Rest

Lu Yan was exhausted.

The day had been far too chaotic, one thing happening after another as if someone were deliberately tormenting him. Waking up from a nightmare, going out to gather herbs, finding her in the ruined temple, carrying her home, feeding her medicine, cutting her clothes, cleaning her wounds, applying ointment, and bandaging her. His cultivation was only at the second level of Qi Condensation; compared to an ordinary person, he only knew a couple of basic spells to control fire and repel water. He wasn't a man of steel; he got tired too.

Sitting on the stool waiting for the porridge, the exhaustion washed over him like a tide, surging up in waves and swallowing him whole. He wanted to hold out a little longer, wait for the porridge to finish, scoop a bowl, and feed her when she woke up. But his eyelids were too heavy to keep open. His head nodded lower and lower until his chin rested against his chest, and he drifted off into nothingness.

Unfortunately, even a brief nap offered him no peace.

“Pursue him! He can't run! The Ten Thousand Formations Compass is in his hands!”

“Kill him! His Life Formation Plate is shattered! Kill him now!”

“Haa... haa... haa—”

Lu Yan could no longer see his surroundings clearly. His vision was blurring, as if through a sheet of frosted glass. His spiritual energy was completely drained, his dantian empty like a dried-up well. He had to rely on sheer physical strength to run, his legs feeling like lead, every step agonizingly heavy. His lungs burned as if stuffed with crushed glass, and every breath brought the taste of blood.

Behind him, countless pursuers. Footsteps, war cries, and the booming explosions of spiritual energy merged into a deafening tide rushing toward him.

“The Boundary Cliff is ahead! He has nowhere left to run!”

“I see him! Over here!”

Lu Yan grit his teeth, squeezing out his last drop of strength to run forward. Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet vanished. He skidded to a halt just in time. Loose gravel tumbled over the edge, plunging into a bottomless darkness that swallowed even the echo of their fall.

The Boundary Cliff. The most treacherous abyss at the border of the Central Continent and the Northern Border. Spiritual energy was suppressed here, and flight was impossible. If you fell, you never came back up alive.

Behind him, his pursuers had already closed in. Glinting blades, flashing swords, and flying talismans filled the sky as a dense crowd blocked every avenue of retreat. He turned around to face them. He could no longer make out their faces, only their eyes—greedy, ecstatic, and sickening.

“Hand over the Ten Thousand Formations Compass, and we'll spare your life!” the leader shouted arrogantly.

Lu Yan laughed. It wasn't a bitter laugh, but a mocking sneer. It was a look that clearly said they weren't worthy. He reached into his robes and pulled out the Ten Thousand Formations Compass—the final legacy of the Formation Sect, which the old man had thrust into his hands with his dying breath. He balanced it in his palm, letting it sway.

“You want this?”

Then, he tossed it over the edge. The Ten Thousand Formations Compass traced an arc through the air before plunging into the abyss, vanishing without a sound.

“You don't deserve it.”

The leader's face turned green with rage. The crowd behind him erupted into chaos. A few tried to charge forward, but the leader shoved them back.

“After him! Go down and search! The Boundary Cliff is treacherous, but there has to be a way down!”

“But My Lord, the cliff suppresses spiritual energy and forbids flight—”

“Then search slowly! Scour it inch by inch!”

Lu Yan didn't stay to listen. He turned around to face the bottomless darkness, spread his arms, and leaped.

A violent weightlessness gripped his heart, as if an invisible hand had reached into his chest and squeezed hard. The wind roared past his ears, stinging his face. He fell, and fell, and fell—for how long? A second? A lifetime? He didn't know.

He only knew he wasn't dead yet.

Lu Yan jolted awake, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it would leap out of his throat. He gasped for air, drenched in cold sweat, a chill running down his back. He lifted his head and sniffed the air.

A faint burnt smell.

The porridge was burning.

Lu Yan scrambled to his feet and frantically lifted the pot lid. Steam puffed into his face, carrying an even stronger burnt smell. He stirred it with a spoon; a layer had scorched at the bottom, the spoon scraping against the clay with a harsh, grating sound. Fortunately, the top layer was fine, and the burnt flavor hadn't seeped through yet.

He scooped a bowl, blew on it to cool it down, and took a sip.

He almost gagged.

The long-stored spiritual rice emitted a strong musty odor, like clothes left in a chest for years. The roots of the Meridian-Connecting Orchid hadn't cooked through, tasting sour and astringent like raw tree bark. Although the pills had dissolved, the medicinal taste was overwhelming, leaving his tongue numb with bitterness. On top of that, a bitter, scorched aftertaste lingered in his mouth, as if someone had plastered a layer of burnt crust to his tongue.

Lu Yan's entire face puckered, his features twisting out of shape. He repeated to himself in his mind that there was medicine in here and it was very, very expensive. Steeling himself, he opened his throat, tilted his head back, and forced the mouthful of 'medicine'—uh, porridge—down.

The bitter taste swirled in his mouth, refusing to leave. He gulped down two mouthfuls of water to barely wash it down. He stared at the pot, hesitating. Throw it out? He couldn't bring himself to. The spiritual rice, the Meridian-Connecting Orchid, the Spirit-Gathering Pills—every single ingredient cost money. Even if the Meridian-Connecting Orchid had been ruined by water and lost seventy percent of its efficacy, it was still a Meridian-Connecting Orchid.

“...Maybe I should add some sugar,” he muttered to himself. He rummaged through the cupboard, but the sugar jar was empty. He had used the last of it and forgotten to buy more.

“...Forget it.”

He forced himself to take two more gulps but simply couldn't stomach any more. He set the bowl on the stove, deciding to finish it later.

He shook his head to clear his mind. There was no sound from the bed; she was still asleep. The effects of the Focus-Stabilizing Pill hadn't fully dissipated, and his spiritual sea was still suspended in that layer of viscous, transparent substance, barely keeping it from shattering. He decided to cultivate; he couldn't let this pill go to waste.

He closed his eyes, sinking his consciousness into his spiritual sea.

His spiritual sea was like a ceramic plate, except it had been shattered to pieces. Fragments of all sizes were scattered across the deep darkness, some as large as fingernails, others like grains of sand. The largest piece was about a quarter of the plate's original size, its sharp edges floating in the deepest depths, emitting a faint glow.

If he could refine that piece, he would surely break through to Foundation Establishment, perhaps even Golden Core. He looked down at his weak soul, which resembled an oil lamp on the verge of going out, its flame flickering unsteadily. Forget it. That large piece was not something he could touch right now. He withdrew his gaze and locked onto a smaller fragment—fingernail-sized with sharp edges, like a shard of broken glass.

His soul slowly reached out, like a hand extending into the darkness to gently grasp the edge of the shard. The fragment struggled like a living thing, resisting his touch. Gritting his teeth, he wrapped his soul around it, tightening his grip bit by bit.

“Argh—”

A tearing pain exploded from the depths of his spiritual sea, as if someone were twisting a knife inside his brain. This wasn't standard cultivation; this was refining his own soul. Every inch of the fragment that integrated felt like piecing shattered bones back together—no anesthesia, no buffer, just raw, brutal force. Cold sweat poured down his forehead, dripping onto the back of his hand, but he couldn't spare the effort to wipe it.

“Refine!”

He grit his teeth, his jaw clenched hard as stone. The fragment began to slowly liquefy, its edges softening and rounding, melting bit by bit like ice over a fire. The melted portion flowed along his soul into his spiritual sea, like warm water poured onto parched earth. It was painful, but in the wake of the agony came a strange, indescribable sense of fullness.

The fragment finally liquefied completely, integrating into his soul. His spiritual sea became a tiny bit more whole—just a fraction, like finding a small shard of a broken plate and gluing it back into place.

He gasped heavily, looking as if he had just been pulled from a river. He was drenched, his clothes clinging to his skin in a sticky mess. But his aura had changed. He was now at the fourth level of Qi Condensation. The grayish-white film over his eyes had thinned slightly. It was only a fraction, but he felt it. It was like a long-neglected sheet of frosted glass being wiped by a finger, allowing a single ray of light to pierce through.

“What a waste. I bathed for nothing,” he muttered, frowning helplessly at his soaked clothes. He had just washed up, and now he had to do it all over again.

He pushed himself up by his knees, his legs slightly weak, and leaned against the wall for a moment. Once he steadied himself, he unbuttoned his collar, preparing to rinse off again. As he turned, he tilted his head toward the bed.

On the bed, Jiang Ci's finger twitched. He didn't see it. He had already turned and walked out the door.

The stove fire was still lit. The porridge was still warm. She was awake.