THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER by Jin Yong

In Love Part 6

Linghu Chong was utterly grateful. A feeling of warmth washing over him; he felt something choking in his throat.

"Granny, you are so kind to me, so even if nobody else in this world likes me, that...that would be all right."

"You surely have a honey mouth, always speaking pleasant things. No wonder even people like Blue Phoenix of the Five-Sylph Sect was full of praises when talking about you. Very well, you can't walk, and I can't walk either. We'll just have to spend the night over there under that cliff. I wonder whether we'll die today."

"If we survive today, I wonder whether we'll die tomorrow. If we survive tomorrow, I wonder whether we'll die the day after." Linghu Chong grinned.

"Drop it! You crawl over there slowly and I'll be right after you."

"But if you don't take this pill from the old monk, I am afraid I don't even have enough strength to crawl one step," Linghu Chong whined.

"You are talking nonsense again. If I don't take that pill, why are you the one having no strength to crawl?" the granny asked.

"This is definitely not nonsense. If you don't take the pill, your injury won't recover soon, and for sure you would not be in a mood to play the zither. Then I'd be all worried to death and where do you expect me to find strength to crawl over? I won't even have any strength to just lie here, much less crawling over," Linghu Chong explained.

"Even lying here requires your strength?" The granny chuckled.

"That's of course. This is a slope here. If I don't use my strength to hold myself still, I would have rolled all the way down it and fallen into the mountain gully down below. Then either I'll smash myself to pieces or drown."

"Even when you are so severely injured, not knowing whether you can make it till tomorrow, you are still in such a merrily mood to joke about. People as cheeky as this had to be rare in this world." The granny sighed.

Linghu Chong threw the pill back behind his back gently. "Will you just take it, please?" he pleaded

"Anyone who poses as a member of the reputable and orthodox schools can not be an good egg. If I take this pill of the Shaolin School, it will only dirty my mouth," the granny let out an irritated snort.

"Ouch!" Linghu Chong suddenly cried as he leaned his upper body to the left and then rolled toward the mountain gully down the slope.

"Look out!" astounded, the granny shouted.

Linghu Chong kept on rolling. The slop was not very steep, but very long. It took Linghu Chong a good while to finally roll to the edge of the gully. Spreading his arms and legs widely Linghu Chong stopped himself from rolling any further.

"Hey? Hello? Are you all right?" the granny shouted.

The sharp rocks along the slope gave Linghu Chong's face and arms quite some cuts and bruises, but he kept his silence in spite of the fierce pain.

"Fine! I'll take the old monk's stinking pill. Get...get back up here," the granny shouted again.

"You've said it. You can't go back to your words," Linghu Chong replied.

At the moment there was already quite a distance between the two. Linghu Chong didn't have any inner strength, so his voice couldn't reach very far. The granny only vaguely heard some indistinct sounds, but couldn't make out what he had said.

"What did you say?" she asked.

"I...I...," Linghu Chong wanted to answer, but had to gasp for air.