Before reinforcements arrived, Zhijian kept Xiaoyu a good distance away from the abandoned hut, hiding her in the crevices of the rocks. He couldn't leave with her yet, not when he had to report the matter to his fellow clan members and he wasn't about to let them discover her.

When he left her side, his familiar watched over her instead. She hugged the furry fox to her chest while keeping her ears and eyes wide open.

She was alone. If she ran now, she would get a good head start.

But she didn't.

Zhijian promised he would be back for her and she believed him. There was nowhere she could run to, not even to the Demoness Island. There was no place she could call home anymore.

Except...except if she continued to stay by Zhijian's side. It was the only place she knew she would be the most comfortable and least frightened.

She sat there as time passed, her eyelids drooping as she felt the fatigue in her body. She had been awake for more than a day at least and was starting to miss the comfort of her bed. If she were to fall asleep right now, she knew that she would be too tired to even dream of her usual nightmares.

She was at her limit.

When Zhijian eventually returned, she was surprised to find him shaking her shoulders lightly. "Hey, don't fall asleep now yet. I can't carry both of you."

She hadn't even realised she had dozed off. When her eyes fluttered open slightly, she saw him carrying his sleeping brother in his arms. "Come on," he urged.

In her groggy state of mine, she let him pull her to her feet gently. He grasped her arm, firmly but not too forcefully, and led her out of the forest they were in.

No matter how hard she tried, she could barely keep her eyes open and she would find herself tripping over her feet a couple of times. Thankfully, Zhijian was always there to hold her upright. Even though she heard him groan wearily twice, he didn't get angry at her.

A figure approached them from a distance. "Jinlong, there you are." She heard Zhijian exhale in relief. "I'm glad you came for us. Can you help carry my brother?"

When he was relieved of the weight on his arms, he lifted her onto his back. Nobody had given her a back ride before but she was too tired to even let her surprise show. Her arms and limbs hung loosely and her head shifted on his broad shoulder so that she could find the right spot to rest comfortably on.

Finally content, she welcomed the darkness just this once.

***

When Xiaoyu woke up, she found herself back in her room and on her own bed. Taking a swift glance out of the window, she realised that it was night time and she had slept the entire day away.

Something shifted in the room behind her. She whirled around and was startled to find Zhijian on the opposite side of the room. He was sitting in one of the chairs with his head leaned back and eyes closed.

Sensing her gaze on him, his eyes fluttered open. Seeing that she was awake, Zhijian searched her face with a questioning gaze.

"Feeling better?" he asked concernedly. "You didn't get any nightmares."

Xiaoyu gawked at him openly before bobbing her head up and down stiffly. She certainly hadn't expected him to be keeping watch over her.

"Good." He crossed the room and grabbed a wet cloth from the bucket of warm water on the floor. He held it out to her, "You should wash up. Your face looks like a mess."

She did as she was told, surprised at his sudden gesture of kindness. Before the incident happened, he had been avoiding her for the past few days. Yet today, he had come to her willingly and was treating her nicer than before.

What did she do to earn such kindness?

She grabbed an ink brush and some papers from the nightstand beside her, scribbling some words quickly before showing it to Zhijian.

"Where's Zhixuan?"

"He's fine," Zhijian assured her. "He's sleeping in his room."

She bit her bottom lip as a confused frown creased her forehead. She showed him her written reply.

"You should be with him.

He might get scared."

"He has my adoptive father to take care of him. But you..." His handsome features softened as he looked straight at her, his unfathomable eyes holding her in place and drawing her in. "...you only have me."

Just like that, he stole her breath away. Her head dropped and she stared at her hands on her lap, feeling the heat crawling up her face and ears. Zhijian wasn't wrong but hearing his words made her heart dangerously race for some reason.

Was this what her mother had told her about? How would a woman's heart be moved by a man's sincere words?

And he wasn't even trying. He was just being his genuine self.

"It's annoying when you frown like that," Zhijian said. Moving closer to her, he grabbed the cloth from her and started wiping her forehead gently to erase those wrinkles. When he was done, he leaned back and studied her face. "See? You look prettier this way–"

The moment he realised what he had said, his ears turned red slightly. Obviously, he wasn't the type of man who would casually compliment a woman's beauty like that.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, he hurriedly changed the subject. "Your bruise has disappeared," he told her, "It didn't even last for more than a day."

A knowing smile appeared on Xiaoyu's face. She wrote down her words quickly and showed him the paper.

"The Bai clan's blood runs in me.

We heal fast."

Nonetheless, he was fascinated by her healing ability. "It would be nice to have such a healer in every clan. Can you imagine how many people's lives would be saved?"

She nodded in agreement. As much as she was aware of, her clan had saved hundreds of thousands of lives in history. But then they got annihilated because of her...and that was the part where her mind didn't want to wander back into.

Moreover, there was something else she wanted to tell Zhijian.

"Thank you for saving me.

And I'm sorry for the trouble."

He watched as a look of guilt filled her face. "It's fine. I know it wasn't intentional. You were trying to help," he said but she didn't seem to be convinced by his words.

"You might have gotten hurt.

Because of me."

He raised a brow at her. "I'm fine, aren't I?"

She was about to write more words when he stopped her.

"Enough."

With a loud sigh, he grabbed a steamed bun from the table and shoved it into her mouth to distract her. Stealing the note from her hand, he crumpled it into a ball and tossed it aside.

"Eat," he said firmly. "I don't want to hear another apology coming from your mouth. Is apologising the only thing you learnt when you grew up?"

She slowly chewed on the steamed bun and watched him through her lashes. He was harsh with his words and while some may have misunderstood him, she definitely grasped the underlying meaning behind them.

He was kinder than anybody else she had met.

Staring at Zhijian, a strange sensation filled her chest. A spreading warmth that never seemed to go away no matter how hard she rubbed at the place on top of her heart.

What was this?

A/N: It's a slow-build romance but I'm getting there soon. My lead characters are obviously very shy people (plus I'm not doing those 'love at first sight' stories). 😂

Bear with me, my cutie pies! ❤️