Chord Assassination Technique time. Lan Zhan throws herself into the air once more, this time flipping up from a handspring to spare her leg. Bow strings shoot from Lan Zhan's fingertips to slice around the Xuanwu's neck.

The Xuanwu makes a VERY LOUD ANGRY NOISE that echoes weirdly but unpleasantly in its enclosed butt area. 

She yanks the rope tight, twirling through the air. 

The creature yanks its head free to deal with this new and alarming threat. 

Wei Ying desperately wants to chase the thing out and prevent it from going after Lan Zhan but they had a plan and if they both die because Wei Ying couldn't follow the plan then Lan Zhan is going to be quite reasonably furious with her. Stab stab stab. 

She lands on its shell with one foot. Holding the injured leg up hurts just as much as stepping on it would, but this way she keeps her balance.

Lan Zhan pulls the string tighter, yanking it with her whole weight.

The creature flails and lunges and lurches, mostly going after Lan Zhan but occasionally snapping at Wei Ying. 

If Wei Ying doesn't find a vital turtle-organ soon, they're probably both going to die. Lan Zhan can't do much more than this, but she needs to try harder. Even as her wounds bleed. Even as dodging becomes increasingly difficult. She uses Chord Assassination technique again: cuts the string around the Xuanwu's throat twice and then three times, looping her noose ever-tighter. 

Whether Wei Ying ever found a vital organ, it's unlikely that the two of them will ever know. The result of her work was a slippery bloody mess, and she would be hard-pressed, under the circumstances, to identify any individually-wrapped baggies of the horrid viscous goo that spills forth from the desperate hacking wounds her stolen blade makes in the Xuanwu's flesh.

But between Wei Ying's efforts and Lan Zhan's, the thing loses a lot of blood, and some stuff that probably isn't just blood mixed in with it. All of it smells horrible, but eventually the Xuanwu loses the strength to fight back and sort of collapses into a partially-eviscerated lump of horror.

A few dramatic seconds after the dying beast splashes dramatically back into the water, Wei Ying breaks the surface, gasping. She is not, objectively speaking, as badly injured as Lan Zhan is; but the few slices in her skin that the Xuanwu's teeth inflicted have been marinating in its blood and possibly worse things for much too long. She shivers as she treads her way to shore, Wen blade forgotten and left to fall to the bottom of the pond. 

"Wei Ying!" Lan Zhan drops the rope from bloody hands and staggers towards her, eyes wide.

"I'm fine," she coughs, you know, like a liar. "Are you okay?"

"Wei Ying." She takes her by the shoulders, touches a hand to her forehead. Inhales sharply.

"It's just a scratch. Okay, a couple of scratches." And a fever, apparently. "What about you? Is your leg worse? What about your arm?"

Lan Zhan doesn't care. She pulls Wei Ying over to the cave wall near where they made camp. They collapse together. "Do you have medicine left?"

Slow headshake. Shiver. "Would've left it with you if I did...it'd be no good now if I had. Nasty turtle slime..."

She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine, Lan Zhan is going to fix this. She closes her eyes and touches two fingers to her temple, then presses the same two fingers gently to Wei Ying's rapid pulse. Breathes deeply and centers herself.

Spiritual energy flows between them in a beam of cold blue light.

"Nn, you should...y're hurt..."

"Quiet." It's true that Lan Zhan's golden core is under high demand. She has wounds to heal, blood to regenerate, a leg to rescue from permanent damage, chill to avoid, starvation to prevent. Those are all lesser priorities to her than taking care of Wei Ying. Wei Ying is hurt and Lan Zhan knows the way to heal and cleanse her, and so she will. It is really quite simple.

Cold reaches her first, now that she is no longer using spiritual energy to stave off the unhealthy chill of the cave and its freezing waters. That's fine. Lan Zhan has always been good with cold

She shivers and bleeds and kisses Wei Ying's forehead as she works.

Wei Ying tilts her face up and makes a quiet pleading noise when Lan Zhan kisses her forehead.

"Concentrate," she whispers, and kisses her.

"'Ll try," she whispers. 

It's hard. The fever muddies her mind, and Lan Zhan is the only thing she can easily focus on, where the other girl's skin brushes against hers. 

Lan Zhan's own vision gets increasingly fuzzy. She squeezes Wei Ying's hand with her available one until its fingers droop and go limp. It's fine. As long as she pours everything into healing Wei Ying, she'll be fine.

She starts to hum.

"Pretty," she murmurs, her hand curling around Lan Zhan's as her eyes flutter shut. 

Weak handsqueeze. Stay. I'll sing more if you stay.