"Tsk...my head hurts so much...and my body is so cold...."
Accompanied by the bleak cold wind, Xu Yuan woke up from chaos once again, plagued by a headache so severe it combined internal and external pain, preventing him from wanting to open his eyes.
His clothes were soaked, and the bone-chilling wind blew through the damp fabric, continually stripping away the scant warmth from his body.
Almost instantly, Xu Yuan realized his body had succumbed to hypothermia.
Opening his eyes slightly, the memories before his unconsciousness flooded his mind like a tide.
Transmigration, the giant Buddha, and the blunt strike from the woman in black.
After roughly sorting out his predicament and accompanied by throbbing headaches both inside and outside, Xu Yuan struggled to move his eyeballs, starting to survey his surroundings.
It seemed to be a cave, not very large, only four or five meters deep.
It was already light outside the cave, the rain still drizzling, but this time without the bonfire from within the temple, the cave felt somewhat cold and damp.
The woman in black was sitting at the entrance of the cave, resting with her eyes closed. Her sword lay flat by her side, with a familiar wooden stick placed next to the blade.
"...." Xu Yuan.
He licked his dry, somewhat pallid lips and gradually shifted his body to lean against the cold stone wall behind him.
Just this simple action made his feeble body start to gasp for breath.
His relatively well-off circumstances in his previous life had allowed him ample time and money to experience various lifestyles, of which wilderness expeditions were one.
And it was precisely because of this that his past experiences informed Xu Yuan that he was seriously ill right now.
Hypothermia, high fever, and even some dehydration.
Xu Yuan looked towards the woman at the mouth of the cave, with her face veiled by thin fabric.
Her soft black hair was dripping wet, sticking to her cheeks, and her soaked clothing clung to her exquisite figure.
Seeing this scene, Xu Yuan felt no stirrings of allure, but instead suddenly had an almost stroke-inducing realization.
He now understood why Xu Changtian, the Third Young Master in "Cangyuan Chronicles," had several storylines where he met his bizarre demise while being kidnapped.
When he had recalled this plot point through memories, Xu Yuan had wondered why, with Ran Qingmo, such a powerful expert at his side, Xu Changtian, the young master, would meet such an abstract end.
His current personal experience directly provided the answer.
This idiotic woman...she actually...actually brought him, a patient rendered unconscious, out in the winter rain to this place and then abandoned him outright!
Such a wintry night of rain may be nothing to her, but it could be fatal for an ordinary person.
The cave fell silent, the light pattering of rain gently seeping in from outside.
Taking a deep breath, Xu Yuan spoke weakly:
"Ran Qingmo...."
His once smooth voice had become extremely hoarse.
The woman at the entrance slowly opened her eyes and looked towards him indifferently.
Gulping down air, Xu Yuan uttered the words feebly and brokenly;
"Do you... do you want me to just die here?"
Behind the veil, Ran Qingmo's captivating eyes blinked slightly and she shook her head.
On the issue of Xu Yuan's life, her opinion aligned perfectly with his.
Suppressing his discomfort, Xu Yuan persisted:
"If you don't want me to freeze to death, then...then help me start a fire."
Ran Qingmo stared at Xu Yuan for two seconds, her beautiful eyes blinking for a long time, she earnestly replied:
"But I've lost the firestarter."
Xu Yuan opened his mouth, then changed his question: "What about your 'Qi'?"
The "Qi" in this world could almost be described as a universal energy source.
Although it wasn't depicted as such in the "Cangyuan Chronicles" game, in a world where top-tier powers could lay waste to the vast Capital City, a task as simple as starting a fire should presumably not present a difficulty to the mighty expert before him.
Ran Qingmo blinked twice, got up from the ground, and walked slowly towards Xu Yuan extending a delicate jade hand in front of him.
A trace of confusion flickered in Xu Yuan's eyes.
Before long,
he noticed a vortex of energy quietly gathering above her hand and in a moment, a block of ice about ten centimeters in diameter condensed in her palm.
With the Big Ice Lump in hand, Ran Qingmo seemed to be unaffected by the cold, blinking her eyes and holding it out in front of Xu Yuan:
"Will ice do?"
"....."
Looking at the Big Ice Lump offered to him, Xu Yuan instinctively felt the woman was joking with him.
Preserving him with ice, is that it?
But upon seeing her serious expression, suppressing the urge to burst an artery, Xu Yuan took a deep breath:
"I'm sick, I need a fire, hot water, and food."
Upon hearing this,
Ran Qingmo stared at Xu Yuan's face for two seconds, seemingly confirming his condition.
After two seconds,
she silently walked to a knapsack in the corner of the cave, rummaged through it, found a water bladder and a piece of dry cake, returned to Xu Yuan, and handed them to him.
Xu Yuan looked at the food and water in his hand, then at the woman in front of him, whose pale lips were trembling slightly from the cold,
"Where's the fire? A fire... What I need most right now is a source of heat and hot water..."
"But, there are no fire-starting tools left."
"....." Xu Yuan said.
A wave of darkness swept before his eyes, and Xu Yuan let out a low laugh, overwhelmed by a choking sense of dizziness.
The tiredness and dizziness brought on by the illness urged him to fall into a deep sleep, but he knew that if he fell asleep now, it would likely be for the rest of his life.
Quickly gathering his thoughts and stabilizing his consciousness, Xu Yuan licked his whitened lips and said,
"Can you... can you help me by transferring power to heal my injuries?"
The medical system in this world is quite ancient, but because of Qi, it's not much worse off than the previous world's on certain levels.
However, in these deep mountains and old forests, it's clearly not something to rely on.
But Xu Yuan remembered that in the "Cangyuan Chronicles", there was a cliched plotline involving power transfer for healing.
Upon hearing this, Ran Qingmo dropped the piece of ice she was holding, sat down straightforwardly in front of Xu Yuan without regard for gender differences, lifted his clothes, and pressed a slender jade finger to his lower abdomen.
Feeling a surge of coolness enter his abdomen, Xu Yuan's heart lifted with joy.
But the next moment,
the sensation of coolness disappeared instantly, as Ran Qingmo suddenly moved her hand away.
Staring blankly at each other in the cave,
Xu Yuan asked with a hoarse voice,
"What's wrong?"
Ran Qingmo blinked twice and said in a low voice,
"You have no Qi, you'll die."
Xu Yuan looked down at himself,
"Why?"
"You have no Qi."
"...." Said Xu Yuan.
When a game mechanic became reality, the details that were glossed over naturally filled themselves in.
Qi, this magical substance, can indeed help heal injuries.
But the essence of power transfer healing is actually using someone else's Qi to guide one's own Qi, then circulating it through the unblocked meridians.
Along the way, the Qi slowly repairs, and any harmful substances are consumed by the Qi.
But ordinary people who haven't started their cultivation have their meridians always blocked.
The entrance to Xu Yuan's meridians is so small; Ran Qingmo's Qi simply cannot enter. Trying to force it would result in rupture.
The literal meaning of,
rupture.
Having understood the principle, the cave fell into silence.
Feeling weak and leaning against the cold stone wall, Xu Yuan realized that his body's condition was unexpectedly bad, lacking even the strength to remove the damp clothes from his body.
Due to the fever and hypothermia, his consciousness was already becoming blurred, and the only thing keeping him from passing out was his will to survive.
In his previous life, he had experienced hypothermia during an expedition in Iceland, but fortunately, there was a survival expert like Grandpa De amongst the group, which just barely kept him alive.
As for now?
Xu Yuan glanced at the woman beside him.
Ran Qingmo quietly sat next to Xu Yuan, her brows furrowed, seemingly troubled by how to solve the problem of her captive dying from illness before her eyes.
Being taken care of by someone who knew nothing, like a big ice lump, Xu Yuan didn't believe he would wake up again after falling asleep.
His mind sifted through the ways to start a fire in the wild, but he rejected each one.
Either there were no tools, or there weren't enough materials; even the most basic method of starting a fire with wood in such heavy rain was impossible to achieve with dry firewood and kindling.
In the silence,
time slipped away minute by minute.
Xu Yuan's vision gradually dimmed, and his body uncontrollably fell towards the ground by his side.
The last image before his vision faded was of the black-clothed woman standing up and walking out of the cave.
Where... was she going?
The last thought flashed through his mind, and then all was darkness....