Does It Matter

10

Wu Sanxings pov

That damn nephew of mine... Trying to kill us all. He didn't even make any noise when he encountered the thing. The older man paused. Or maybe he was just killed that fast, didn't even have time to react, the idiot. But then, if he were dead, we would have come across at least a bit of remains somewhere by now.

As this new thought occurred to the man he mentally froze. If there were no remains, then either his nephew had been swallowed whole—not a very likely scenario considering the size of the beast— ,had slipped past unnoticed—again, not a very likely scenario since his nephew was the clumsiest teenager he had ever come across.—or there was another beast that had dragged away the corpse.

He pondered for a few seconds before deciding that it was most likely the latter, and turned to his crew. "Watch yourselves, don't make too much noise, it's likely that there are more creatures, maybe worse than the one we just encountered, nearby.

His men agreed in various forms of acknowledgement, and they continued their trek through the tunnels.

Wu Xie pov.

"I think we've lost it for now." He breathed out after they had run, or rather Qiling had run, for a while in twisting paths and down random holes that they probably should've stayed away from since the thing was probably familiar with its own territory.

"Mn." Qiling agreed and carefully set Wu Xie down on the ground, extra cautious about jostling his leg in the process.

As soon as Wu Xie was somewhat settled on the ground, Qiling knelt down to inspect his leg, seemingly coming to the same conclusion Wu Xie had.

"Broken." He muttered and Wu Xie began to nod along to his conclusion, as Qiling began to once again withdraw his sword from his back.

"Hey wait! Just because it's useless at the moment doesn't mean you should just amputate it just like that!"

Qiling gave him a blank look that lasted so long, Wu Xie felt embarrassed about his outburst.

"Bandages? Or a rope." Wu Xie barely processed the question as he wasn't expecting the other to speak.

"Huh? Bandages? Oh! Yes I should have some here somewhere." He mumbled as he searched his pockets and when he reached for his bag, he was shocked to realize that he had lost it at some point along the way.

"Aish, shit! No! No! No!" He mumbled under his breath in a barely audible manner as he did his best to look around himself for his bag.

Finally giving up, he sheepishly turned to Qiling. "Nevermind, it seems I must have lost my bag somewhere back there." He shrugged.

Qiling looked at him for a moment, seemingly contemplating his options. Wu Xie tried to do the same, but kept accidentally focusing on watching his companion instead.

Finally Qiling seemed to come to a decision and in one swift motion removed his own belt before somehow snatching Wu Xie's as well.

  Wu Xie almost protested at the action, but thought better if it when he realized what it was for.

Qiling carefully reached forward and grabbed hold of the broken leg, shifting it towards him, then picked up his sword, placing it against the leg and snatching Wu Xie's hand to make him hold the thing in place. He then grabbed the belts and one by one used them to secure the sword, creating  a makeshift splint.

When he was done he looked at his handiwork for a moment before standing up, while Wu Xie continued to stare at the abomination of his leg. He suddenly realized that the sword on his leg was the whole thing, not just the sheathe, and withdrew the sword a little bit just to test if it was still drawable while done up like this.

He almost laughed at the image that entered his mind, of Qiling trying to awkwardly draw the sword should they meet another beast.

I won't hope that that won't happen, that would only jinx it.

He looked back up at his silent companion. "Let's keep moving."