Xiaomei went on her knees, "Wang ZhangWei," she called again. He didn't respond to her but only groaned in pain.
"Junfeng! Haoyu! LiJie! Bojing! Anybody," she shouted for help, but everybody was already too far away. They were all alone.
"No. No. You can't die," she said. She tried to pull him off the ground. However, she failed many times before she got him off the ground. Her body and hand were throbbing in pain, but she didn't care.
She wrapped his arms around her neck and tried to piggyback him, but he was too big and tall for her, so his entire body covered her back, and his feet were still on the ground. When she tried to take one step, she collapsed with him. She groaned in pain before trying to redo everything all over again.
Finally, she was able to do it, even though it took her a long time to get him back on her. When she took a step, it didn't look like she moved, but she did. She was taking tiny steps as her feet were shuffling in the snow. She headed in the direction of the abandoned horses. It didn't take long before each step she took was getting heavier and harder to do. Her mouth was open wide as she was breathing out heavily. Even though her body was aching and couldn't hold it any longer, she didn't care and forced herself to move to the point where she wasn't bothered by the pain from her bleeding hand.
"Hey, you better wake up. I-I can't lift you over the horse," she said breathlessly and tried to take a step but couldn't anymore. At that moment, her body froze as she could feel wetness on her back, and she knew it was his blood seeping into her clothes.
"Y-you better not die. I-I don't want to be carrying a dead person," she said, trying to stop her trembling voice from coming out.
"He can't die. He won't die. In the story, you didn't die. I know you don't get the girl, but at least you lived, so you must survive," she thought.
"Y-you know you remind me of a feisty, stubborn cat," ZhangWei softly chuckled. "L-like a cat who can't decide if it likes you or not but always comes back with its claws ready to pounce when it needs to," he laughed with his voice enduring the pain as he wiped the sweat off the side of her forehead like petting a cat.
Her eyes widened in great relief, and held back tears. She smiled, "Quit yapping, annoying cunning fox." He chuckled as it rang in her ears. She felt him rest his head on her shoulder. "Hey, you're not dead back there, right?" She felt scared again. He then chuckled and nuzzled himself to her. She took a sigh of relief.
"Y-you know you are an idiot. Y-you can leave me here and wait for them to come back. You don't have to carry me," he said, extremely tired.
"They're taking too long. W-what what if...," she couldn't say it.
"I-I don't die that easy," he said, lightly tapping the back of her head.
"Well, it doesn't matter. I'm still going to carry you," she said, breathing heavily and trying her best to lift her feet to take a step.
"Let me go. You stubborn cat...," his voice fading away before he lost consciousness. Immediately, they both collapsed on the ground, and she realized that it was him all along that helped her have the ability to carry him this far. He was conscious from the very beginning but was too tired to speak as he helped her lift himself to her back and moved along with her when she dragged him in the snow.
She was utterly overwhelmed and wanted to get back up, but her body felt so heavy and tired. She was in the snow with him. She was facing him and saw how quiet he was with his eyes quietly closed in peace. "Annoying fox," she called out, but he didn't respond. Her heart started to race in fear as she forced herself to sit up. She felt sharp pain in all parts of her body. She tried to ignore it at first, but this time she couldn't. She had to wait for a second to suppress the pain before reaching over to wake him up. "Annoying fox. Cunning fox. Mister Wei. Wang ZhangWei. ZhangWei," she started calling all sorts of names, but he still didn't wake up. She placed her ear on his chest and gave out a sigh of relief. She could still hear his heartbeat, but it was so soft.
"Miss Daiyu? ZhangWei" Junfeng said, hurrying toward them
"Huang Daiyu?" Bojing said, riding closer to them. She looked up to see them.
Tears swelled in her eyes, "Hurry. He collapsed a while ago. He's bleeding out," she was pressing his wound to stop the bleeding.
Junfeng helped him up.
"General Bojing, please take him back now since you have a horse. Hurry," Xiaomei pleaded.
Bojing saw how desperate she was. "Of course, put him over my horse. I will hurry back," Bojing said. Junfeng and some shadow guards helped carry ZhangWei onto the horse before Bojing galloped quickly.
"Miss Daiyu," Junfeng tried to say as he noticed she wasn't looking so well.
Xiaomei took a deep breath, and once she no longer saw Bojing's horse in sight, she collapsed.