Chapter 4: Danger

"Phew... my head hurts so much... my body is so cold..."

With the howling wind sweeping through the cold, he awoke once more from the fog of unconsciousness, a throbbing pain searing through both body and mind, making Xu Yuan unwilling to open his eyes.

The clothes clinging to his body were soaked, the icy wind brushing against the damp fabric, steadily siphoning away the last remnants of warmth he still possessed.

In a single breath, Xu Yuan realized—his body had gone below the threshold of temperature.

With a slow, reluctant opening of his eyes, memories from before the fall surged back like a tide.

The transfer, the giant Buddha, the blow from the woman in black.

He pieced together his situation, the sharp, dual agony of headache making it difficult to move his gaze. He began to take in the surroundings.

It seemed to be a cave, small—only about four or five meters deep.

Outside, the sky had lightened, the rain still falling softly, but without the fire from the temple, the cave felt unnervingly cold.

The woman in black sat by the entrance, eyes closed, her sword resting beside her, the blade's edge beside a wooden stick that looked strangely familiar.

"......" Xu Yuan.

He pressed his dry, pale lips together, then moved his frail body slowly against the cold stone wall behind him.

Just that simple motion sent his weak frame gasping for breath.

His previous life, marked by a relatively comfortable upbringing, had granted him ample time and money to experience a variety of lives—wilderness expeditions among them. And precisely because of that, Xu Yuan now understood the severity of his illness. Hypothermia, high fever, and dehydration.

He looked toward the woman at the cave entrance, her face veiled by a thin veil, dressed in black. Her long, smooth black hair clung to her cheeks, damp and clinging. Her clothes were soaked, clinging to her graceful curves.

Seeing this, Xu Yuan felt no desire, no sensuality—only a sudden, violent surge of blood pressure.

He suddenly grasped why Xu Changtian, the third prince in *Cangyuan*, had died in such bizarre and inexplicable ways across multiple worldlines—bound and kidnapped, always.

At the time, when recalling this scene, Xu Yuan was still puzzled—how could a master of such great skill as Ran Qingmo have been standing right beside him, and yet Xu Changtian, this carefree nobleman, had died so absurdly?

Now, having lived through it firsthand, he had the answer.

This fool—she'd... she'd carried him, a comatose patient, through the winter rain, and then simply abandoned him!

In such a cold, rainy night, it might not matter to her, but for an ordinary person, it could be fatal.

Inside the cave, silence reigned, the soft patter of rain drifting in from outside.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Xu Yuan weakly spoke:

"Ran Qingmo..."

His once smooth, gentle voice had now become hoarse and broken.

The woman at the cave entrance, upon hearing him, slowly opened her eyes, gazing at him with calm indifference.

Xu Yuan gasped for breath, his voice weak and drawn out, one syllable at a time;

"You... do you want me to die right here like this?"

Ran Qing Mo's black veil covered her face, only her beautiful eyes peeking out, flickering slightly. She shook her head.

On the matter of Xu Yuan's life, her views were perfectly aligned with his.

Xu Yuan, braving the discomfort in his body, said:

"Don't let me freeze to death—just... just help me light a fire."

Ran Qing Mo stared at Xu Yuan for two seconds, her eyes flickering for a long while, then replied seriously:

"But the fire match is gone."

Xu Yuan opened his mouth, changing his question: "What about your Qi?"

In this world, Qi was almost an omnipotent energy source.

Although the game "Cang Yuan" did not explicitly show this, in a world where a supreme warrior could reduce an entire capital to ruins, lighting a fire—such a simple task—shouldn't be beyond the reach of such a master.

Ran Qingmo blinked her beautiful eyes twice, then pushed herself up from the ground, slowly walking toward Xu Yuan, and extended a delicate, jade-like hand toward him.

A flicker of confusion passed through Xu Yuan's eyes.

Soon, he noticed a subtle whirlwind forming in her hand, and in a flash, a chunk of ice about fifteen centimeters in diameter coalesced in her palm.

Holding the ice, Ran Qingmo seemed utterly unaffected by the cold, blinking innocently as she gently extended it toward Xu Yuan's face.

"Ice? Is that okay?"

"........"

Looking at the large ice chunk before him, Xu Yuan instinctively thought she was playing some cruel joke on him. But upon seeing her serious gaze, he suppressed the urge to have a stroke, took a deep breath, and said:

"I'm sick. I need a fire, hot water, and food."

Upon hearing this,

Ran Qingmo stared at Xu Yuan's face for two seconds, as if verifying his condition.

Two seconds later,

she silently walked to a bundle left in the corner of the cavern, rummaged through it, and retrieved a water bladder and a dry biscuit. Returning to Xu Yuan, she placed both in his hands.

Xu Yuan glanced at the food and water in his hands, then at the woman before him—her face pale from the cold, her lips trembling slightly:

"Where's the fire? I need heat, I need hot water... right now, I need warmth."

"But the matchstick is gone."

"........" Xu Yuan.

A sudden darkness washed over him. He laughed bitterly, a sound choked and hollow, as a suffocating dizziness surged through his chest.

The drowsiness and vertigo brought on by his illness pressed upon him, urging him toward sleep—but he knew that if he closed his eyes now, he would never wake again.

Quickly gathering his composure and steadying his mind, Xu Yuan licked his pale lips and asked:

"Can... can you help me transfer energy to heal my injuries?"

The medical system in this world was quite archaic, yet due to the presence of Qi, it wasn't necessarily inferior to that of his previous life.

However, deep in this remote mountain forest, such help was clearly out of reach.

Yet Xu Yuan remembered a familiar plot point from the story of "Cang Yuan"—a trope involving energy transfer for healing.

Upon hearing this, Ran Qingmo tossed aside the ice ball in her hand and sat directly before Xu Yuan, disregarding any notion of gender, and lifted his shirt to reveal a slender jade finger, pressing it firmly against his abdomen.

Feeling the cool sensation seep into his body from below, Xu Yuan felt a surge of relief.

But then—

The cold sensation vanished instantly, and Ran Qingmo suddenly withdrew her hand.

They stared at each other, wide-eyed in the cave.

Xu Yuan spoke in a hoarse voice:

"What's wrong?"

Ran Qingmo blinked rapidly, speaking softly:

"You have no Qi. You will die."

Xu Yuan looked down at himself:

"Why?"

"You have no Qi."

"..." Xu Yuan.

When a setting casually mentioned in the game became reality, the details previously omitted naturally filled themselves in.

This mysterious substance, Qi, could indeed aid in healing wounds.

But the essence of transmitting energy to heal injuries was actually using another's Qi to guide one's own internal Qi, then circulating it through the opened meridians.

As it passed through, the Qi would gradually mend the damaged areas, while harmful substances would be absorbed and consumed by it.

Ordinary people, lacking any cultivation, would have their meridians remain permanently blocked.

Xu Yuan's entrance was so narrow, that Ran Qingmo's Qi could not enter at all—forcing it in would only result in a rupture.

In a literal sense,

a rupture.

Understanding the principle, silence fell within the cave.

Weak and trembling against the cold stone wall, Xu Yuan realized his body's condition was far worse than he had expected. The strength to remove his damp clothes had entirely vanished.

Due to fever and hypothermia, his consciousness was beginning to fade, barely staying awake thanks solely to his desperate will to survive.

In a previous life, he had once suffered from hypothermia during an expedition to Iceland—but luckily, there was a wilderness survival expert of De's caliber among his companions, who had kept him alive just barely.

As for now?

Xu Yuan glanced at the woman beside him.

Ran Qingmo sat quietly at his side, her dark brows slightly furrowed, troubled by the dilemma of how to save the captured man who was dying from illness.

Being cared for by a complete ice-brain with no understanding of the world, Xu Yuan didn't believe he'd ever wake up again after falling asleep.

His mind slowly sifted through methods of starting a fire in the wild, but each one was dismissed—either due to lack of tools or insufficient materials. Even the most basic method of friction fire seemed impossible under such relentless rain, with no dry kindling or wood shavings to be found.

In silence,

time slipped away, second by second.

Xu Yuan's vision began to fade, his body slipping uncontrollably toward the ground beside him.

The last image before his sight vanished was of the black-robed woman rising and stepping out of the cave.

Where... is she going?

The last thought flickers, and before her, darkness engulfs everything....