They both had barely spoken since, even as Longwei bandaged Mei's wounds. They still remained in silence.
His hands were steady despite his own injuries, but it wasn't the first time he'd done this... He had patched up injuries while in the field before and kept moving, dealing with the trauma later.
Mei sat still letting him work but he was still watching her face. Looking for... What? Disgust? Fear? Rejection?
Anything.
But her ice queen mask was back in place.
Is she's compartmentalizing? he'd thought.
"Done," He said, tying off the bandage around her shoulder. "This will hold for now, but we should find proper medicine when we reach a town or village."
"And you?"
"I'll manage." He'd already wrapped himself up, before even starting on her (it wasn't much). "It's not as deep as it looked."
"Wei..."
"We need to pack, they'll send more soon." She dragged. "Bingwen was an instructor, core Formation. They'll probably Send multiple Core Formation cultivators next maybe even a Nascent Soul elder."
"How long do we have?"
"Those children will likely reach the palace by nightfall, then likely report in the morning. Assuming the elders take them seriously..." She calculated. "Three days, maybe four if we're lucky."
"Where do we go?"
"Away from here, far away from both our sects." She finally met his eyes. "We're fugitives now, both of us... Jade Phoenix wants me back and Celestial Sword will want you dead once they hear you survived. We need neutral territory."
"The Golden Prosperity Plains?"
"Maybe Or the Jade Sea Islands, Somewhere the big sects don't have direct control." She stood, moaning in pain. "Pack light, we travel fast."
She moved to gather their supplies, shifting from him.
Longwei wanted to say something. Apologize... explain... something, but words felt inadequate against the weight of what he'd done.
So he packed in silence.
They left The Valley of Harmonious Rest as the sun climbed toward noon.
Longwei took one last look at the cave that had been their home for weeks, their little Paradise. The place where he'd rebuilt his core, discovered forbidden techniques and made memories (they fucked).
Now there were three bodies laying outside it, with blood staining the rocks and waterfall's mist still carrying the warm smell across the valley.
We can't ever come back here, he thought. This place is burned now, yet another thing I've destroyed.
"Longwei." Mei's voice pulled him from his thoughts. She was already twenty paces ahead, moving through the valley's exit passage. "We need to move."
"Yeah"
He followed.
They walked in silence for hours, Mei set a brutal pace despite her injury, pushing through terrain that would have challenged even healthy cultivators. Longwei kept up, his Core Formation cultivation made the physical demands trivial now.
Three kills and a jump from Foundation Two to Core Formation One, that's insane. That's...
ADDICTIVE.
He could still feel the echoes of the power rush, his cultivation base were still humming with the stolen energy, processing it, integrating it. Making the borrowed permanent.
But underneath all that was a distinctively faint but growing... Echo, a whisper that wasn't quite his thoughts. Of resentment, anger... the dying curse of Instructor Bingwen, bleeding through despite the scripture's filtering technique.
"You'll pay for this", the echo said. "You'll suffer as I suffered and watch everyone you love die. Fail them like you failed..."
Longwei pushed it down, and focused on walking, on Mei's back ahead of him, on anything but the voice.
This is what Wuji warned about, the contamination. It accumulates.
I'll need Mei's help to cleanse it, partnership cultivation to dilute the resentment.
I need her to...
He didn't know if he wanted too.
They stopped at dusk, in a small cave that offered privacy.
Mei collapse onto the stone wall, breathing hard. The walk had cost her more than she'd admitted.
"Let me see your shoulder," Longwei said.
"It's fine."
"Mei."
She sighed then peeled back her robe enough to show the bandage, It was soaked through with fresh blood.
"That's not fine."
"It's not fatal either." But she let him examine it. "The bleeding will stop, It just needs time."
"And you were running for hours on it."
"We needed distance."
"We need you alive." He pulled out their medical supplies (if you'll call it that), he grabbed what he could and started cleaning the wound properly. "This is going to hurt."
"Everything hurts." And she tightened her teeth.
They fell back into silence, the silence of two people avoiding a conversation neither wanted to have.
Finally, as Longwei tied off the fresh bandage, Mei spoke.
"You know I felt it," she said quietly. "Through the bond, when you killed them."
Longwei's hands stilled.
"What did you feel?"
"Everything." Her voice was distant. "The surge when you absorbed their energy, the satisfaction when they fell and the hunger for more." A pause. "And under all of that, the part that hated what it was enjoying."
"I'm sorry you had to..."
"Don't be sorry for my experience." Her pale eyes found his. "Be sorry if it wasn't true, If you're lying to yourself about the hate part."
"I'm not lying."
"Good." She looked away. "Because if you were, if you'd enjoyed it without any guilt or conflict, I'd have to use that signal and I don't think either of us is ready for that."
The signal, where she called his name three times and he'd stop immediately, no matter what.
LONGWEI, LONGWEI, LONGWEI.
He didn't need it, he stopped himself from killing the children and had let them run but it had been close. If they'd been adults or worse, if they'd hurt Mei.
I might not have stopped.
"What are we even doing?" Longwei asked.
"Now?" Mei pulled her robe closed, adjusted the bandage. "Now we're running, until we find somewhere and establish a base and figure shit out."
"That's the practical answer, I meant about..." He gestured between them. "This. Us, what I've..."
Mei was still now.
"I don't know," she admitted. "I meant what I said, I understand why you did it and I'm grateful you saved me but understanding and being comfortable are different things."
"You're afraid of me."
"A little. Yes." She met his eyes directly. "You killed three people in minutes, Wei. Then absorbed their energy like you were drinking water. You went from Foundation Two to Core Formation One, that's... that's the kind of advancement that takes people decades and you did it in one fight."
"I know."
"Do you understand what that means? Everyone you kill makes you stronger, everyone... That's going to change how you see people or how you see threats." Her voice dropped. "I'm scared you'll start seeing everyone as either an ally or a source."
"I won't." He said it with more confidence than he actually felt.
"You already do, atleast a little." She touched his hand. "I felt it, when you looked at those two Foundation Peak cultivators after Bingwen fell. You didn't see them as people anymore, just as cultivation bases, resources."
"Power waiting to be taken."
Was she wrong?
No.
In that moment, high on stolen power and desperate to protect her, he'd seen them exactly that way.
"The children," he said. "I saw them as people and I let them go."
"You did, and that's what gives me hope." She squeezed his hand. "You drew a line, and you held it. That's everything."
"For now, but what about next time? What about when you've killed ten people? Twenty? When does the line start moving?"
"I don't know." And he was being honest. "I guess we'll find out."
"Are you angry with me, Mei?" He asked, his voice was deeper now. "Because it seems like you are."
"No... I'm not, I just..."
They sat silence again, as darkness surrounded the cave. Two fugitives trying to figure out if they were still the people they'd been that morning.
Longwei couldn't sleep that night.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Instructor Bingwen's face or they other to Cultivators which he had killed.
He didn't like the feeling but one thing was certain. Without hesitation, without doubt If hunters came tomorrow, he'd kill them too and take everything from them.
Because that's what he needs to do to protect her, to survive and to matter.
Because he had tasted what advancement really feels like, and everything else is just slow starvation.
Because deep down he was already addicted, just didn't have the courage to say it.
The whispers in his head were getting louder now, Bingwen's resentment mixing with his own thoughts, making it hard to tell where her curse ended and his darkness began.
Murderer. Monster. You took what wasn't yours.
I took what they risked when they attacked.
Predator wearing human skin.
Survivor doing what survivors do.
How long until you Hunt instead of defend?
I let the children go, I'm Good.
For now.
Longwei opened his eyes. Found Mei awake too, watching him in the darkness.
"Can't sleep?" she asked.
"Voices."
"Voices?"
"Yeah. I think it's Bingwen's, and my own thoughts, kinda hard to separate them."
"Come here."
She opened her arms and Longwei moved closer, let her pull his head against her chest. Her heartbeat was steady and relaxing.
"We should... You know.." she whispered. "Partnership cultivation helps cleanse the contamination."
"You're hurt, you need rest."
"I need you not going crazy more than I need rest." Her fingers found his hair and stroked it gently. "Come on, we'll go slowly, just enough to start filtering the resentment or whatever."
"Are you sure?"
"Well, okay, if you don't want to... Fine."
"What... Don't?"
"I was just trying to sound mature, Come here."