They ran for a full hour and would have ran more, but Nick’s condition got worse by a minute so they decided to make a camp. At first there was no real place to hide since there were only dry plains around them. Only after another half an hour they saw first greenery and soon after that – a river. It was just twenty or so meters wide and may be a meter deep, but its existence signified the end of the half desert.

They ran on the water for few minutes to hide their tracks in case they left any and then jumped in the bamboo forest on the opposite side. Normally the go to method for hiding was to find a cave at the side of a cliff or a hill, but the land in this region was flat and even larger rocks were a rarity, thus finding this forest was already a great luck. In the end they decided to take their chances and settled down below a larger tree. There were few of those here, standing tall between many thin, green bamboos.

Zia took out her sword and stood on guard, while YunYun gently put Nick down near the tree trunk. He was still unconscious, so she carefully fed him few gulps of water from her lips and then positioned herself in front of him in a similar fashion how they used to do their ‘dual cultivation’. She sat crossed legged in front of Nick holding his hands, while he was leaning on the tree trunk and his head hung down on his chest.

“How does it work?” Zia asked after curiously glancing and them.

YunYun furrowed her brows and after a moment said in annoyance, “We circulate Qi between us and it does some kind of magic. It’s hard to explain, but for some reason it is not working now.”

“Oh? Let me try!” Zia energetically approached just to get stopped with a viscous glare.

“Don’t you dare!” YunYun hissed back at her.

Zia froze, but then shrugged and turned away.

“Oh! I know! He can’t sent the Qi back to me since he is unconscious. We need a bigger surface to exchange our Qi through!” YunYun’s eyes lit up and she sat herself in Nick’s lap hugging him with her legs. She put his chin on her left shoulder and tried to put his arms around her, but they kept lifelessly fall down.

“Zia? Could you help us please?” YunYun asked.

Zia turned around and her eyes widened seeing them in this intimate position, “You aren’t going to do anything weird, are you?”

“No way!” YunYun blushed, “Just get a piece of clothing and wrap it around us so he can keep hugging me and we are as close to each other as possible. I only need to get Qi circulation going and then he should instinctively join, even if he is unconscious. Normally we don’t even remember the whole process anyway.”

“Ok, just don’t do anything perverted.” Zia said and crouched down to take off Nick’s wristbands. All the ‘good’ stuff was kept in those and soon she found a big white sheet, she wrapped both ‘lovebirds’ in it like a cocoon with only tops of their heads barely visible.

Then she looked at the ‘piece of art’ she created, grinned and started to go through Nick’s stash. This was a unique opportunity and it was unlikely she would have another chance anytime soon.

When Nick started to come back to his senses, he felt like he was hugging something warm and soft, and the aroma assaulting his senses was pleasant and intoxicating. In addition something was glued to his face making it a bit hard to breathe. He tried to part his lips, but felt that they were stuck to a sticky, but sweet …

“YunYun!” He weakly whispered and opened his eyes.

Indeed, she was in his arms, hugging him as well and her lips were closely glued to his.

“Mmm.” YunYun quietly moaned.

Her eyelids trembled and slowly opened.

Nick remembered her fragrance very well and also the taste of her lips. And their position was similar to when after their dual cultivation she jumped onto his lap, hugged him with her hands and legs and kissed him. But this time they were in a weird space, like stuffed in some pillowcase.

‘This feels great. Is this how the paradise should be like?’ He smiled to himself only to get instantly startled.

‘Wait! I just fought with elder Sonor! YunYun being in my arms means I survived the blast and she healed me circulating the Qi through me!’

Nick immediately checked his condition, but, apart from an annoying itch all over his body, there was nothing wrong.

‘It can’t be I got unscathed from that blast, can it?’

“Nick!” YunYun whispered and blushed. Their lips were still stuck together, but she didn’t want to let him go.

“If you two are done, feel free to come out!” They heard Zia shouting sarcastically from not too far away.

Nick clumsily started to get out of their ‘cocoon’, but Zia had tied them together quite tightly and most of what he could do was awkwardly rub against YunYun. The latter let out another soft moan and blushed in even deeper red color while Nick felt his heart beat accelerate uncontrollably.

“Are you going to do something weird again?” Zia asked. For some reason there was more concern in her voice than sarcasm this time.

“No!” Nick finally had enough and tore the ‘cocoon’ apart with brute force.

Probably because they remained in such position for a long time, both YunYun and Nick felt their bodies stiff and couldn’t get up immediately. YunYun was still sitting on Nick’s lap and, when the cloth was torn off, they were met with a terrifying sight.

In a radius of fifty-sixty meters there were piles of corpses, cut trees and bushes all over the place. A strong stench of blood assaulted their noses and immediately washed away the intimate fragrance that was filling their ‘cocoon’ just a moment ago.

Zia, still in her black ‘ninja’ outfit, was standing some fifteen meters away from them, leaning on her huge sword while lightly swaying from side to side. There were multiple cuts on her body and few of them were clumsily bandaged. It was obvious she has been through a though fight.

“What in the world happened here?” YunYun exclaimed.

“Zia, are you alright?” Nick darted over, but Zia raised her sword and hissed at him through her teeth.

“Don’t come closer! I don’t want to get pregnant!”

“You … you can’t get pregnant like that!” YunYun had just regained her normal facial color and blushed again.

“Whatever! Don’t touch me! I’m all right!” Zia stared at Nick sternly and said.

“Alright, alright. Just tell us what happened. YunYun, please take care of her meanwhile.” Nick sighed helplessly and said while taking few steps back.

YunYun went over, but Zia obviously didn’t relax and watched her with weary eyes. Finally, when YunYun started to check her injuries, Zia began to explain, but still didn’t let go of her sword.

“At first everything was fine. YunYun asked me to tie you two together for your Qi circulation or something, so I used one of the sheets from your wristband and soon after you guys fell asleep or passed out, I don’t know. A day later you two still sat there and I got worried, but I managed to feel your pulses through the cloth so you were fine. Ouch!” Zia’s own shout interrupted the story she was telling.

Apparently the wound YunYun was currently treating hurt quite a bit, but Zia clenched her teeth and continued. “The problems started on the third day. Well, there were no problems per se. I don’t know what you guys did there or what technique it was, but on that morning some kind of vortex slowly appeared with you in the center. It felt like a thin layer of Qi was slowly revolving and gathering towards you two. I didn’t pay much attention to that at first, but soon some small animals came to watch and birds flew over as well. They sat in the distance and stared in your direction with stupid faces. At first I found it funny and didn’t do anything, but soon the trouble came. The Qi vortex around you grew in size, became a yellowish swirling mist and a small search party noticed it. Those were people from Lori army and there was only one Qi master and very weak at that, so I cleaned them up easily. Unfortunately those bastards kept coming so I had no choice but … well … you can see the result. I buried the first two groups over there, but they were simply too many so I stopped doing that.”

“Zia, how long we were out?” Nick took few steps towards her and asked.

“Six days, I guess.” She shrugged and smiled, “But don’t worry. The Qi master from the last group got away, so he will be back with more people – you’ll get to have some fun too.”

YunYun and Nick stared at her in shock – this girl was really something else. When normal people would think of ways to leave or even run, she was enjoying herself and Nick even suspected she was probably considering this a ‘training’ as well. Moreover, from the looks of it, she was eagerly awaiting the next ‘patch’ of training dummies.

“Let’s leave immediately.” Nick became serious, “Are you able to run?”

“Why? Why can’t we stay for a bit longer? Why … are your ... pupils … golden?” In the end Zia stuttered and passed out in YunYun’s hands.

“I think she’s fine, just really tired.” YunYun caressed Zia’s cheek and said with a smile.

“Alright, let’s go. I’ll carry her.” Nick said and put Zia on his back.

“Aren’t you worried you will get her pregnant?” YunYun asked and laughed.

“Ah!” Nick stumbled and fell face down.

“Come on! Why are you doing this to me?” He said with a sad and dirty face.

“Suits you well. Do you know how worried I was? I don’t think there were bones in your body that were not broken! And inner organs … and you were barely breathing when we started to …” YunYun pouted at start but then tears appeared in her eyes.

“I’m sorry. You know I had no other choice. Let’s go and chat while we’re running. If it is like Zia described, this place will soon be swarmed with bishop’s forces.” Nick said, put Zia on his back again and looked at the sun, “We should go back to the Moira.”

“North west then. After the explosion we ran directly to the south.” YunYun said and they dashed away from the bloody stench.

“Nick, why are your pupils golden?” She asked when they were already a kilometer or so away from the spot they stayed at.

“Yours are golden as well. I think that has something to do with our Qi that is also golden in color.” Nick contemplated loudly while running, “From what I understand, in order to heal my injuries you circulated your Qi through me, then lost your consciousness as well and the process continued naturally for whole six days. The event was probably something similar to the one when we healed Bambi, except much shorter. May be because I was not injured as much, or may be because both of us are already Qi masters. And the golden pupils are some kind of aftereffect that will disappear soon.”

“Ok then. Nick, I need you to promise me something.” YunYun said her voice turning serious.

“Sure, what is it?” Nick smiled back. It was too obvious what she was going to ask.

“Never ever do that again! Don’t you dare to make such a ‘big fart’, even in secret!” She glanced at him sideways and blushed deep red at her own joke.

Nick suddenly stopped and carefully put the sleeping Zia on the dry grass that was covering everything around here. Then turned to the blushed YunYun and hugged her tightly.

“I promise.” He whispered.

They stood there for a couple minutes in silence. Just a while ago they were sitting and hugging each other for six days straight, but this was really the first time in a long time when they did that consciously. And it was a quite romantic sight as well – the two youths standing in the middle of nowhere, hugging lovingly while bathing in the warm rays of the sun.

“Let’s go.” YunYun said and reluctantly pushed him away.

“Alright. But you have to promise me something as well.” Nick smiled at her.

“What?”

He pointed at Zia who was still lying on the dry yellow grass, “When she wakes up, please explain to her how babies are made.”

“You!” YunYun blushed once again, kicked his but and dashed away. Nick laughed to himself, picked up Zia and ran after her.