Měi Nán sat there for a full forty seconds, staring at Tòumíng's chest where Cupid's voice had just come from, his expression cycling through shock, confusion, disbelief, and finally... acceptance?
Then he bounced up with startling energy. "OKAY!"
Tòumíng blinked. "What?"
"Okay! I believe you! Magical heart entity, quantum superposition, healing powers, the whole thing! Makes perfect sense!" Měi Nán's tone was bright, almost cheerful, his usual teasing demeanor snapping back into place like nothing had happened.
"You... don't have any more questions?"
"Nope! I'm fine!" Měi Nán smiled that infuriating smile that suggested he was either completely unhinged or had already compartmentalized the supernatural insanity into a box labeled 'deal with later.' "Now eat your lard so you can walk again. I didn't haul that bucket across the city for you to stay paralyzed."
Tòumíng stared at him, trying to figure out if this was shock, denial, or genuine acceptance. But Měi Nán just gestured toward the bucket expectantly, so Tòumíng reached in with one hand.
The lard was cold, solid but slightly greasy to the touch, with the consistency of firm butter. He scooped out a handful, had to be at least half a pound, and brought it to his mouth.
The taste hit him immediately. Pure, concentrated animal fat. No seasoning, no flavor beyond grease and a faint metallic undertone that suggested this had come from animals whose diet was questionable at best. It coated his mouth instantly, thick and oily, sliding down his throat in a disgusting mass that made his stomach immediately rebel.
But he forced it down. Swallowed. Grabbed another handful.
It was like eating straight butter mixed with gutter oil. The kind of texture and flavor that made every instinct scream to stop, to spit it out, to never eat anything ever again. He could feel his arteries clogging in real-time, cholesterol levels spiking, his digestive system trying to figure out what the hell he was doing to it.
Měi Nán watched with increasing disgust, his face going slightly green. "That's... that's really revolting."
"Mmmph," Tòumíng responded, mouth full of lard, unable to form actual words.
Ten minutes of continuous eating. Handful after handful of pure animal fat, forcing it down despite his body's protests, despite the nausea building in his stomach. He managed about five pounds before his throat literally refused to swallow anymore, his gag reflex taking over.
"I can't," he gasped, pushing the bucket away. "I can't eat anymore. That's all I can do."
"Is it enough?" Měi Nán asked.
Tòumíng checked his calorie count mentally. Five pounds of lard was roughly... "Yeah. About forty-five thousand calories. Way more than the twenty-three thousand I need."
"Then activate your weird healing thing before I throw up from watching you eat."
"Fair warning," Tòumíng said, positioning himself better against the counter. "This is going to hurt. A lot. And I'm going to scream. Don't panic. It's just the process."
"I only half believe you," Měi Nán admitted.
"You're about to fully believe me."
Tòumíng activated Metabolic Healing, focusing on the spinal damage, the bullet lodged between vertebrae, the severed nerve connections.
METABOLIC HEALING ACTIVATED
ESTIMATED TIME: 4 HOURS
BEGINNING SPINAL REGENERATION
The pain started immediately.
Not gradually. Not with warning. Just instant, overwhelming agony as his body began reconstructing nerve tissue that had been destroyed. The sensation was indescribable—like someone had stuck live electrical wires directly into his spine and turned them on full blast.
Tòumíng screamed. Bloody murder. A sound torn from his throat that echoed through the apartment and probably woke up half the building.
"WHAT THE FUCK—" Měi Nán jumped up, hands hovering uselessly, clearly panicking. "What do I do?! Should I call someone?! You said it would hurt but this is—"
"JUST—" Tòumíng gasped between screams, "—THE PROCESS! DON'T—AHHHHHH—DON'T TOUCH ME!"
The bullet began moving. Pushed by regenerating tissue, by bone reforming around it, by his body treating it as a foreign object that needed removal. It shifted inside the spinal column, grinding against vertebrae, traveling upward through muscle and tissue.
Then it erupted from his back with a wet popping sound, expelled with enough force to arc through the air and clatter against the kitchen cabinets.
The wound began closing immediately. Muscle knitting together, skin crawling across the exit hole, sealing itself with biological efficiency that defied medical understanding.
But the worst part was the nerve regeneration.
Each nerve connection being rewired sent fresh waves of electric agony through his entire lower body. It felt like his legs were being dipped in acid while simultaneously being struck by lightning. The nerves firing randomly as they reconnected, sending confused signals to his brain—pain, pressure, temperature, all jumbled together in a horrifying sensory overload.
His legs started twitching. Spasming. Not under his control, just random muscle contractions as the nerves found their proper pathways again. The movement meant healing was working, meant he'd regain function, but god it hurt like a bitch and a half.
Tòumíng writhed against the kitchen counter, his arms the only things keeping him upright, screaming and gasping and occasionally sobbing when the pain hit particularly intense spikes.
Měi Nán had backed away to give him space, sitting against the opposite wall, watching with wide eyes and visible distress. Occasionally he'd mutter things like "this is insane" or "I'm dating a superhuman" or "why is this my life now."
Four hours crawled by with excruciating slowness.
Finally, mercifully, the pain began to fade. The nerve connections stabilized. The muscle spasms decreased in frequency and intensity. Tòumíng's breathing evened out from panicked gasps to something approaching normal.
He tried moving his toes.
They moved.
He tried bending his knees.
They bent.
Full sensation returned to his legs, proper sensation, not just the chaos of regeneration. He could feel the floor beneath him, could feel the fabric of his shorts, could feel everything that had been absent since the bullet destroyed his spine.
Tòumíng planted his hands on the floor, coiled his legs beneath him, and executed a perfect kip-up—springing from lying position directly to standing in one smooth motion.
He landed on his feet, steady and balanced, and stretched experimentally. His spine felt fine. Better than fine, actually. The regeneration had probably fixed some minor issues he'd been carrying for years.
"Mr. Savior is up and running," Měi Nán said with a grin, standing up as well. "Fully functional. Mobile. Impressive." His expression shifted to something more playful, teasing. "Now get on the bed. I gotta reward my prince charming properly, right?"
Tòumíng's brain short-circuited. "I—you—what—we just—there's a body—"
"Relax." Měi Nán laughed at his stuttering. "I'm just fucking with you. Your face right now is priceless."
A faint twitching sound from the living room made them both freeze.
Pàng Hǔ. Still barely alive, somehow, his massive body convulsing slightly in the blood pool.
The humor drained from Měi Nán's expression. "Right. We have a problem."
"Several problems," Tòumíng agreed.
"Escorting is technically illegal in most jurisdictions," Měi Nán said slowly, thinking out loud. "And gem theft from a mining company is super illegal. If we call the cops on Pàng Hǔ for assault and attempted murder..."
"They investigate the scene, find out who we are, start asking questions about income sources and how I afforded this apartment," Tòumíng finished. "And we both go to jail."
"Shit."
They stared at each other, then at Pàng Hǔ's twitching form.
"I have an idea," Tòumíng said. "There's a bridge two blocks down, thin road, nobody usually passes there. We carry him there, use his phone to call an ambulance, throw the phone in the river after, and never speak of this again."
Měi Nán considered this. "That's... probably our best option. Anonymous good Samaritan calls for help, medical emergency gets handled, we're not connected to it."
"Agreed?"
"Agreed."
Getting Pàng Hǔ's unconscious three-hundred-fifty-pound body out of the apartment turned out to be significantly harder than either of them anticipated.
They started by each grabbing an arm, trying to drag him. His dead weight barely moved an inch.
"How is he so heavy?!" Měi Nán gasped, straining with effort.
"He's literally three hundred fifty pounds of muscle!" Tòumíng repositioned, trying to get better leverage. "This is like moving a refrigerator!"
"A refrigerator that's bleeding everywhere!"
They switched tactics. Tòumíng grabbed under the armpits, Měi Nán took the legs, and they half-carried, half-dragged him toward the door. Every few feet they had to stop and rest, breathing hard, their arms burning from the effort.
"This is a workout," Měi Nán panted. "I should charge him for personal training sessions."
"Pretty sure he can't afford you anymore," Tòumíng grunted. "Given the whole destroyed-testicles situation."
"Fair point."
They made it out of the apartment, down the short hallway, and out the building entrance. The early morning street was empty, most people still asleep or at work, nobody around to witness two men dragging a bleeding giant toward the bridge.
The thin road Tòumíng had mentioned was really more of an alley that led to a small pedestrian bridge over a drainage canal. Overgrown vegetation on both sides, graffiti on the bridge railings, the kind of forgotten urban space that only homeless people and drug dealers used.
Perfect for their purposes.
They hauled Pàng Hǔ onto the bridge, laying him down as gently as their exhausted arms could manage. His breathing was still shallow, his face pale from blood loss, but he was alive enough for an ambulance to potentially save him.
Tòumíng fished through Pàng Hǔ's pockets, found his phone, and dialed emergency services.
"Hello, emergency services, what's your—"
"There's a man injured on the pedestrian bridge over the drainage canal on East Street. Severe trauma, blood loss, needs immediate medical attention." Tòumíng kept his voice level, professional. "Sending location now."
He ended the call before they could ask questions, sent a quick location pin, then turned toward the canal and threw the phone as hard as he could.
It arced through the air and splashed into the murky water below, sinking immediately.
"Evidence disposed," Tòumíng said.
"And we were never here," Měi Nán added.
They walked back to the apartment quickly but not frantically, just two normal people out for an early morning walk, nothing suspicious about them at all.
Back inside, they both collapsed onto the sofa at exactly the same time, their bodies giving out from exhaustion and stress and the sheer absurdity of the past few hours.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Just sat there, breathing, existing, processing everything that had happened since 6 AM when Měi Nán had shown up with a bucket of lard.
Finally, together, they took a deep breath.
In.
Out.
And let it all settle.