NOVEL WEB Chapter 14: Phoenix Fire Emergency
The sky broke.
One moment, it was a normal Tuesday afternoon.
The next, the heavens declared war.
Rain didn't fall. It crashed. Thunder cracked the sky open, a raw, angry sound that vibrated in Li Wei's bones.
He was hiding in the library, trying to pretend he wasn't the university's newest cult leader.
It wasn't working.
Every time he turned a page, a math student would peek around the bookshelf and give him a reverent thumbs-up.
He was going to have to transfer.
Or fake his own death.
Again.
**
A flash of lightning illuminated the campus courtyard, stark and white.
And in that split second, he saw her.
A splash of crimson against the gray, rain-lashed pavement.
Feng Yue.
She was collapsed.
On her knees.
In the middle of the raging storm.
**
Something cold and sharp pierced through Li Wei's usual haze of confusion.
Fear.
He was out of his seat before he even registered the decision, books scattering across the floor.
He ignored the gasps of his disciples.
He ran.
Out of the library, into the deluge.
The rain was a physical force, plastering his hair to his face, soaking his thin hoodie in seconds.
He reached her, his sneakers sliding on the wet stone.
"Feng Yue!"
She was shaking.
Her skin was pale, but her cheeks were flushed with a feverish, unnatural heat.
Steam was rising from her body, hissing as the cold rain hit her.
And her clothes... were smoldering.
Little embers glowed at the edges of her silk robes, fighting a losing battle against the downpour.
"What's wrong?" he yelled over the thunder. "Are you sick?"
She looked up at him, her eyes wild with pain and panic.
The fire in them, usually so controlled and proud, was flickering erratically.
"My qi," she gasped, her voice raspy. "It's... out of control."
She clutched her chest.
"The storm... it's amplifying my phoenix energy. I can't contain it."
A small, angry flame suddenly erupted from her shoulder, then sputtered out in the rain.
"I'm overheating," she said, a tear of pure frustration tracing a path down her steaming cheek. "If I can't cool down... I'm going to explode."
**
Explode.
That was a bad word.
Li Wei's brain did not like that word.
Okay, we need a doctor! Yin Mode shrieked in his head. Or a fire extinguisher! Or both!
"My cultivation," Feng Yue forced out, gritting her teeth against a wave of pain. "It requires balance. Yin and Yang. My fire is pure Yang. It needs... it needs a cooling energy to stabilize it."
She looked at him, her gaze desperate.
"It needs your energy, Li Wei. The chaos. The balance."
She needed... his energy?
"You mean... dual cultivation?" he stammered, the words from their last disastrous encounter echoing in his mind.
The soda can metaphor.
Oh god, not the soda can metaphor.
"Yes," she hissed. "Now."
His face went beet red.
"But... how?" he asked, his voice a squeak. "We... we have to... you know...?"
He couldn't even say it.
The thought of doing something so... intimate... with this terrifying, beautiful, smoldering goddess of a woman, right here in the middle of a campus apocalypse...
It was too much.
His brain was going to melt.
Negative, a cold voice cut through his panic. The subject's core temperature is increasing at an exponential rate. Probability of catastrophic combustion in 3.7 minutes. Emotional paralysis is a suboptimal response.
Yang Mode was surfacing.
The sheer, overwhelming pressure of the situation was forcing the switch.
But it's embarrassing! Yin Mode wailed.
Embarrassment is an illogical social construct, Yang Mode retorted. Thermonuclear detonation is a physical one. I am taking control.
**
The world snapped into sharp, calculated focus for Li Wei.
The rain was no longer a chaotic downpour, but a series of measurable vectors.
The wind had a velocity.
Feng Yue had a core temperature that was rapidly approaching critical.
He knelt beside her, his movements now precise and efficient.
"Your phoenix qi is experiencing a positive feedback loop," he stated, his voice devoid of all its previous panic. "The atmospheric energy is acting as an uncontrolled catalyst."
He placed a hand on her forehead.
It was like touching a furnace.
"I can create a counter-frequency using my own chaotic energy signature," he calculated. "It will require a direct, sustained transfer."
He looked at his own hand, then at hers.
"However, simple physical contact is inefficient. The optimal point of transfer for yin-yang harmonization is..."
He paused, running a thousand calculations in a nanosecond.
"...the lips."
HE WANTS TO KISS HER! Yin Mode screamed from his mental prison. IN THE RAIN! IT'S TOO ROMANTIC! I'M GONNA DIE!
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Campus emergency services.
Probably responding to the reports of localized, person-shaped fires.
"Time is a factor," Yang Mode noted calmly.
**
He looked at Feng Yue.
Her proud facade was gone.
She was just a woman, in pain, looking at him with a terrifying vulnerability.
"I can't do it," she whispered, her voice breaking.
He tilted his head. "The procedure is logically sound. My calculations are flawless."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I can't... I can't do this alone."
A single, fiery tear escaped her eye.
"I've always done everything alone," she confessed, the words tumbling out in a rush of pain and exhaustion. "I'm the Phoenix Princess. I have to be strong. I have to protect everyone. My realm... you... everyone."
"But I pushed myself too hard. I thought I could handle it. I'm always supposed to handle it."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"I'm scared."
The words hit Li Wei's fractured soul like a physical blow.
It wasn't just data.
It was a confession. A plea.
Yin Mode's terror was silenced by a wave of empathy so powerful it hurt.
Yang Mode's calculations stuttered. A new variable had been introduced.
Subject's psychological state: compromised. Requires... reassurance.
And for the first time, the two halves of his soul came to the same conclusion.
He had been selfish.
Hiding behind his fear. Hiding behind his logic.
Letting her carry the weight of the world on her burning shoulders.
He reached out and gently cupped her face, his thumb wiping away the fiery tear.
"You're not alone," he said.
And for the first time, it wasn't Yin or Yang speaking.
It was just... Li Wei.
"We'll do it together."
**
He leaned in.
He closed his eyes.
And he kissed her.
It wasn't a kiss of passion, or romance.
It was a kiss of desperation. A transfer of power. A lifeline.
The moment their lips met, his chaotic energy flooded into her.
It was a maelstrom of cold logic and warm panic, a perfect, paradoxical storm.
He felt her burning qi meet his.
He felt her temperature begin to stabilize.
It was working.
See? Yang Mode thought with satisfaction. Optimal.
Whoa, Yin Mode thought. Her lips are soft.
And then, something went wrong.
Her phoenix fire, instead of cooling down, reacted to his chaos.
It didn't stabilize.
It... evolved.
It flared, a massive, uncontrolled nova of pure, white-hot energy.
Feng Yue screamed, her body arching back.
Her form began to shimmer, to change.
Feathers of pure fire sprouted from her skin.
Her bones elongated, her face shifting into the sharp, regal features of a raptor.
Her body was engulfed in a pillar of flame.
She was transforming.
Right in front of him.
Into her true, terrifying, majestic phoenix form.
And he was still connected to her.
Still kissing her.
Being pulled into the heart of the fiery transformation, his own soul screaming as it was burned and reshaped by the raw, untamed power of a rebirth.
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