Free Web NovelChapter 230: Better Manners Than Most People
The longer I lay there on the floor, only being able to look at people and piles of ash by turning my head, the worse I felt.
I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised by that. This wasn’t the first time I had come this close to death... hell... I had even died. But that didn’t mean that the side effects of dealing with the Devourer weren’t a bitch.
And seriously... who like pain? There wasn’t a single good thing about pain, and whoever said otherwise was probably full of bullshit.
Or liked inflicting it.
But I digress. I had a shit ton of things that needed to be done sooner rather than later....and bitching about pain wasn’t going to make it go away.
The first thing on my list was not to talk to my arch nemesis and general pain in my ass while I was on my back.
I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of reenacting the last twenty minutes of my last life.
Not without one of us dying.
You know... for authenticity’s sake.
But it knew that it was going to be a bitch for me to be moved. Taking in a deep breath and reminding myself that biting off my own tongue to hold back the scream wasn’t the way I was going to go, I turned my head to look at Yuche.
"Pick me up and put me on the couch." I paused for a second, taking in his expressionless face before I tacked on one more word. "Please?"
And, for the record, I didn’t choke on that last word... not too much at least.
His answer was immediate, and not the one I wanted to hear. "Not happening," he grunted, his eyes never leaving my face. "You are going to stay there until the doctor clears you, and then you will stay there for another week so that I can be sure that you aren’t going to die on me."
I blinked at that. That was the most words I have ever heard him say all at one time. But that wasn’t going to mean I just gave in. So, instead of doing what I was sure was the very sensible thing and listening to him, I narrowed my eyes.
"Yuche," I started before I had to pause. It wasn’t like I could threaten him right now... so what did I have to do to get him to do what I wanted. I thought for a quick second and then put on the puppy dog face that Lingyun always wore when he wanted to get his way.
But Yuche simply shook his head "Put the lip away. It’s still not happening."
Okay, that was bullshit. "I am not spending the rest of this conversation staring at everybody’s knees," I hissed keeping my voice low.
Yuche completely ignored me and looked toward Luo Xin instead.
Frigging traitor.
Luo Xin sighed and nodded his head. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. "I managed to reconnect her spine," he said and I paused for a second to really take them in. Yeah... no... no matter how many times I ran his words through my head, they still didn’t sound good. "I still need to work on her leg before I start on the shoulder. It doesn’t matter if she’s sitting on the couch or lying on the floor."
Okay. So that was the perfect example of a shit sandwich. I got the good news, followed by bad news, and ending back with good news. I was going to take all that as a good thing and I immediately smirked at Yuche.
Hey, he was the one that wanted to get the doctor involved.
Realizing the same thing, Yuche closed his eyes, the expression suggested he was reconsidering several life choices.
Then he bent down and picked me up anyway.
I wouldn’t lie, the movement hurt.
A lot.
But I didn’t make a sound and I didn’t bite off my tongue trying to keep the screams contained so I took that as a win.
What wasn’t a win was the fact that the sudden shift in position made my vision darken around the edges. Nausea rolled through me hard enough that I briefly considered throwing up. Every injury in my body immediately filed a formal complaint at that idea.
I ignored them.
Mostly.
Yuche carried me across the room and lowered himself onto the couch before settling me carefully on his lap. One arm remained around my waist while the other rested across my legs as though he expected me to immediately attempt something stupid.
Honestly?
I hated just how much that man knew me.
Letting out the breath that I didn’t know I was holding, I leaned back against his chest and concentrated on not vomiting.
Broken ribs and vomiting felt like a combination best avoided.
Unfortunately, the second I stopped focusing on the pain, I became aware of the actual problem again.
Meilan.
Still here.
The sight of her standing in my living room immediately improved my mood by reminding me there were people having a worse day than I was.
Not enough worse.
But we could work on that.
I looked directly at her and smiled brightly. "Get out." I said the two words slowly and made sure that I enunciated them properly so there was no questioning what I was saying.
The room went quiet, but Meilan only smiled like she had just heard the world’s funniest joke.
That was the wrong move.
"You don’t seem to understand the situation," I said with a sigh. Seriously... who did I kill three lives ago that I was stuck with this woman through multiple lifetimes? There was only so much torture a person like me deserved.
And this was cruel and unusual punishment
"I understand it perfectly," she replied with a purr of her own.
"Do you?" I asked as I gestured vaguely around the room. "My house. My couch. My people. You’re the one standing where she doesn’t belong."
Her smile sharpened but then her eyes trailed down my leg where, right below the knee, it was twisted in an obviously wrong way. Yeah, I was making sure that I wasn’t looking at it for any length of time. My foot was practically pointing in the opposite direction. That was going to be a bitch to fix.
"I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands," Meilan continued, pulling my thoughts away from my broken body and back to her broken head.
It really was too bad for her, because I was running out of patience that I never really had. "Let me say that try again," I purred back to her. The smile dropped from my face as I glared at her. "Get the fuck out."
Nobody spoke.
Nobody moved.
Even Commander Li was looking up and my still broken ceiling and then to the walls. Anywhere but actually looking at Meilan and myself.
Meilan folded her arms across her chest. "You can threaten me all you want, but let’s face it. You can’t even stand. Just what do you think you are going to do to me? Let alone my five men."
I stared at her, the corner of my mouth twitching. "Four," I said, and she looked at me confused. "You only have four men now. Or were you going to sweep up the pile of ashes that used to be Huang Zedong and take them with you?"
Meilan’s face turned a variety of colors, from red to purple to white, before she doubled down. "Yeah, well.... You needed somebody to carry you to the couch. You can barely stay conscious. There is no version of this situation where you’re actually able to threaten me and follow through with it."
I took a slow breath.
Immediately regretted it.
Then I tried again.
"Get the fuck out of my house."
The words came out calm and that was what made them dangerous. But Meilan only laughed as she folded her arms tighter and settled her weight onto one leg. "Make me."
Okay.... I was done. Fuck this and fuck her.
The second I thought that, a polite knock echoed through the house causing everybody to freeze.
Someone... or something was knocking on the front door like they had all the time in the world. Three slow taps, nothing else, just a patient knock.
I closed my eyes. Well...That timing was unfortunate. Who the hell knocked on the door during the apocalypse?
The knocks came again and Lingyun immediately started smiling.
I pointed at the door even as I looked at him. "Fine," I sighed. "You can open it." But before the words could fully leave my lips, Lingyun was already moving.
He crossed the room, opened the door, and stepped aside to see who was there.
A long green vine immediately slid through the opening. For a second, it simply hung there, looking around the room before it turned toward Lingyun. The tip dipped once, almost like a greeting.
Lingyun looked delighted, even if he didn’t know what was going on.
The vine shot forward like lightning. Tao Jun, the closest of Meilan’s men to the door, didn’t even have time to react before it wrapped around his waist.
The scream ripped through the house and the vine yanked back hard.
Tao Jun hit the floor so violently that the impact echoed through the room. His fingers dug into the hardwood so hard that, as the vine was dragging him back toward the front yard, they left grooves in my floor. His nails snapped with the force, staying in the hardwood floor.
Blood streaked a path showing where he had been, but not matter how hard he fought, the vine kept pulling.
Lin Cheng lunged forward just as Shen Kaiyang grabbed Tao Jun’s arm. But neither one actually managed to accomplish anything. The vine continued to drag him across the room anyway.
The screaming got louder the moment Tao Jun was through the door, then they stared to get fainter as the vine moved him farther away.
The last thing I saw before he disappeared into the front yard was a second vine emerged from the first. It reached back and pull the door shut behind it, cutting off any and all screams from that point on.
There was silence as Lingyun, and honestly everyone else, stared at the closed door for several seconds. free𝑤ebnovel.com
Then he looked directly at Meilan.
"The plants have better manners than most humans I know."
