Chapter 34: Fresh Air
Li Xin lay weakly against Qi Mo after he finished with the medicine. He frowned upon seeing the droplets of sweat that clung to her body and hesitated for a moment before deciding to reach for a cotton towel nearby and carefully wipe the perspiration from her skin.
"Get well soon. I have no need for useless servants."
He laid her back down on the bed slowly. Li Xin rolled her eyes when he wasn"t watching. It wasn"t as if she asked to get shot, and her recovery was out of her control. The guy was a joke and so egotistical. But she was too lazy to pick a fight with him — the pain had no yet subsided, and she felt exhaustion take over as she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
Qi Mo visibly relaxed as soon as her eyes shut and softly padded out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. There were still things he needed to do.
~~~
The physician was good at his job, for several days later, Li Xin found that she had recovered enough to get out of bed and slowly move around.
She was currently ambling along languorously in the villa garden. The lush green vegetation of the grounds lifted her spirits tremendously. It was nice to finally be able to walk around outside after having spent so many days stuck in bed. The garden was noticeably void of pretty flowers and plants; instead, it was covered in trees, but she wasn"t going to complain. Any nature was better than none at all.
The grounds were filled with people going in and out — unfamiliar faces, though of course, there were very few faces in the clan that Li Xin recognized to begin with. Regardless, she kept away from them. It was better to mind her own business and not get into anything here.
Following that line of thought, she suddenly realized that she should be thankful for her timely gunshot wound for giving her the opportunity to avoid traveling with Qi Mo and diving headlong into dangerous situations that always seemed to involve raining bullets. Her heart couldn"t handle it. But still, such a serious injury seemed too high a price to pay.
Qi Mo hadn"t told her where the bullet had entered or how serious her injury was, but she was aware of her situation. If she could turn back time, she would rather not have been shot.
Suddenly, a warm voice broke her silent reverie: "I see you"re well enough to be out and about." Li Xin looked up and saw the doctor walking towards her with a cheerful smile on his face.
She nodded in a.s.sent. "Yup. The boss isn"t around so I"m coming out for a breather."
The doctor laughed in response. "A breather, huh? If the boss heard you, he"d definitely lock you in the room again."
"So don"t tell then," Li Xin said matter-of-factly, shrugging. If the overlord found out that she considered his care akin to being locked up in prison, she"d be dead.
She had no idea what came over the man as of late. Every day, he ate with her and slept beside her, changed her bandages, wiped her sweat, fed her. It wasn"t only uncomfortable… it was downright torturous. Qi Mo"s movements weren"t subtle at all — he treated patients as if they were prisoners, so it felt like she was being slowly tormented.
The red on her arms, her stinging lips, and the extra weight she"d gained in the last few days were all proof of Qi Mo"s "care." When she had first started feeling a little better, she"d made the mistake of voicing her complaints to him. He had glared at her threateningly, prompting her to retreat and wave a metaphorical white flag of surrender. She found it better to just not provoke him out of self-preservation.
She wholeheartedly believed that he was like this because she was being punished for attempting to dodge the bullet instead of protecting him. She scoffed at the thought. He was supposed to be the mighty and powerful overlord, so he should appreciate the fact that she hadn"t expected him to help her dodge the bullet. In a crazy situation like that, who had time to be thinking of others? Besides, she had gotten hurt anyway… the man was so stingy.
The doctor chuckled quietly at the sight of Li Xin"s disgruntled expression. Based on his original a.s.sessment of her injury, she should have been out of bed days ago. However, under Qi Mo"s haphazard notion of care, she had recovered slower than expected. The man could never be a doctor. It was a good thing Li Xin was a physically healthy person, otherwise she probably wouldn"t have lasted.
"Alright, I"ll keep it a secret," he a.s.sured her. "By the way, I heart you did some pretty amazing stuff out in the streets. Now that you"re here, I"ve got to ask." He had heard this woman was quite famous in the underworld and he"s always wanted to ask her about her experiences; today was the perfect opportunity.
Li Xin eyed the easy smile on the man"s face and knit her brows together disbelievingly. It was hard to imagine him as one of Qi Mo"s people. For the tyrant that he was, she envisioned all his servants was ones resembling Red Falcon in nature: stern and impa.s.sive. She wondered how this cheerful, carefree character ended up serving the overlord.
"Come and sit," the man was saying. He gestured towards a bench nearby.
She kept her gaze on his face, inspecting the beaming expression that lit up his features. His warmth and friendliness were an exception in this place, but still, anyone who could come so close to Qi Mo and walk around as they pleased definitely retained an important position in the clan. His warmth and Red Falcon"s coldness were equally indiscernible and they were both complicated people.
Laughing, she said, "I wouldn"t call it amazing. Amazing would be if I ever became the overlord."
"You"re interested in doing so?" He sounded surprised.
Li Xin scowled. Did this guy not understand what a compliment was? "If I"m interested, can I?" She asked, her dark eyes meeting his evenly.
His smile widened at her glare. She was right, after all. But before he could reply, another voice sounded from behind him. "You want to sit in my position."
Li Xin whipped around and saw Qi Mo coming towards them, his face unreadable. Yellow Falcon followed closely behind him with an ominous smirk.
She pursed her lips. "Would you let me?" The sight of his approach seemed to trigger all her pain again. Her voice was tight with tension.
"You don"t have the ability to," he said bluntly. He was surprisingly calm about the idea, but he wasn"t stupid. If she really had the ability to snag the position of overlord from him, she would have done it a long time ago.
"Who let you get out of bed?"
She caught onto the anger behind his inquiry and opened her mouth to explain hurriedly, "The exercise helps me heal; you said yourself that you couldn"t be bothered with useless servants." Using his own words against him could probably get her to win this round of verbal fighting.
Qi Mo"s face tightened. "Come along then," he demanded. Then, he swiveled around and exited the room, heading to the main room. The fact that he didn"t yell surprised her enormously. She had expected him to start ranting about whatever, though in hindsight, she realized that was silly. It was difficult to imagine Qi Mo ranting about anything. Killing was more his thing.
With that, she ran off and followed him closely on his heels.
Minor announcement: I plan on picking up 2-3 projects soon, so I’m still looking through everyone’s suggestions and browsing NU for ideas. One of the stories I’ve decided to translate is called He Neighbors With Moonlight by Ding Mo, who wrote the famed crime/romance trilogy. I’m sure that as with all Ding Mo novels, it will be adapted to TV eventually. I couldn’t tell you what it’s about, but the cover of the book is beautiful and I know it has to do with s.p.a.ce. Like a low-key magical realism/intergalactic romance filled with stardust