Gu Fan opened his eyes to the feeling of something soft under his head, and for a moment he could not tell where he was.
The last thing he remembered was the red system warning and the pain that followed it, when the Yin-essence and the array energy had crashed together in his dantian and the void-pill layer had failed to hold. After that there had been white light, a sound he did not want to admit he had made, and nothing.
Now his head was resting in Bai Bing's lap.
She was sitting on the bed in the torn icy-blue dress she had worn in the hall, with dried blood along the hem that did not belong to her.
Her fingers moved through his hair in a slow, restless way, and she was looking down at him with the kind of anger that only showed up when she had been frightened first.
On the other side of the bed, Song Yan sat with her outer robe loose and one shoulder bare, watching his chest rise and fall as if she had been doing it for a long time.
"You are awake," Bai Bing said.
