead, each step causing excruciating pain. Her throat was filled with the metallic taste of blood, and her lungs felt as if they were being gripped by an invisible hand, each breath accompanied by a tearing pain.

Finally, the feeling of suffocation and pain reached its peak, and she could no longer hold on. With her last bit of strength, she pulled herself back sharply.

"Shen...Shen Jingyuan, stop! Stop right now!"

Shen Jingyuan's figure was suddenly pulled by her, causing him to stumble due to inertia.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Lin Xi broke free from his hand, leaned against the damp wall beside her, bent over, and gasped for breath.

“They…can’t catch up…we, we need to rest…” she said haltingly as she struggled to lift her head and address Shen Jingyuan.

However, the moment she looked up, Shen Jingyuan opposite her seemed to have all his supporting pillars suddenly removed, and he fell straight down towards her without warning.

"Ah!" Lin Xi gasped in fright, instinctively opening her arms to catch it.

However, she clearly underestimated the difference in size between the two. Shen Jingyuan's weight pounced on her without reservation, causing her to stumble backward and her back to slam heavily against the mottled brick wall of the alley with a "bang".

A dull pain spread instantly, and Lin Xi couldn't help but hiss. But she couldn't care less about herself and rushed to check on Shen Jingyuan's condition.

"Shen Jingyuan? Shen Jingyuan!"

Lin Xi called out to him in a panic, tightly wrapping one arm around his waist to prevent him from slipping, while frantically groping his body with the other.

Wherever you touch, the fabric on his left waist and abdomen is damp, cool, and sticky, and it seems to be spreading.

Lin Xi's heart sank suddenly. She trembled as she pulled her hand back, raised it above her head, and looked at her palm in the dim light that seemed to come from nowhere.

A blinding expanse of bright red.

The strong stench of blood, mixed with the musty smell of the alley, belatedly entered her nostrils.

"Shen...Shen Jingyuan?"

Lin Xi trembled as she raised her hand to below Shen Jingyuan's nose. Only when she felt his hot, rapid breath brushing against her fingertips did her heart, which had been in her throat, suddenly settle back down.

But after the initial relief came a deeper sense of confusion and helplessness.

How to do?

Holding Shen Jingyuan, who was clearly unconscious from excessive blood loss, Lin Xi walked for a while like a headless fly. She stopped, struggled to raise her head, and looked around in bewilderment.

This is a narrow alley that stretches as far as the eye can see and the way back is nowhere to be seen when looking back. On both sides are towering, mottled brick walls, and overhead there is only a sliver of dark night sky obscured by thick clouds.

The air was thick with the dampness and stuffiness characteristic of dark alleys, mixed with the sour smell of rotting garbage and a faint stench of blood. There was no way out, no lights, no human voices, only suffocating silence and boundless darkness that seemed to swallow one whole.

A chilling despair silently surged in from all directions, enveloping Lin Xi completely.

Faced with the terrifying sword fights and carnage in the club, Lin Xi, who hadn't shed a single tear despite the mountains of corpses and seas of blood, finally saw cracks appear in her strong shell as she looked at the desperate situation before her and listened to Shen Jingyuan's increasingly weak breathing.

She lowered her head, buried her face in Shen Jingyuan's sweaty, hot chest, and couldn't help but moan softly.

"Who is it? Howling like a ghost in the middle of the night?! Can't a person get any sleep?!" A man's rough and impatient voice suddenly came from behind a tightly closed window above.

Immediately afterwards, with a creak, the window was suddenly pushed open from the inside, and a blinding beam of flashlight light shone down along with curses.

"Damn it, what a ghost..." The man rudely peered down and muttered some foul language. Then, with a "bang," he slammed the window shut again, cutting off the faint light and the presence of a living person once more.

Below, in the shadows of a narrow, recessed corner in the alley wall, Lin Xi clung tightly to Shen Jingyuan, curling up with all her might, wishing she could merge herself into the brickwork.

Listening to her own heart pounding like a drum, and feeling the abnormal heat of Shen Jingyuan's body in her arms, Lin Xi bit her lip hard, swallowing back the grievances and fear that were about to burst from her throat.

After an unknown amount of time, Lin Xi suddenly felt a cold drop fall on her face. She thought it was her own tear and hurriedly raised her hand to wipe it away.

But the next moment, her other face got wet again. She couldn't help but curse herself for being so weak in her heart. She gritted her teeth and rubbed her face against Shen Jingyuan's clothes, but the more she rubbed, the more wet it became. In no time, her face and arms were covered in a wet, cool liquid.

She looked up in a daze, only to realize that it wasn't her crying, but rather that rain had started to fall from the dark night sky.

The early summer rain came quickly and suddenly, turning into a dense curtain of rain that poured down, wetting her hair and clothes, and also soaking the unconscious Shen Jingyuan.

We can't stay here.

This thought echoed in Lin Xi's mind once again.

Shen Jingyuan was injured, and getting wet in the rain would worsen his injuries. If he developed a fever, it would be even more dangerous. She also couldn't let her ankles soak in water for too long, otherwise she wouldn't be able to walk, and then the two of them would die here.

Those damned Japanese tried everything but couldn't kill them; she couldn't die a miserable death in this run-down alley.

Thinking of this, a survival instinct that refused to give up overwhelmed the despair and helplessness in her heart. Lin Xi took a deep breath of the damp air with the fishy smell of rain, and with all her might, she put one of Shen Jingyuan's arms on her shoulder again, half carrying him and half supporting him, and staggered and groped her way toward the other end of the alley, in a direction that was not so dark.

The rain grew heavier, blurring the already dim vision, and the slippery bluestone slabs and stagnant sewage made it even more difficult for Lin Xi to walk.

She didn't know where she was going; she just kept moving forward on instinct.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, or perhaps not very far, the light ahead gradually brightened, and she could even faintly hear human voices. Lin Xi was overjoyed and quickened her pace.

But at that moment, her foot suddenly slipped and she stepped into a small puddle. Her body, already exhausted, instantly lost its balance, and she was about to fall to the ground with Shen Jingyuan on her back.

"Uh..." A muffled groan sounded in her ear, and at the same time, a hot but strong hand suddenly grabbed her arm, stabilizing her tendency to fall forward.

Boom!

A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the entire world.

Lin Xi turned her head in shock and met Shen Jingyuan's eyes, which had opened at some point.

The pale light of the electric current illuminated his pale face, and his deep eyes appeared somewhat unfocused in the bright light, yet they stubbornly gazed into Lin Xi's eyes.

"Lin...Xixi..."