Chapter 109

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Chapter 109: Touch the Heart

The southern border of the Northlands used to be pretty close to the Demon Terrace.

But after the northern expedition of the demon master tribe, Northlands pushed its border south by an additional hundred miles. The court was unable to stop their advancement, and civilians along the way welcomed them.

After that, they built a heavily guarded wall that stretched from east to west, with a total of twelve gates evenly spaced apart. It served as a first line of defense against enemy attacks.

Unexpectedly, its first use turned out to be defending the city against an influx of refugees.

Shunde killed her brother, made herself emperor, and the court fell into disarray. The country was now in chaos where the strong preyed on the weak and everyone was out for themselves. Within the great kingdom of Dacheng, only the desolate north provided relief to the common folks.

Ji Yunhe brought her men to the far eastern gate. This was where the most refugees had gathered, so it was given a priority for setting up a boundary in order to help them sort through people and fend off riots.

The situation at the border was even more dire than Ji Yunhe imagined.

After they set up the boundary, she walked through the masses of refugees outside the pass.

The people here had set up countless tents of various shapes and styles. The only thing they had in common was that they were all ragged.

The children did not know stress and ran around playing amongst the haphazard tents, while the adults sat around in gloom. Many people suffered from diseases and coughs could be heard everywhere.

After walking outside the pass for half a day, Ji Yunhe felt extremely grave.

Changyi knew better than anyone else how many people could be supported in the city. Allowing five hundred people to enter each gate every day was a maximum limit, maybe even exceeding it a bit. And just this location alone had over a thousand people arriving each day, taking in half of them would not solve the growing problem at all. The population would keep building outside the gate, making the situation worse and worse.

They had set up a lottery system to decide who gets to enter the gate for the day. Unfortunately, fights often broke out over the lucky red sticks that granted a pass, sometimes ending in people getting killed. Many also forged red sticks and scammed others out of the only food left in their hands. What's more, organizations had formed where they sold the red sticks instead of using them to enter the city. They charged outrageous high prices, asking for gold, silver, food, and even human organs.

Ji Yunhe was appalled by what she was seeing.

"Extraordinary situation, extraordinary means." After Ji Yunhe returned to the post, she made her decision and issued an order. "Whoever's caught sucking blood and adding to the chaos, get rid of them."

The first night at the border, Ji Yunhe did not sleep. She laid on the roof of a simple wooden post station and looked at the moon and stars. She could not make sense of how the world had fallen into such a mess.

And she wondered if Changyi was able to sleep well in the city tonight...

She closed her eyes and activated the mark on her ear, but the other end of the link felt very close to her.

She immediately sat up and looked down. A silver haired man in black was standing right under the roof. Who else could it be but Changyi.

Seeing the man she was just thinking about, Ji Yunhe's heart fluttered.

"Big-tailed fish..."

Changyi looked up at her. Although his face was still pale and his breath formed puffs of white air, his eyes were as warm as the sun.

"I missed you," he said with a low and magnetic voice. "Had to come."

Six words that tugged at her heartstrings.

She jumped off the roof without saying anything and gave him a giant hug.

Face to face and heart to heart, they both closed their eyes.

Changyi's body was cold, while Ji Yunhe was burning hot. They supplemented and completed each other so perfectly.

"I'm so different from before." She took a deep breath in his arms. "I used to desperately try to escape from all ties and just wanted to be alone, but now, I couldn't even bear to stay away from you for a day…"

Ji Yunhe pulled back a little so she could look at his face. "Changyi, you're really something special. You make me want to be tied down."

Changyi nodded, "Then I am indeed something special."

Ji Yunhe laughed and said, "And never humble about it."

"So... um..." A weak voice came from the side, and only then did Ji Yunhe notice someone else was here. Qu Xiaoxing looked as awkward as he can be. "Should I... should I leave you two alone?"

"You should," Changyi said. "However, I still have to go back, so don't go far. Wait for me for a bit."

Qu Xiaoxing was instantly relieved and ran away.

"You asked Qu Xiaoxing to bring you here?"

"Mhm. I promised you I wouldn't use magic."

Ji Yunhe felt all warm and fuzzy again. She stood on tiptoes and reached up to touch Changyi's head. "My big-tailed fish is such a good boy."

Changyi smiled quietly until she withdrew her hand. "I can only stay for a while. There are still many things to deal with in the city."

"I will try to take care of business here as fast as I can. Don't come again tomorrow. It's better to rest if you have the time to spare," Ji Yunhe said.

"It's better to see you."

Ji Yunhe laughed. "Big-tailed fish, you are sweettalking me."

"It's just the truth."

Ji Yunhe held his hand and walked under the moonlight. Then the sound of a child crying was heard outside the gate, and her joy of seeing Changyi was instantly diluted.

Seeing her frown, he asked, "Are things here not going smoothly?"

Ji Yunhe shook her head. "Setting the boundary is not a problem, the men picked by Lin Haoqing are very helpful… It's just there are too many refugees accumulating at the border. There's already criminal activity going on. Plus with the weather warming up, contagious diseases running rampant is also very worrying."

Changyi pondered for a moment. "It all happened so suddenly, the rules and conditions for accepting people into the pass can use further refinement. I will give priority to this matter in the morning."

Ji Yunhe looked at the back of his hand. The previous frostbite had made his skin dry and tinted his complexion with an abnormal blue. She stroked it gently. "Big-tailed fish, you've had it way too rough."

But he smiled. "I'm very strong, it's not rough."

Suddenly, Changyi's body stiffened.

Ji Yunhe was startled and looked up at him. The coldness on his lips intensified and his face started to frost over.

"Changyi!?" Ji Yunhe was greatly alarmed, but she did not dare to blindly use her fox fire. "Qu Xiaoxing!" she shouted out.

Qu Xiaoxing immediately ran over from a short distance away. After seeing Changyi's condition, he unsteadily took out a bottle of medicine and poured a couple of black pills into his hand. "Here, Kongming said to give these to him when he's looking like this."

Ji Yunhe grabbed the pills and fed them to Changyi. After a while, the stiffness in his body eased.

She lit some black fox fire to help warm him and melt away the frost on his face. He closed his eyes and rested against Ji Yunhe.

"Why is he like this? What did Kongming say?" Ji Yunhe asked the nervous Qu Xiaoxing. "Be honest, don't hide anything from me."

"Just… he used magic too excessively..."

"But he didn't cast any spells today?"

"Right… but from before..."

"Before? Didn't he already heal from that? I was in a coma for a day after being brought back from the capital, what happened to him at that time? Luo Jinsang told me he was not doing very well, how exactly is he not well?"

Seeing the jiaoren was still resting with his eyes closed, Qu Xiaoxing finally found the courage to open up. "The root cause is overexhaustion... His magic originates from water, and the chill inside his body isn't going away, so… he's slowly freezing into ice…"

Ji Yunhe frowned, "What do you mean ice?

"Everything in his body, blood and bones, is turning into ice..."

She looked at Changyi inside her arms.

Qu Xiaoxing sighed, "He... he wouldn't let us tell you..."

"Why not..." Ji Yunhe felt lost. "Will he die...?"

"Will be frozen..."

Frozen? By the coldness inside his own body and turn into a piece of ice? Like when he sealed her under the frozen lake?

"How do we save him?"

"Kong… Kongming doesn't know... yet..." Qu Xiaoxing sighed again. "In fact, no one wanted him to come here tonight, but he insisted on it… He said time is precious and he wanted to make the most of it. He already took the medicine before leaving the city… but didn't expect..."

Ji Yunhe closed her eyes.

How could she not understand what Changyi was thinking, she understood it all too well. Now with the end in sight, everything took on a different meaning.

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