The medical wing was quieter than the arena.
No resonance towers humming.
No fractured sky.
No lightning tearing through bone.
Only the soft scent of crushed herbs, clean linen, and faintly glowing formation arrays woven into the walls to assist recovery.
Jin Yue sat on the edge of a low treatment couch, posture straight despite the bruising darkening along his throat. The choke mark had deepened overnight, finger-shaped shadows pressed into pale skin just beneath his jaw. The thin scar on his cheek had sealed cleanly, but it had not faded.
It remained.
Mu Qing stood in front of him, hands on hips, expression stern in a way only a fourteen-year-old could manage.
"You should have come earlier, Jin Ge" Mu Qing muttered.
"I'm here," Jin Yue replied evenly.
"You came after I dragged you here."
Jin Yue did not argue.
