Wild Creatures

Chapter 88

06.00am Sunday

Lan Zhan can't sit up yet, so he hopes Wen Qing is going to be more forthcoming as the minutes drag on.

He can hear her softly crying, and his sensitive ears can pick out another noise, like gentle waves undulating on the shores of a peaceful beach. The ebb and flow makes him relax and he closes his eyes.

The next thing he knows is the feel of cool hands gently tapping at his face, and for a short minute, he lets himself believe that it's Wei Ying.

But the smell is all wrong, and that's what makes him open his eyes.

Wen Qing looks relieved but still worried as she helps him to sit up.

"What did they do to you?"

"Tayther." Lan Zhan is appalled to find that although his tongue works, it's slurring so it sounds like he has a speech impediment. Like a lisp.

"Taser?"

"Mn."

"Where?"

Lan Zhan looks down at his chest, just grateful that he can do that much now. It saves the last bits of what remains of his dignity.

"Okay, sorry about this, but let me see?" She sounds far calmer than she ever has, since Lan Zhan has known her.

He nods at her, because it's not like he really has a choice, is it? If he said no, and she was determined to look, he couldn't exactly stop her, because, with what strength?

Lan Zhan is a realist at the best of times.

She carefully moves aside the blackened robe, charred fabric falling away with Lan Zhan wincing.

The pain is welcome because at least his body is returning to normal, however slowly. He's aware of a dull ache all over his torso as he too, looks down at his chest. There's an intricate flower branded over where his heart used to beat, the pointed ends burnt into his skin as the charged barbs had pierced his body.

"The Wen Brand?" Wen Qing looks disgusted at that. She purses her lips as she takes in the other damage to his torso.

There are four slashes across his sternum, and as her hands press against his ribs, he feels another ache, though this one seems to stay with him.

"You have three broken ribs. What exactly happened to you?"

"Wen Thu!" Lan Zhan thinks he would have blushed if he still could.

This is abominable.

And Wen Qing is biting her lip, trying not to laugh at him. It's worse because she knows how he usually talks, and this is just...just embarrassing!

"Well, I'm sure you'll be okay soon," she tells him optimistically.

"Wen Chao ith dead." Lan Zhan replies.

No matter how 'okay' she thinks he's going to be, that is one heck of a picture which will forever stay with him. And whether or not that person deserved to die, the act itself was gruesome, however necessary.

"How? When did it happen?" She looks calm when she asks this, and Lan Zhan is reminded once again, that they don't know where her loyalties lie.

But then again, neither do the Wens apparently, because what is she doing in the dungeon in the first place?

And Lan Zhan is tired, emotionally. He's sick to death of trying to find plausible excuses for her behaviour, to try and justify to Wei Ying why she might still be okay to trust, and on his side.

He wants the truth now.

"Do you know how much you have hurt Wei Ying?" He asks, instead of answering her question.