The party had finally ended near dawn. The main yard was currently covered with drunken or exhausted party goers; looking vaguely like a battle had taken place. Mei wasn’t tired. She’d been absorbing Jin’s yang all night in small amounts and was wide awake from the energy it gave her. So she’d taken it upon herself to get Jin back into their room.

It’d seemed like a great idea when she started.

“Jin.”

“Hm?”

“Stop doing that.”

Mei Hua was dragging Jin’s tall 6’5” [196cm] body across the ground like a heavy sack. Not only was he all legs and arms, he was incredibly heavy. Nineteen years ago she could have lifted him over her head without any problems, but today just getting him to their room was a serious struggle.

Yet it could definitely have been worse. She was able to stand up and walk, even dance the night away, which shouldn’t have been possible for someone in a coma for so many years. She was sure such a miracle was thanks to the Fairy Doctor. When she had the chance, she’d definitely properly show her gratitude.

It was just that… all those years of martial arts training were gone. Shuya’s teachings had given her great gains with spiritual cultivation, but that poison had really ruined her body. She had only the strength of a normal person now. It would take time for her inner cultivation to make its way out, and even that wouldn’t happen all by itself. It was like starting all over again, she couldn’t help feeling annoyed.

“Heh, doing what?” Came an innocent reply.

“That thing you’re doing right now!”

Somewhere in the middle of dragged him back to bed, he’d wrapped his arms around her shoulders and started rubbing his face into her upper body. Every time he moved his head to rub, his spirit awkwardly pressed itself close to her own. While it wasn’t enough to crush her, it was smothering and she felt like she couldn’t breath.

Really, Shuya had been right. How had she never noticed him stuffing her with his yang before?

“What? I just want to be close to you—”

When he rubbed his face onto her shoulder again, his spirit completely wrapped itself around her and squeezed affectionately.

“GUH!”

She staggered and dropped him heavily, his whole body spread out on the lawn. Rather than looking in pain from the drop, he giggled and reached out his hands to take hold of her again. Anyone watching would have thought he was drunk, but he hadn’t had a drop of liquor during the party.

Extremely annoyed at his behavior, she smacked his hands away and then started smacking the side of his arms. Every time her hands hit, a bit of her spirit whipped out and smacked his giant, overbearing spirit at the same time. She knew perfectly well it wasn’t going to hurt him, that it might not even sting, but she hoped it was enough to knock a little sense into him.

“Let me go! Do you understand how long it took me to get all that excess yang out of my system? You think I’m doing that again?!”

As her smaller spirit viciously hit his bigger one, he slowly realized being so close was making her unhappy. While Jin’s spirit loosened its grip with great reluctance, his human body had wrapped its arms around Mei’s feet.

“No….! Don’t leave me!”

“I didn’t say I was going anywhere!”

He pouted at her like a child, eyes large and pleading. “Mountain Flower, don’t you like me anymore? Is it because I’m an an ancient grandpa that you want to keep your distance? But I look so young on the outside! And you said you liked me even though I’m old! It’s too late to take it back now! So you absolutely can’t run away! Stay close, okay?”

“You are just so…” She wore a vexed but helpless expression on her face.

He sobbed dry tears, rubbing his face into her leg. “MeiMei, I like you… MeiMei… I like you so much…! My MeiMei..!”

“Pfft!”

Mei Hua suddenly covered her mouth with her hand, trying to suppress the laughter bubbling up and failing. Wasn’t this behavior almost exactly like when they’d first met? Back then, he’d had no concept of personal space and was annoyingly clingy. But he didn’t know how to talk, so he’d just keep saying “MeiMei!” in this exact same pitiful voice.

She knelt down and gave him a pat on the head.

“I know, I know, I like you too. But you can’t be this clingy, do you understand? This kind of behavior isn’t just bad for my cultivation, it’s stunted my spirit. So I need you to keep yourself, to yourself.”

“No….” His droopy eyes looked at her mournfully. “…stay close to me.. Forever and ever…”

She could feel his spirit edging closer again, trying to wrap itself around her. As she bopped his head with her fist, her spirit reached out and hit him at the same time, making him whimper as he sulked.

“Jin, why do you need to be so close?”

“Why?”

“Yes, why?”

His eyebrows scrunched together as he made a concerted effort to think. After a minute of hard thinking, some of the euphoria must have diminished. His eyes cleared and his grip on her legs loosened slightly.

He muttered worriedly, “I can’t let you get sick again.”

She blinked.

“Sick?”

“When you were little, you got very sick. You almost died.”

“Ah… I remember that… vaguely.” It’d been the only time she’d gotten seriously ill. She’d gotten close to a sick animal, something Ye had told her not to do, and somehow caught whatever it had. Whatever that sickness had been, it wasn’t normal and really had almost killed her. “Are you saying you staying close keeps me from getting sick?”

“That’s right.” He sat up and nodded his head earnestly. “I stay close, you stay healthy.” His eyes lit up. “So don’t push me away, ok?”

“No, wait—!”

Before she could stop him, all six plus feet of his body as well as all of his spirit slammed into her. It was like being run into by a large dog at full speed, or maybe a bear. His sudden weight caused her fall backward. She was squished between him and the ground, and he was rubbing his face in her chest now. Even his mountain spirit was rubbing away in the exact same motion, keeping her so close she felt strangled.

When he had been a pure spirit, perhaps he really had thought that stuffing her with his leftover yang was the best method to protect her. And maybe it became a habit after that. But now, how to say….

The gleeful noises he was making every time his face vigorously rubbed into her chest was making her extremely skeptical if he retained such pure motives.

She just lay there with a cramped face, trying to think of how to get him off. Even if the cultivation method Shuya had taught her had made her spirit much much stronger than before, it was nothing compared to the strength of the Fairy Emperor. He lived up to his mountain nature. Just like a mountain, he couldn’t be moved if he didn’t want to move, and he clearly didn’t want to move!

After pondering for a moment, her expression softened into one of compassion. Reaching out, she smoothly stroked Jin’s back.

Every time her hand moved across his back, her spirit slid across his. Jin’s whole body shuddered at the contact and any rationality that had started returning to him immediately left.

“You’ve been unbearably hot for a long time now, haven’t you?”

He nodded in her chest, breathing heavily and his hands starting to move across her body suggestively.

“It must have been hard.” She ignored his behavior and whispered. “You’ve endured well.”

“M-me?”

“That’s right, you.” Her smaller soul reached out and wrapped as much of itself as it could over his. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. “I can’t take all that heat but… I can take a little of it, so let me, alright?”

Her spirit breathed in deeply, as it did, it inhaled great swaths of the excess heat Jin was producing. The previous times she’d done this she had been gentle, but this time she was rough and ripped the heat off him without any mercy.

The sudden reduction of heat in his spirit caused him to cry out and his body convulse. It felt amazing, but it hurt a little too. Like someone with a high fever suddenly being thrown into an ice cold bath. The sudden relief made him feel dizzy.

“..sl..slow down…” Came a feeble objection. The euphoria was so strong, he was finding it difficult to move.

She leaned forward and spoke softly in his ear. “It’s alright, relax Jin. Relax.”

Her spirit inhaled again, ripping another swath of heat off him. This time he gave a great shudder and passed out. Not just his human body, but his spirit blanked out. When his spirit let go of her, she let go of it as well. With only his body to deal with, she was finally able to push him off.

She lay there feeling full to the point of being ill. It was like a combination of drinking something too hot too quickly and gorging oneself, only it was all coming from her spirit vibrating into her body. She had the urge to vomit all of the food she’d eaten during the meal—which admittedly hadn’t been much—right then and there.

As she was regretting her decision, she heard two familiar voices talking.

“—to protect her?”

“Of course, we can. What happened before will never happen again.”

“I see, that’s a relief. Jin is strong but his defenses— ah, MeiMei, what happened?!”

The human-shaped Ye ran over to Mei Hua, who was lying with her back on the wet grass.

“..ate too much…” she groaned out, bile rising uncomfortably.

Shuya bent over Mei Hua and clucked her tongue. “What on earth were you thinking? Even if I want to help you, all I can do is take the excess after you convert it. He absolutely won’t let anyone but you mess with his yang, you know.”

“I know. He was being so clingy and… I just… felt sorry for him. He’s been in so much pain for so long… I never noticed…” Her eyes watered slightly. “I thought… make him feel better, get him off me.”

Shuya sighed and gently stroked Mei Hua’s hair. She said in a teasing tone, “What’s the point of giving you the Bloodstone Seal if you insist on being this silly?”

“Hey, hey, what’s going on?” Ye was still worried and didn’t like being left out.

The Tree Spirit raised an eyebrow in surprise. She gave a simplified explanation of what had happened. After listening, Ye’s mouth dropped opened slightly in astonishment and then he glared at Jin in consternation.

“…will she be alright?”

This was an obvious question to ask. Until that moment, Ye hadn’t even been aware a spirit of Jin’s caliber could be absorbed by a mortal. Jin’s spirit was god-like. Absorbing even his excess wasn’t some simple, everyday type of task. It was dangerous, because Jin himself was dangerous.

“Of course,” Shuya replied casually, “It will just take time to process it all. I didn’t spend years teaching her how to absorb that punk’s yang for nothing! It’s just… I’d hoped she could relax today, visit people, but…”

“She’ll be spending it cultivating instead, huh? Just like a real Jianghu fanatic.” Ye walked over and rudely kicked Jin in the side. “I let him have the entire party with MeiMei, even after he dumped all his work on me for years, and this is how he repays me? Treats my precious MeiMei this way the moment I turn my back... If he thinks I’m going to just roll over and let him do whatever he wants to her, he’s got another thing coming.”

“Ye…” Mei Hua hadn’t been speaking in an attempt to keep herself from throwing up. But seeing Ye’s malicious expression, she knew if she didn’t speak up now, Jin was definitely going to suffer later. “It was my choice… mine… Jin isn’t to blame. So don’t… don’t…”

Her voice petered out and suddenly her food from earlier scattered across the lawn.

Ye pursed his lips, face filled with annoyance that she was siding with Jin. She could say whatever she wanted, but who’s fault was it that she was like this? If Jin wasn’t such a useless, good-for-nothing to begin with, she wouldn’t be barfing all over the lawn.

“Since you’re this ill and still willing to defend him, fine. I won’t do anything…” His voice lowered so Mei Hua couldn’t hear him, “…while you’re looking. Hn. Just mess with him a bit until he can’t take it anymore. He he he.”