Back So Soon?

Yiyuan Hospital, Room 201.

Lan Xiang panted as he faced the door to this room. He opened it hastily.

"Hailu!" He entered, his face full of worry.

"!!!" Lan Hailu suddenly sat up.

"No, no, it's okay, just keep lying down. You don't need to sit..." Lan Xiang examined the current state of her body.

There were wrappings and casts basically everywhere, from her neck, her arms, around her stomach... She looked like a mummy with how much gauze was on her body.

"Back so soon?" Lan Hailu forced a smile.

"What... what happened to you?" Lan Xiang bit his lip.

"I, well..." Lan Hailu was hesitant to share her story. "You first. How did you get here? Aren't you supposed to be in Hongliu City for the next 3 more years?"

Lan Xiang smiled as he took a seat beside her bed. "You see, I have a friend. She can sorta... move through cities without airplanes. That is why our father didn't catch me taking a flight. It's because I never took one, she took me with her."

"So you mean... you drove here? Or took the train?"

"No. Simply put, I..." Lan Xiang glanced behind him. Lu Xifa was glaring at him. "Uh, I guess she doesn't want me to say."

Lan Hailu peeked at the door and saw a pretty girl leaning on the doorframe. She whispered to Lan Xiang. "Did she smuggle you here?"

"No! She didn't. Anyways, she used an undisclosed method to bring us both here." Lan Xiang threw a thumbs-up to Lu Xifa.

"When I got here, my first thought was: maybe I should visit my cute little sister. She wouldn't expect me here.

"Little did I know, she wasn't going to be at her dorm, she was going to be at the hospital..." Lan Xiang turned sad. "...so, how did you end up here? Why didn't you tell me about it?"

"...Well..."

Lan Hailu gulped.

"I mean, you were at a different city. If someone told you about my situation, I'd just give you needless worry." Lan Hailu frowned.

"Stupid. Me worrying about you isn't needless worry in the slightest." Lan Xiang ruffled his sister's hair.

Lan Hailu grinned upon hearing her brother's response.

"As for how I ended up here, I was chosen as the Jade Academy's representative for the tournament."

Lan Xiang widened his eyes. "Tournament? You mean... the Annual Yanying City Tournament?"

"Yes, this tournament."

"Then, but, what..." Lan Xiang had many questions, not one of them he could utter properly right now.

"Okay, first off. How did you get the representative position in Jade Academy despite, you know... being basically a baby?"

"Hmph, baby?" Lan Hailu pouted. "I'll have you know, despite my age I'm already at the 7th level, Budding Spirit Realm. Look, see?"

A red, circular ball of light came out of her chest. It zipped around Lan Xiang quickly, making more than 10 revolutions around his head per second.

"That's amazing!" Lan Xiang was truly amazed at what Lan Hailu was doing. Despite having a higher cultivation realm, he had never summoned out his spirit, or his soul. That was because of his utter lack of knowledge about the cultivation realms and whatnot; he simply followed the instructions on the manual to a tee.

Lan Hailu could feel her ego inflating getting compliments from her brother. "Well, sadly, Budding Spirit Realm isn't enough to win any tournament... even the internal tournament in Jade Academy. I ended up being 3rd runner-up."

"Huh? Then how did you get the representative position?"

"Actually, the seniors in the first three places all had their own reasons so that they couldn't attend the actual tournament.

"The third place, Huo Linxia, had to go overseas to attend something, it wasn't disclosed what.

"The second place, Wen Susu, suddenly got appendicitis...

"And the first place, Xie Jian, well, she just disappeared."

"Ah, so that's how you ended up as the representative... Wait, did you say Xie Jian?" Lan Xiang caught that a little late.

"Yeah, Xie Jian. The super popular cold expressionless girl." Lan Hailu recalled Xie Jian's face. As they were both students in Jade Academy, Lan Hailu could often see Xie Jian around the campus.

She was always so cold and expressionless, especially when handling male pursuers that barged into their academy...

"Oh, right! She's your fiancée, do you know where she is?" Lan Hailu only just remembered that fact.

She had never seen her much after all, she always visited her brother, and her brother only.

"Um, actually... She's staying over at my house in Hongliu City. Right now."

"Ah? That's where Senior Xie went?" Lan Hailu felt the puzzle pieces come together in her mind.

"Ooh, don't you feel lucky then! The whole capital's in an uproar because of her disappearance. Her family made a huge deal about it, the school made a huge deal about it, it's all they talk about in the news now. Only you know where she really is."

"You too, I told you."

"Ah, you're right!"

"Wait, let's get back to the topic at hand..." Lan Xiang shook his head. They were getting way off-track.

"Ah, so yeah. After I was chosen as the representative, the very first round, I lost and was pummeled like this." Lan Hailu flashed a wry smile.

"Who was your opponent? Did they really have to be so harsh like this?"

"Well, it seemed like... he was venting his built-up frustrations at me. Oh, right. I forgot to tell you. My opponent was Cousin Zhou."

"Cousin... Lan Zhou? That frail, weak boy that's always in the hospital? How'd he beat you up this bad?"

"I... don't know. I really have no idea." Lan Hailu bit her lip. He thought of the same things she did when she was fighting him.

"Maybe it's because I underestimated him, but even then, I wouldn't have lost this bad. And in the first round too..."

Lan Hailu's eyebrows scrunched up as she clenched her fist. Lan Xiang pulled her into a hug very carefully, patting the back of her hair.

"Ah, Little Hailu, it's fine to cry..."

Sure enough, her face buried itself into his chest. He felt a wet patch growing bigger on his shirt.

"I, hic, finally got the opportunity to prove myself, hic... And the Academy was all counting on me to bring them victory... and yet here I am, lying in the hospital, hic, out in the very first round..."

"It's fine, it's fine." Lan Xiang stayed silent, letting his sister vent her frustrations onto him. He was there only to listen, not to lecture.

Outside the door, Lu Xifa was touched at the scene. She, too, wanted someone to pull her into their embrace, reassuring her whenever she had a problem.

After a while, Lan Hailu pushed herself off Lan Xiang's embrace as she sniffled. "Ah, what am I doing..."

"Hey, isn't it fine? You haven't cried like that since you were about 6 years old!" Looking at her embarrassed face from then and now, Lan Xiang giggled.

"Hmph, then you're gonna treat me like a baby again." Lan Hailu pouted with her arms crossed.

"So... when did they tell you you'll be out of this joint?"

"They said my bones and muscles will heal in no time, maybe even in a day or two from now. The problem is with my pathways. They're blocked." Lan Hailu felt down once more.

"Pathways are blocked? How do they know that, can they see your pathways?"

"No, but they can detect the movement of my qi. They only have a rough guess which ones are blocked, and there's no treatment except time. Until they find away to look through the body, I'm afraid I'll stay a cripple for the time being." Lan Hailu almost wanted to cry again.

This time, Lan Xiang didn't bother comforting her. He was stuck in his own world for a few seconds.

"...Hey, Little Hailu, do you know about acupuncture?" Lan Xiang turned very serious.

"Stop calling me that, I'm not Little Hailu! Wait, acupuncture? Yeah, why?" Lan Hailu raised her eyebrows.

"Well, I picked up this skill in the countryside, apparently it can release your stress and stuff like that."

"What, you wanna do it on me?" Lan Hailu was quite terrified. Honestly speaking, her brother was always clumsy and was never good at anything. For something involving her body being poked with needles? She wouldn't trust him with it, no siree.