[GL] I'm Just A Side Character... So Why Is The Heroine Chasing Me?!-Chapter 32: Welcome back

The final day of the Trials arrived with a thunderstorm.

Rain hammered the Academy grounds, turning the stone pathways into shallow rivers. Students who hadn’t entered the gorge huddled under covered walkways, watching the entrance with growing anxiety.

Lan Yue stood at the gorge gate.

She had been standing there since dawn.

Liu Ruyan had brought her an umbrella two hours ago. Lan Yue had forgotten to open it. The rain soaked through her robes, plastered her hair to her face, and she didn’t care.

"You’re going to catch a cold," Liu Ruyan called from under the covered walkway.

"I’m fine."

"You’ve been saying that for three hours."

"Then stop asking."

Zhao Han sat nearby, wrapped in a thick cloak, watching Lan Yue with knowing eyes. He wisely chose not to comment on the ear situation.

One by one, pairs began emerging from the mist. Some stumbled out bruised and bleeding. Others limped, supported by their partners. A few were carried out on stretchers by Academy medics.

Each time a figure appeared in the mist, Lan Yue’s heart lurched.

Not her. Not her. Not her.

An hour passed. Then two.

The rain intensified. Thunder cracked across the sky like an angry god splitting wood.

"Maybe they went deeper than anyone else," Liu Ruyan offered. "That would explain the delay."

"Or maybe something happened." Lan Yue’s voice was tight. "The gorge has spirit beasts. Constructs. Traps. What if she’s hurt? What if that silver fox led her into danger? What if..."

"Silver fox?" Liu Ruyan blinked.

"I said what I said."

More students emerged. Shen Zhiran stumbled out looking like he’d been dragged through a thornbush backwards. His partner, Lin Meihua, had her arm in a makeshift sling and frost still clinging to her hair. They both looked murderous.

Good. Serves them right.

Another thirty minutes crawled by.

Then the mist shifted.

Two figures emerged, walking side by side with the casual confidence of people returning from an afternoon stroll rather than a three day survival trial. Bai Xuelan’s silver hair was slightly tangled but otherwise immaculate. And beside her, sword at her hip, robes dusty but intact...

Zhao Lingxi.

Lan Yue’s entire body sagged with relief so intense her knees almost buckled. She was okay. She was actually okay.

Zhao Lingxi’s dark eyes scanned the crowd at the gate. They passed over the medics, the instructors, the huddled students.

And found Lan Yue.

Something flickered across her face. Surprise, maybe. Or warmth. It was hard to tell with Zhao Lingxi, but Lan Yue had become fluent in reading the microscopic shifts of that beautiful, infuriating face.

Lan Yue wanted to run to her. She wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her and scream, "Do you know how worried I was?!" She wanted to check every inch of her for injuries, force her to eat something, wrap her in blankets, and never let her enter a stupid misty gorge ever again.

What she actually did was stand there in the pouring rain with her mouth slightly open, completely forgetting how to move.

Zhao Lingxi walked toward her. Each step felt like it lasted an eternity.

She stopped directly in front of Lan Yue. Rain streamed down both their faces.

"You’re soaking wet," Zhao Lingxi said.

"You were gone for three days," Lan Yue blurted.

"That was the assignment, yes."

"You could have been killed." 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"I wasn’t."

"You could have been eaten by a spirit beast."

"I ate them instead, actually."

Lan Yue stared at her. "That’s not funny."

"It’s a little funny."

Zhao Lingxi’s lips curved into that barely there smile that made Lan Yue’s brain short circuit. Water droplets clung to her lashes, and her dark hair was loose, falling around her shoulders in damp waves. She looked exhausted, dirt smudged, slightly scraped up.

She looked incredible.

"I brought you something," Zhao Lingxi said.

She reached into her robe and produced a small, glowing stone. It was roughly the size of a walnut, pale blue with threads of gold swirling inside. It pulsed gently with warmth, like a tiny heartbeat.

"What is it?" Lan Yue whispered.

"A Spirit Core. From the guardian construct we defeated. It’s concentrated spiritual energy." Zhao Lingxi placed it in Lan Yue’s palm, her fingers lingering. "I thought you could use it. For your... abilities."

Their hands overlapped. Rain fell between them. The world around them blurred into meaningless noise.

"You were fighting a massive construct in a deadly gorge," Lan Yue said slowly, "and you stopped to pick up a souvenir. For me."

"It seemed practical."

"Practical."

"Yes."

Lan Yue looked down at the glowing stone, then back up at Zhao Lingxi’s perfectly composed face.

"You’re unbelievable," she said, her voice cracking somewhere between laughter and tears.

"I’ve been told."

From behind them, Zhao Han’s voice rang out. "Elder Sister! You’re back!"

The boy barreled through the rain and launched himself at Zhao Lingxi with the force of a small cannonball. She caught him, staggering slightly, and held him tight.

"I’m back, Xiao Han."

"Did you win? Did you get the most tokens? Did you fight anything cool?"

"Yes, we’ll see, and I fought a stone giant."

"A STONE GIANT?!"

While the siblings reunited, Bai Xuelan drifted over to where Lan Yue stood, still clutching the Spirit Core like a lifeline.

"She talked about you, you know," Bai Xuelan said casually.

Lan Yue’s head whipped toward her. "What?"

"In the gorge. When she thought I was asleep." Bai Xuelan’s ice blue eyes sparkled with amusement. "She kept checking that little note you gave her. Read it at least four times."

Lan Yue’s face turned the color of a ripe tomato. "It... it just said ’don’t die.’ That’s barely even a note."

"And yet she kept it against her heart like a love letter." Bai Xuelan tilted her head, studying Lan Yue with open curiosity. "You really don’t see it, do you?"

"See what?"

Bai Xuelan just smiled and walked away.

See WHAT?!

---

The results were announced that evening in the main hall.

Elder Su stood at the podium, her sharp eyes surveying the battered, exhausted students.

"The Trials of Spirit have concluded. Forty seven tokens were placed in the gorge. The results are as follows."

She unrolled a scroll.

"In third place, with fourteen tokens... Chen Boyang and Xu Lian."

Polite applause.

"In second place, with nineteen tokens... Fang Qingyue and Duan Cheng."

Louder applause.

Elder Su paused. The hall held its breath.

"In first place, with thirty four tokens, more than any pair in the last decade of these Trials..."

She looked directly at Zhao Lingxi.

"Zhao Lingxi and Bai Xuelan."

The hall erupted.

Some students cheered. Others stared in disbelief. Shen Zhiran looked like he might burst a blood vessel. In the back, a group of noble sons whispered furiously among themselves.

Zhao Lingxi stood and bowed once, her face betraying nothing.

Bai Xuelan waved like she was accepting an award at a garden party.

Lan Yue couldn’t stop grinning.

---

Later that night, Lan Yue prepared Zhao Lingxi’s bath. Again.

She had added extra healing herbs to the water this time. Three days of combat had left Zhao Lingxi covered in small cuts, bruises, and spiritual energy burns.

"The water’s ready."

Zhao Lingxi entered the bathing chamber and began loosening her robes. Lan Yue turned to leave.

"Wait."

Lan Yue froze, her hand on the screen.

"My shoulder," Zhao Lingxi said. "The construct hit me on the second day. I can’t reach the bruise properly."

Lan Yue turned back slowly.

Zhao Lingxi had lowered her robe to expose her left shoulder. A deep purple bruise bloomed across the skin, angry and swollen. But that wasn’t what made Lan Yue’s breath catch.

It was the shoulder itself. The elegant line of her collarbone. The way candlelight traced the curve of her neck down to where fabric still covered the rest of her.

"Lan Yue." Zhao Lingxi’s voice was patient. "The medicine."

"Right. Yes. Medicine. Coming."

Lan Yue’s hands trembled slightly as she applied the salve. Zhao Lingxi’s skin was warm beneath her fingers, smooth despite the bruise.

"Your hands are cold," Zhao Lingxi observed.

"Sorry."

"I didn’t say I minded."

Lan Yue’s fingers stuttered.

She glanced up and found Zhao Lingxi watching her over her shoulder. Those dark eyes held something new. Something soft and deliberate and slightly amused.

"You’re staring again," Zhao Lingxi said.

"I’m applying medicine!"

"With your eyes on my face instead of the bruise?"

Lan Yue looked down so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash. "I was... checking your pupils. For signs of spiritual exhaustion. Very important medical procedure."

"My pupils are in my eyes, Lan Yue. Which are on my face. Which you were staring at."

"I hate you."

"Your ears say otherwise."

Lan Yue finished applying the salve in record time and practically threw the jar onto the table. "Done! All done! Bruise treated! Good night!"

She scrambled toward the door.

"Lan Yue."

She stopped.

"Thank you," Zhao Lingxi said quietly. "For waiting in the rain. You didn’t have to."

Lan Yue’s hand tightened on the screen. Her heart was doing something stupid and painful and wonderful in her chest.

"Yes I did," she said softly, without turning around.

She slipped through the door before her face could betray anything else.

In her tiny room, she pressed the Spirit Core against her chest and stared at the ceiling.

Through the thin wall, she heard the gentle splash of water as Zhao Lingxi settled into her bath.

She was in so much trouble.