Chapter 71 - Marked

Chapter 71: Chapter 71 - Marked

Jua Gu turned his face away and tried to concentrate on the energy moving through him. His mouth still tasted faintly of blood, and the warmth spreading beneath his skin made it difficult to think about anything except what had just happened. He could still feel Mao Mao’s hand behind his head, keeping him close when he had tried to pull away.

Beside him, the man remained quiet. For once, Jua was grateful for it.

He lowered his attention into his body, following the demonic energy through channels that had been painfully depleted since he woke. His fingers no longer trembled against the blanket. When he shifted his feet, they responded with considerably less effort than before. The improvement was obvious, but the ease with which the energy moved bothered him.

It should have required some guidance. Instead, it settled into him as though it already belonged there, flowing through the weakest parts of his body without resistance.

Jua frowned and examined it more closely.

Beneath the warmth gathering in his chest was a faint pull, too deep to come from his flesh. He followed it inward until he reached his soul, and what he found there made him go cold.

A black mark had settled against it. Red light shone through a rune at its centre, brightening slowly as he focused on it. Its edges were already embedded, leaving no gap between the mark and his soul.

For a moment, he could only stare.

Then he felt it respond to something beside him.

Jua opened his eyes and looked straight at Mao Mao.

"Do you even know what you did to me?"

The man’s gaze flickered toward his chest before returning to his face. It was a small movement, but Jua caught it.

Mao Mao smiled and reached for the hand lying on the blanket.

"I gave you some demonic energy, Ge. Why are you so worried?"

Jua drew his hand away. His mind was working through everything he knew about soul marks, searching for an explanation that didn’t involve the man beside him somehow binding them together without his knowledge.

There wasn’t one.

Mao Mao watched him for a moment, then leaned closer.

"Is it the kiss?" His voice softened. "Are you disgusted?"

Jua turned toward him, too stunned to answer immediately.

"Don’t be," Mao Mao continued, his expression almost reassuring. "We’ve kissed so many times over the years. Your body should be used to it by now."

Jua stared at his mouth.

He had been unconscious.

For almost twenty years, he had lain in a bed unable to speak, unable to move, and Mao Mao was telling him this as though it were something that should put him at ease. The thought of those missing years suddenly became much more uncomfortable.

"You thought that would make me feel better?"

The smile faded slightly, but Mao Mao didn’t move away. His eyes stayed on Jua’s face, apparently trying to work out how to soothe him.

Jua had no patience left for it.

He caught the front of the man’s shirt and pulled him closer. The movement came far more easily than it would have that morning, though he was too angry to appreciate the difference.

"You bound us together. How did you do it?"

Mao Mao braced a hand against the seat, letting himself be pulled forward without resistance. His gaze dropped briefly to Jua’s grip before lifting again.

A soul mark was no small thing. Jua knew what people were agreeing to when they accepted one. It was a bond made by those willing to remain tied beyond the death of a body, carrying that connection into whatever lives followed. It wasn’t something to try because a treatment had failed or because someone was frightened of being left behind.

Yet the mark was there, embedded deeply enough that Jua could feel it answer Mao Mao’s presence.

He had never agreed to it. He hadn’t even been awake.

"How?" he demanded again.

Mao Mao leaned closer, and Jua immediately let go of his collar and drew back. The man stopped, hurt crossing his face before he had a chance to hide it.

Jua saw it and tightened his jaw. He wasn’t going to apologise for wanting space.

After a moment, Mao Mao sat back and straightened the fabric Jua had creased.

"I found traces of demonic cultivation left in this world," he said. "There wasn’t much at first. Most of it was incomplete, and some of it didn’t work at all. I followed anything that seemed possible."

Jua listened without interrupting. He thought of the empty cemetery, the frightened ghost, and the controlled energy moving beneath Mao Mao’s skin. None of that could have happened overnight.

"I used everything I could find," Mao Mao continued. His eyes lowered to Jua’s hands. "Sometimes your condition improved. The doctors would say something encouraging, and I’d think perhaps it was finally working. Then months would pass, and you still wouldn’t wake up."

His voice remained steady, but Jua could hear the effort behind it.

He remembered the chair beside his bed and the folded blanket draped over its back. Mao Mao must have spent countless nights there, watching for something that never happened. Jua had been gone for what felt like a short conversation; the child he left behind had grown up waiting.

The anger in his chest became harder to hold on to, though the mark kept him from forgetting why it was there.

"Did you understand the methods you were using?" he asked.

"Some of them."

"That isn’t enough, Mao Mao. You could have hurt yourself. You could have damaged both our souls without knowing how to undo it."

"I know."

Jua looked at him sharply, but the man’s expression had changed. He no longer looked as though he was trying to reassure him.

"I know I didn’t understand everything," Mao Mao said. "I kept thinking there must be something I’d missed. Something I needed to do differently. I tried, Jua Ge. You still didn’t open your eyes."

Jua’s fingers curled against his palm.

There was no accusation in the words, but they hurt anyway. He wanted to explain that pouring more energy into his body would never have solved the real problem. His soul had been elsewhere, beyond anything Mao Mao could have reached from beside a hospital bed.

But how was he supposed to explain that without inviting questions he couldn’t yet answer?

He looked down, briefly examining the mark again. Whatever Mao Mao had intended, its presence was real. Feeling sorry for him wouldn’t make it disappear.

"That doesn’t explain why you used a binding method."

"I didn’t want to lose you."

The answer came so simply that Jua closed his eyes for a moment.

Of course. As far as Mao Mao was concerned, that explained everything.

When he looked up again, the man was watching him with an intensity that made it difficult to see the frightened child he remembered. That child was still part of him, but Jua couldn’t keep using him to explain away the decisions of the grown man sitting here.

Mao Mao reached toward his hand, then stopped when Jua didn’t respond.

"When cultivation didn’t wake you, I thought modern medicine might be able to help."

Jua’s heart lurched.

For a few moments, the soul mark had driven everything else from his mind. Now the small being’s furious explanation returned, along with the blackened pages of the book and the warning that this world was being destroyed by the very person meant to save it.

"So that’s why you created the virus," he murmured.

Mao Mao went still.

His gaze searched Jua’s face, the softness disappearing so abruptly that Jua noticed every change. His shoulders settled, his mouth tightened, and when he spoke again, his voice was careful.

"How do you know about that, Brother?"

Jua didn’t answer immediately. He was trying to decide how much he could say, but the silence only sharpened Mao Mao’s attention.

"Did someone tell you?"

"It doesn’t matter how I know."

"It does to me."

The quiet reply made Jua uneasy. Mao Mao looked toward the closed partition at the front of the car, then back at him, as though already considering who might have spoken.

Jua caught his wrist before his hand could move toward his pocket.

"Look at me."

The man obeyed.

For a moment, they simply watched each other. Then Mao Mao’s expression softened again, and he turned his wrist within Jua’s grip until he could touch his fingers.

"It isn’t what you think," he said. "The treatment could do more than wake you. It could keep your body from weakening again. You wouldn’t have to keep suffering through this."

His gaze moved over Jua’s thin arms, the blanket over his legs, the hand that still wasn’t strong enough to hold him firmly.

Jua could see that he meant it. Mao Mao wasn’t describing an abstract discovery or a profitable invention. He was looking at Jua and imagining everything he thought it could fix.

"With that drug, we could become eternal," he said, leaning closer. "We could live forever, Jua Ge."

He reached for Jua’s face.

Jua slapped his hand away.

Mao Mao stopped, his fingers hovering briefly between them before he lowered them to his lap.

"There’s no such thing as eternal life," Jua said. His voice had roughened, but he forced the words out clearly. "Mao Mao, you need to wake up."

The man’s face closed.

Jua hated how quickly the warmth vanished, but he couldn’t soften what needed to be said. He knew what that research would become. He had seen the damage written across the book’s pages, and now he was sitting beside the person determined to bring it into the world.

"You found cultivation methods you didn’t understand and tried them anyway. Now you’re trusting a drug that promises to make people live forever. Have you thought about what happens if it goes wrong?"

"I couldn’t do nothing."

"I know."

The answer seemed to catch Mao Mao off guard.

Jua took a breath and loosened his grip on the man’s wrist. He was angry, but shouting about choices made years ago wouldn’t help him stop what was happening now.

"I know you were trying to save me," he said. "But I’m awake. I’m sitting here talking to you. You don’t need to keep doing this."

Mao Mao looked down at their hands.

The mark stirred faintly inside Jua’s soul, answering a tension he couldn’t quite identify. He watched the man’s face, waiting for some sign that the words had reached him.

When Mao Mao finally lifted his eyes, he looked more troubled than reassured.

"You waking up doesn’t mean I can’t lose you again."

Jua’s hand went still around his wrist.