Legacy World 1.17 Goodbye

The spy's words made ZhangYong freeze. His senses came back to him and his guard was instantly raised.

Because he had his full focus on the spy, it was only now that he realised there was another presence. He looked up and found the tip of a sword an inches away from his face.

Although his fast reflexes enabled him to dodge instantaneously, it was still not enough to escape unscathed. The sword grazed past his cheek and cut his jaw but the assailant did not stop there. When he saw ZhangYong dodge, he reacted at the same time and changed the angle of the sword so that it plunged towards ZhangYong's chest.

A loud thud sounded and blood spilled on the ground and on the spy.

The assailant's body hung lifelessly off the tree trunk that the spy last crashed into with a sword pierced through his heart from his back.

The spy and ZhangYong were momentarily stunned by the unexpected development and stared at the pinned body with dumbfounded expressions. They then shifted their gaze to where the sword had flown from and saw Xinyi on one knee.

Although her eyes were looking straight back at them, they seemed out of focus. The blood trickling out of her mouth was a stark contrast against her very pale lips and face. In the next moment, Xinyi's body swayed a little before falling to the ground.

When ZhangYong saw Xinyi's body sway, he regained his senses again and punched the daylights out of the spy who was still captivated by Xinyi.

Since ZhangYong did not hold back in the least, the punch made the spy's head snap to the side and hit against the bloodied tree trunk.

The other soldiers who arrived just in time to see the final punch were sure that the spy would suffer from a bad concussion. ZhangYong then ordered them to securely restrain the spy while he went to Xinyi's side. He knew that she needed immediate medical attention.

While the soldiers got busy on their end, ZhangYong tore apart Xinyi's blood-soaked garments. He had no mind to think about decorum with the bad state that Xinyi was in right now.

He clenched his jaw hard and his heart wrenched in pain the moment the garish wounds got exposed. Meanwhile, his hands never stopped moving. He washed her wounds, tore one of his sleeves off to roughly dry them, applied the spiritually nourished salve, then bandaged her up with clean cloth.

He has all the medical supplies at hand because he has never given up hope on running into Xinyi. Although never getting to see her again haunted him, what worried him the most was coming across her dead body or finding her only to have her die on him. Now that one of his fears turned out to be real, he was all the more scared about the way the situation would develop.

The deep frown and wince on Xinyi's face eased up as the pain killing effects of the salve immediately kicked in. However, her face still looked as pale as ever, her body felt too cold for his liking, and her breaths were still shallow and short.

ZhangYong covered Xinyi's body with his outer robe then tenderly and carefully lifted her up in his arms. He gave the soldiers his final instruction before leaving them, "Bring that spy straight back to the capital. No delay, no breaks. Make sure that he's properly gagged and restrained. You, get the best doctor in the nearest village and fly back to camp."

ZhangYong sprinted off with Xinyi in his arms and his figure could no longer be seen in a matter of seconds.

Although Heaven realm martial artists can outrun horses, they still used horses as transport so that they could reserve their energy for when they needed it most. So when their commander chose to ditch his horse yet again, the soldiers knew that the injured person's condition must be grave.

While they carried out instructions without delay, all of them got curious about the injured person's identity. That person has to be someone special for their commander to be this concerned.

Back at the camp, ZhangYong yelled out his order as soon as he reached back. "Get the doctor to my tent now!"

Everyone who heard him scrambled to find the military doctor. It was only after the military doctor disappeared into ZhangYong's tent did they realise the oddity of the situation.

/Why is the treatment at Commander Zhang's tent instead of the sick bay? Who's he carrying? Why's he wearing Commander's robes?/

While the military doctor tended to Xinyi, ZhangYong wasted no time in preparing the soup of spiritually nourished herbs in his tent.

The military doctor could feel ZhangYong's hawk-like gaze on him and felt highly pressured by it. Understanding that this person must be someone important to ZhangYong, especially after he found out that the person turned out to be a woman, he did his best to save Xinyi.

However, he quickly realised that Xinyi's condition was far too serious and there was not much he could do. As much as it scared him to have to break the news, he knew that he had to, so that ZhangYong could spend every remaining second with her.

"C- Commander Zhang. She won't survive. Even with all my experience with life and death conditions, I can't help her. She's just far too weak."

ZhangYong saw red the moment he heard that she was too weak. He grabbed the military doctor by his robes and growled in his face. "Pearl isn't weak! She's defied her fate time and time again! She'll defy it again! Do all you can to save her now."

"She may die in treatment! Do you still want me to go ahead?" The military doctor warned despite feeling so afraid that he almost pissed his pants when ZhangYong pulled him forward.

ZhangYong froze at the mention of her death. He clenched his jaw hard then roughly let go of the military doctor's robes to go to the boiling pot of soup without another word. He fanned the flames and made it bigger in an attempt to cook the herbs faster.

Time crawled by painfully with ZhangYong moving between Xinyi's side and the pot of boiling soup. Although her bleeding finally stopped, a fever developed, which the military doctor helped to manage.

The moment the soup was done, ZhangYong brought it to Xinyi who looked like she was having a laborious sleep. He blew on the soup, tested the temperature of the soup with his lip, then fed it to her drip by drip.

The military doctor did not understand how feeding her soup at this time would help but he cleverly kept his mouth shut. Moments later, he was completely shocked to see Xinyi's eyes flutter open. He had fully expected for her to remain unconscious.

Xinyi woke up in major discomfort. There was no longer pain wherever there were open wounds, but her insides felt all messed up and she felt chilled to the bone.

A voice seemed to be calling for her attention but Xinyi could not be bothered about it just yet. /BaoBao...?/

[Xin- Xinyi…] From the way he sounded, Xinyi could tell that BaoBao was crying badly.

/What's wrong?/

[I- I don't know… It just hurts to see you like this… I want to do something to help but I don't know what to do…] BaoBao ended up crying even harder.

/BaoBao, you'd help me greatly if you can tell me about my current state./

[Rea- Really?]

/Mm. Can I survive this?/

[… It's very hard… Your body's far too damaged on the inside…]

/Got it, thank you BaoBao./

Finally, the voice by her side registered in her mind along with the soft brush she felt against her cheek.

"Pearl…" ZhangYong had called out again with desperation in his voice while he stroked her right cheek with the back of his fingers.

When her eyes finally focused on him, his hopes got raised and he quickly used the chance to urge her, "You have to drink this and recover your energy. I've already used the salve but your wounds still took too long to clot. Your body isn't healing itself properly."

Xinyi decided to take any chance she had at surviving so let herself be propped up against ZhangYong without protest.

ZhangYong gingerly fed her the soup bit by bit.

After a few spoonfuls, Xinyi suddenly keeled over because of the pain she felt in her stomach. Whatever was inside her stomach roiled all around before it got rejected and pushed out.

The dark red blood that she puked out got onto ZhangYong's legs and the bed but ZhangYong was only horrified by one thing. The soup can't help.

Just then, a soldier announced the arrival of the doctor from the village through the closed flaps of his tent.

"Come in!"

As soon as the doctor stepped foot into the tent, ZhangYong half-yelled out with red eyes, "Save her!"

The doctor jumped and froze in fright. The military doctor who was already used to such situations knew better than to have someone not moving when the situation was urgent, so helped to physically push the doctor towards Xinyi.

The doctor regained his senses the moment he recognised the person before him as a patient. His hands moved quickly as he assessed the external and internal damage done to Xinyi's body

ZhangYong clenched his hands so tightly that his knuckles turned white and his fingernails dug deep into his palms. He held his breath while he waited by the side.

When he heard the doctor sigh, he knew that there would not be good news. His entire body went slack as he listened to what the doctor had to say.

"Her exterior wounds are treatable but the real damage that's costing her her life is her internal wounds. There's internal bleeding at many different areas, her body is losing strength, and her organs are shutting down. It would take a miracle for her to survive this."

The tent went eerily quiet. The doctor and the military doctor hung their heads low. Xinyi was lying on the bed barely conscious again.

"Get out." A soft whisper suddenly broke the silence.

"Leave!" ZhangYong said again but this time shouting.

The military doctor hastily ushered the doctor out with him.

He walked to the bed with shaky steps then sat down by Xinyi's side. Tears were gathered in his eyes and threatened to fall. "Pearl… Please fight to survive…? Please defy fate again…?"

His voice sounded insecure, weak, and small. Xinyi never thought that she would ever hear ZhangYong sound like that.

She tried to tell him that her time was up but found that even her mouth was no longer cooperating with her. It took her everything she had to shake her head ever so slightly.

ZhangYong, however, refused to accept reality.

"You weren't supposed to be able to cultivate but you did. You even broke through to Heaven realm! You can defy fate once again. Defy it. Live on. Let's keep training together." He pleaded with some forced enthusiasm.

When he only saw resignation reflected in her eyes, he knew her answer. His breaths started becoming erratic while her breaths started getting slower and shallower. His voice cracked as he begged her once more, "Please don't leave me alone..."

Xinyi's eyelids lowered against her will. It felt too heavy to keep them open.

ZhangYong could feel her presence fading away. He never knew that someone's presence disappearing could make him feel this awful. Tears fell from his eyes as he could no longer hold them back. /If only I could replenish her life!/

Suddenly an idea flashed in his mind.

He immediately propped her upright with his palms against her back while he sat down behind her. /Let this work!/

He started channeling his spiritual energy into her like he would do so when nourishing the herbs. The rate of her presence disappearing dramatically slowed down. It told ZhangYong that his idea was effective.

However, he was far too late. He could not restart bodily functions that have already shut down, so nothing was healing. Perhaps if he had started earlier before it reached this stage, he could have saved her. Right now, he was only delaying her time of death. Although he knew that, he stubbornly clung on to the hope that somehow things will turn for the better.

Tears continued to leave his increasingly red and puffy eyes and flow down his cheeks. He whispered through gritted teeth, "Please pardon me for prolonging your suffering out of selfishness."

He kept this up till the last second when her body turned abnormally stiff and cold against his palms. Even more tears fell from his eyes and a cry threatened to leave his throat.

Loss and pain wrecked his entire being.

The time he spent with her felt special and irreplaceable. No one else had moved him as much as she did. It had been a lot of fun watching her grow, training with her, and competing with her. He felt that her death was unwarranted and was sure that he could not find someone else with the same heart, attitude, and drive.

/I'll find you again in our next life. When I do, I promise to protect you. I'm sorry that I failed to do so in this life. I'm sorry…/

ZhangYong held an elaborate but private funeral for Xinyi then remained depressed for a period of time.

He requested to be the one to interrogate the spy without revealing that he had a personal vendetta for doing so. Seeing how he was the one who caught the spy, ZhangYong was given the privilege to do as he wanted.

He ended up not only finding out about the hidden place that Xinyi has been hiding at for the past four years, but also finding out that ZiYao was the spy's accomplice.

With the villains all apprehended and punished, everything settled down and HuiShan and WangWei got married.

While everyone congratulated ZhangYong for catching the spy and gaining yet another achievement to his name, only soldiers of the West troop knew how much ZhangYong saw that night as his failure instead.

Gossip had run rampant about that night's events among the soldiers for a while. No one knew much about ZhangYong's personal life so there was a lot they could come up with.

They were, fortunately, smart enough to not let such gossip travel beyond the troop lest it caused some unnecessary trouble. However, it was inevitable that ZhangYong's father would learn of it too.

ZhangYong's father initially did not want to meddle in his son's affairs of the heart since he still had his life in order. In fact, ZhangYong fully dedicated himself to the army like never before and worked himself to the bone. Only when ZhangYong's persistent singlehood began to worry his wife did he decide to have a proper father-son talk.

ZhangYong, however, resisted talking about that night or about Xinyi. He shied away from opening up to anyone. Understanding the cause of his father's action, he instead directly asked his mother to arrange a marriage for him.

ZhangYong thus got engaged not long later then held a peaceful marriage.

He ended up much like his father. Despite being the most outstanding commander to be recorded in history, he has only one wife and a son.

What he never told anyone was how Xinyi still held a special place in his heart till his death. In his eyes, she was a companion that no one could match.

What no one knew was the time he never failed to set aside every week to visit the hidden place where Xinyi lived at ever since he found out about it. The place has now transformed into a giant garden of nourished herbs. It had been created unwittingly by ZhangYong whose actions were mindlessly driven by his desire to feel close to Xinyi.

Despite spending the rest of his lifetime reflecting, ZhangYong still died with many unresolved regrets. If he had known how the existence of such an unsuspecting person could become so precious to him, he would have done so much more to protect her from the get go. Alas, everything was realised far too late.