How To Polish A Pearl

Chapter 83 - Dreaming (1)

Author's Notes:

Time for the insense to start stirring more in Wen Ke Xing's mind, I think.

⊂ (▀▿▀) つ

Wen Ke Xing's mind is sluggish. Fever sluggish. His eyelids are so heavy it's almost as if they have been glued together. Moving his eyes hurt, the kind of hurt you know is going to feel like a thousand stabbing needles and instantly fill your eyes with water as soon as you open them.

Keeping his eyes closed, his mind slowly wanders through his body. It feels cold and rigid, the limbs refusing to bend or even move. He thinks he is shivering, his skin somehow feels like it's vibrating, desperately trying to retain energy and warmth for his core.

When Wen Ke Xing has gathered enough strength to slowly force his eyes open, the room is spinning at an alarming speed and combined with the pain and cold, his body is refusing to move on pure instinct. If he moves−he will vomit. He slowly blinks a few times to relieve the suffering of the burn that is his eyes.

When the surroundings gradually come into focus, or as mush focus as he can make out within the spinning, he can see he is on the floor in an abandoned house. A sad and vile smelling excuse of a blanket is covering him, though doing very little to protect him from the snowstorm that is raging outside. The howling wind tares at the broken window screens, bringing in snow that should probably be described more like ice chards rather than flakes. They thrash and swirl around the room, some of them hitting his face. His almost frozen cheeks are burning slightly, which tells him that the ice shards might be sharp enough to cut through his skin.

The overwhelming dizziness takes control and forces him to close his eyes, blinking so slow that he wonders if he slept for a moment, because when he opens his eyes again, the room is dark and even colder. His limbs are stiff and his body is so tired he has to force his lungs to breathe. The miserable blanket feels heavier, like it is covered with snow that has soaked through, a bone chilling cold sucking all the heat from his body leaving him numb.

Continuing to focus on breathing, he blink through the pain when suddenly, a warmth starts to spread through him. It courses through every cell, slowly starting to melt his frozen bones and his numb core. It is like nothing he has ever felt before. His body craves it, adores it, inhales it.

In his eagerness to locate the source, his eyes flings open and the shock to his system is ruthless and the darkness takes hold of him again.

Wen Ke Xing has no idea how long he has been out for, but when he comes to, the warmth is still spreading through his core. This time he opens his eyes slowly, breathing deeply through each protest that is assaulting his senses in the process. With tears streaming down his face, freezing halfway down in the subzero temperature, he can make out the blurry shape of a boy hunched over him. At least he thinks it's a boy.

The boys lips are moving but Wen Ke Xing can't make out the words, the backdrop still rotating at an increasing speed, his ears buzzing so loud it is drowning out all other sounds−except for the alarmingly slow yet deafening beating of his own heart.

In between blinking, he can make out that the boy's arms are extended and his palms are firmly pressed against his solar plexus. The air surrounding his arms looks like it's pulsing, almost glowing. The boy's Qi (1) is flowing at a rapid pace into him, almost as if his cold body is pulling it out of the boy. Somehow, this feeling seems familiar, like he has felt it before. His body relaxes under the touch and his eyelids grows even heavier.

He comes to again when his body is moved into a partially sitting position, propped up on something that is half-soft, maybe a sack of some sort. His brain is refusing to open his eyes, the pain of moving them behind the eyelids are enough for tears to bead in his eyelashes.