Fairy, Please Listen to My Explanation

Chapter 4: Danger

“Ugh, my head hurts… and my body is so cold.”

As the chilling wind whistled, Xu Yuan’s consciousness roused from slumber, accompanied by a splitting headache both inside and out that made Xu Yuan reluctant to open his eyes. The howling wind outside remained bitter and cold.

His clothes were soaking wet, and the biting cold wind blowing against them continuously stripped away what little warmth remained in his body.

It didn’t take long to realize that his body was already suffering from hypothermia.

Blinking his eyes open, memories from before he lost consciousness flooded back like a tidal wave.

The transmigration, the giant Buddha statue, and that damned ice block knockout blow with a stick.

After piecing together his current predicament and struggling against the throbbing pain in his head, Xu Yuan laboriously moved his eyes, taking in his surroundings.

This appeared to be a cave, not a large one, only about four or five meters deep.

Outside the cave, the sky had brightened. The rain continued its dreary patter. But unlike before, there was no bonfire like in the Buddhist temple, making the cave rather cold and damp.

The woman in black sat at the cave entrance with her eyes closed in meditation. Her sword lay flat beside her, along with a rather familiar-looking wooden stick.

“…”

Xu Yuan was speechless.

Moistening his dry, pale lips, Xu Yuan gradually shifted his body to lean against the cold stone wall behind him.

Even this simple movement left his frail body gasping for breath.

His reasonably well-off background in his previous life had afforded him ample time and money to experience various lifestyles, wilderness exploration being one of them.

And it was precisely because of this that past experiences told Xu Yuan his condition was very serious.

Hypothermia, high fever, and even some dehydration.

Xu Yuan looked toward the black-clothed woman with the thin veil covering her face at the cave entrance.

Her smooth black hair clung wetly to her cheeks, and her clothes were also soaked through, the black garment clinging to her graceful curves.

Far from finding the sight alluring, Xu Yuan felt white-hot fury bubbling through his veins.

He suddenly understood why Xu Changtian, the Third Young Master in the Ancient Origin, had died in all kinds of bizarre ways while being kidnapped across several world lines.

Back then, he had always wondered about how and why Xu Changtian would always die in all kinds of manners when a powerful expert like Ran Qingmo was nearby.

His current firsthand experience gave him the answer.

This idiotic woman had actually dragged him, an unconscious and sick person, through the winter rain to this place, then simply dropped him here without a fucking care!

Sure, this kind of cold and rainy winter night means nothing to her, but for an ordinary person like him, it could be fatal!

Silence filled the cave, with only the pitter-patter of rain drifting in from outside.

Taking a deep breath, Xu Yuan spoke weakly.

“Ran Qingmo.”

His once warm and refined voice was now hoarse and raspy.

Hearing him, the woman at the cave entrance slowly opened her eyes and looked at him impassively.

Xu Yuan gasped for breath. Each of his words was uttered weakly.

“Are… are you trying to let me die right here?”

Ran Qingmo, with her face concealed behind the black veil, blinked her beautiful eyes before shaking her head.

On the matter of Xu Yuan’s life, she and he were in complete agreement. She had no intention of letting him die.

Xu Yun suppressed his physical discomfort and struggled to get his words out.

“If you don’t want me to freeze to death… then… then help me start a fire.”

Ran Qingmo stared at Xu Yuan for two seconds, blinking her lovely eyes slowly before replying earnestly.

“But… I don’t have any flint and tinder.”

Xu Yuan opened his mouth, then changed his question.

“What about your Qi?”

In this world, Qi was practically an all-purpose energy source.

Although this wasn’t explicitly shown in the Ancient Origin, in a world where top-tier fighters could reduce the Imperial City to ruins, starting a fire should be a trivial matter for a master like her.

Ran Qingmo blinked her beautiful eyes a couple of times, got up from the ground, and slowly walked to Xu Yuan. She extended a slender jade-like hand in front of him.

Confusion flickered in Xu Yuan’s eyes.

Soon after, he noticed a vortex of energy quietly gathering in her hand, and in an instant, a chunk of ice about ten centimeters in diameter formed in her hand.

Holding the ice chunk, the completely unaffected by the cold Ran Qingmo blinked her eyes and held it out to Xu Yuan.

“Ice… will this do?”

“…”

Looking at the large chunk of ice being offered, Xu Yuan initially thought she was joking with him.

Keeping him fresh for later, was it?

But seeing the earnestness in her eyes, Xu Yuan suppressed the urge to have an aneurysm and took another deep breath.

“I’m sick; I need a fire, hot water, and food.”

Hearing this, Ran Qingmo stared at Xu Yuan’s face for two seconds, as if confirming his condition.

She silently walked over to a pack lying in a corner of the cave, rummaged through it, found a waterskin and a piece of dry flatbread, walked back to Xu Yuan, and handed both items to him.

Xu Yuan looked at the food and water in his hands, then at the woman in front of him, his lips pale and trembling from the cold.

“What about the fire? Start a fire… What I need most right now is a heat source and hot water…”

“But, there’s no fire starter.”

“…”

Xu Yuan was speechless.

His vision momentarily blackened, and Xu Yuan let out a low, bitter laugh as a suffocating wave of dizziness washed over him.

The drowsiness and vertigo brought on by his illness constantly urged him to sink into sleep, but he knew that if he slept now, he might never wake up again.

Quickly stabilized his mind and gathered his wits. He licked his pale, dry lips and said, “Can you… can you transfer your Qi to heal me?”

This world’s medical system was quite archaic, but thanks to the existence of Qi, it wasn’t necessarily inferior to that of his previous world.

But deep in these mountains, he obviously couldn’t count on proper medical care.

But Xu Yuan remembered a cliché plot point in Ancient Origin involving the transfer of Qi for healing.

Upon hearing this, Ran Qingmo tossed away the ice chunk and promptly sat down in front of Xu Yuan. Without regard for propriety between men and women, she directly lifted his clothes and placed a slender jade-like finger on his lower abdomen.

Feeling a cool stream enter his lower abdomen, Xu Yuan’s heart leaped with joy.

But in the next moment, the cool sensation instantly vanished as Ran Qingmo suddenly withdrew her hand.

They stared at each other in the cave.

Xu Yuan asked hoarsely.

“What’s wrong?”

Ran Qingmo blinked her eyes twice and said quietly.

“You don’t have Qi. You would die.”

Xu Yuan looked down at himself.

“Why?”

“You have no Qi.”

“…”

Xu Yuan was speechless again.

When a game setting that was glossed over became reality, the details that had been skipped were naturally filled in.

This miraculous substance called Qi could indeed help heal injuries.

But healing via energy transfer was essentially using another person’s Qi to guide one’s own Qi, then circulating it through opened meridians.

The areas it passed through would be gradually repaired by the Qi, and harmful substances would be cleansed by it.

However, if an ordinary person hadn’t begun cultivating, their meridians would remain blocked.

Xu Yuan’s meridians were so narrow that Ran Qingmo’s Qi naturally couldn’t enter, and forcing it in would result in rupture.

Like, literally, exploding his body.

Understanding the principle now, silence fell over the cave.

Leaning weakly against the cold stone wall, Xu Yuan realized that his physical condition was far worse than he had initially thought. He didn’t even have the strength to remove his wet clothes.

Due to fever and hypothermia, his consciousness was becoming foggy. He was only staying awake through sheer willpower.

In his previous life, he had experienced hypothermia once during an expedition to Iceland, but thankfully, one of his companions was a survival expert like Bear Grylls, allowing him to barely survive.

But now?

Xu Yuan glared at the woman beside him.

Ran Qingmo sat quietly next to Xu Yuan, her fine eyebrows slightly furrowed, seemingly troubled by the dilemma of her hostage possibly dying from illness.

Being cared for by this clueless ice block of a woman, Xu Yuan didn’t believe he would wake up again if he fell asleep.

He mentally reviewed various methods of starting a fire in the wilderness, but he rejected them one by one.

Either he lacked the tools, or the materials were insufficient. Even the most basic method of fire-drilling was impossible in this heavy rain, he couldn’t find any suitable dry tinder or wood shavings.

In silence, time ticked away minute by minute.

Xu Yuan’s vision gradually dimmed. His body, beyond his control, slumped sideways towards the ground.

The last image he saw before losing consciousness was of the woman in black rising and walking out of the cave.

Where… was she going?

The final thought flashed through his mind as everything went black.