The sun rose in the east and set in the west. As the days slipped by, life had to go on. Lu Yan changed Jiang Ci's medicine every day. In the beginning, both of them had been incredibly awkward—his hands would shake as he held his breath, while she would silently chant in her mind, He is blind. But over time, they reached a point where their expressions didn't even flicker throughout the entire process. It wasn't that they had grown numb, but rather that they had simply gotten used to it. Perhaps because their bodies were forced so close together, their hearts had instead established a safe distance—neither too far nor too close. It was just enough for him to focus on applying the ointment, and just enough for her to close her eyes and pretend nothing was happening.
Of course, Lu Yan's cooking was still terrible. He brewed a pot of porridge every night before going to sleep, and despite only doing it a handful of times, he had managed to burn it three times. With a burnt layer stuck to the bottom of the pot, the porridge tasted of bitter charcoal, making him want to gag from just a single taste. Yet, Jiang Ci behaved as if she had no sense of taste, drinking several bowls every time. Eating porridge three times a day, and burnt porridge at that, made Lu Yan feel quite guilty. But he truly did not know how to cook. He didn't know how in this life, and he hadn't known in his past life either. In his past life, he at least had takeout, but in this life, there was no such thing. His storage bag only contained elixirs and formation plates. He had only bought his pots, bowls, and ladles after arriving in the Northern Border, consisting of a single clay pot, two bowls, and three pairs of chopsticks.
During this time, he went to pick up the two medicinal herbs he had ordered previously and bought some more wound medicine. Yao Wu's refinement was definitely better than his own; though Lu Yan was stubborn, he still possessed this level of self-awareness. His skill at repairing formation plates was top-tier, but as for refining elixirs, he was barely passable—just enough to refine Focus-Stabilizing Pills for himself and anti-inflammatory ointment for her, but nothing beyond that.
To make up for his guilt, Lu Yan brought back some delicious food for Jiang Ci every time he went down the mountain. Once it was roasted chestnuts, and another time it was candied hawthorns. This time, thankfully, Jiang Ci didn't chew on the bamboo skewer of the candied hawthorns. The way she ate was very serious. It wasn't elegant, but rather unfamiliar, as if she were executing a task she wasn't very skilled at. When she bit into a candied hawthorn, her eyes lit up slightly before quickly dimming back to normal. When Lu Yan asked if it tasted good, she replied with a single word: “Sweet.”
She mentioned that back in her sect, she usually filled her stomach with Inedia Pills, and after reaching the Golden Core Rank, she could sustain herself without food. Occasionally, at some elder's birthday banquet, there would be pastries made by culinary cultivators or stewed hot dishes, but she rarely ate anything otherwise. Listening to her story, Lu Yan thought to himself: Well, she's a total overachiever in cultivation. Back when he reached the Nascent Soul Rank, he had snuck off to a mortal town to eat roasted whole lamb. His master, holding a grudge because Lu Yan hadn't brought any back for him, had stubbornly whipped him twenty times using the sect rules, claiming he had disrupted market prices and extorted the mortals. He had paid, hadn't he? It was just that the shopkeeper couldn't break a spirit stone. Besides, the moment the shopkeeper saw he was a disciple of the Ten Thousand Formations Sect, he refused to take any money no matter what.
Thinking of this, he couldn't help but chuckle. But after his laughter faded, he returned to reality, where only darkness lay before his eyes. He wiped the smile from his face and slowly stood up. The porridge was ready. This batch was much better than the last. Lu Yan had figured that if he couldn't buy fresh meat, he could just buy cured meat instead. He had carried a leg of ham and two strips of cured pork back home, chopped up two green vegetables to toss in, and boiled them all together with the rice.
Cured pork had to be washed—something he didn't know. He had sliced it up and tossed it straight into the pot. The resulting porridge was so salty it burned his throat. When the salty aroma drifted out, he ladled a bowl to taste, only to spit it all out into the sink. He scooped out half of it, added more water and rice, and stewed it again. Two hours later, he brought a bowl of watery, undercooked porridge that was slightly salty and smelled of rotten vegetables to Jiang Ci. He sniffed it, not daring to taste it himself. He had been too careless; he shouldn't have raised that flag. It was still terrible, but at least it wasn't burnt. It was just a different style of terrible.
After recovering for a few days, Jiang Ci began to get out of bed and walk around daily. At first, Lu Yan disagreed, but she found lying down too uncomfortable. Her entire body felt stiff, and she had said, “I'm about to rot in this bed.” Left with no choice, he found two bamboo poles to use as crutches so she could move around the house. Supporting herself on the bamboo poles, she walked very slowly. It took her three minutes to walk from the bed to the door, and another three from the door to the stove. Every time she finished a lap, she would gasp for breath for a long while. Yet she persisted, never explaining why.
Jiang Ci walked to the table and sat down, ladling herself a bowl of porridge. She took a sip, her brow furrowing slightly, but she continued to drink. Lu Yan asked cautiously, “How is it? Is it edible?” He had been standing by the stove for a long time, not daring to walk over, completely lacking confidence in his culinary skills. Jiang Ci offered an honest evaluation: “Well... it's even worse than yesterday.”
Lu Yan's mouth twitched. Hearing the constant sipping sound, he rubbed his temples. “If it's bad, you don't have to force yourself to drink it.” Jiang Ci felt it was fine. Honestly, what she ate didn't matter to her. If it weren't for the fact that she would die without food, she truly found eating to be a hassle. Eating Inedia Pills in the past was convenient, but now she couldn't afford them and had to make do with this. She didn't say it out loud, but Lu Yan could tell.
After finishing one bowl, she ladled another. For the first time, Lu Yan felt that living here might not be a good idea, at least because feeding Jiang Ci was a real problem. He hesitated for a moment before saying, “Once you're a bit better, we'll move somewhere else.” He wanted to move down to the city area. When he lived here alone, anything went. It was quiet, safe, and highly concealed. But now that there were two of them, he couldn't take care of everything by himself. He didn't know how to cook, and Jiang Ci was too badly injured to cook—though he guessed she probably didn't know how to cook either. Moreover, he couldn't buy fresh ingredients and had to rely on cured goods. Sometimes, when he went out to buy medicine, he couldn't manage to change her dressings twice a day, and she couldn't reach the wounds on her back to change them herself.
Lu Yan sighed. Troubles kept piling up, and not a single thing was going smoothly. Of the medicinal herbs he had managed to buy back with great difficulty, he had only successfully refined one batch out of three. Even that batch fell short, yielding only four pills instead of the expected five. He leaned back against his chair and rubbed his brow, remaining silent. He hadn't decided what to do next, but moving down the mountain would have to come first.
Hearing him mention moving, Jiang Ci said nothing, nor did she ask where they were going. In any case, she knew he wouldn't harm her. She was only slightly worried—was he moving again because of her? She lowered her head and gave a quiet “Oh,” wondering in her heart just how much he owed her, and whether her stay here would be enough to pay it off. Her cultivation, which had been at the third level of Body Tempering, was on the verge of dropping to the second level. Would she even be able to cultivate in the future? She didn't know. Supporting herself on the bamboo poles, she wandered from one end of the room to the other. After completing a lap, she sat back down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, silently worrying.
When will I get better? Lu Yan didn't say these words aloud, but she said them for him in her heart.
In the Central Continent, Bai Cen kicked a table over.
The elixir furnace had toppled, its lid rolling far away. The residual liquid inside spilled all over the floor, sizzling as it gave off white smoke, filling the air with a bitter, burnt stench. The room was in complete disarray. Broken porcelain shards, herbal dregs, and overturned elixir bottles littered the floor, but he stepped right over them as if he felt nothing.
“Ah! Damn that Qingwei! How dare he? How dare he? That was Zixiao's order! He personally commanded that Jiang Ci be exiled to the Northern Border! How dare someone from the Azure Cloud Sword Sect offer a bounty to bring her back!” He panted heavily, his eyes sunken and his hair as messy as dried grass. Refining elixirs was driving him mad. He couldn't refine the sword pill, he couldn't obtain her soul, and now Qingwei had interfered, putting out a bounty to bring Jiang Ci back to the Central Continent. He glared at the overturned table on the floor, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists.
The beautiful figure in red stood to the side, watching his loss of composure without expression. Though she sneered in her heart, her face remained gentle and soft.
“Elder Bai, don't be so anxious. Isn't this a good thing? It saves us the trouble of looking for her ourselves. As long as someone captures Jiang Ci, can't we just intercept them on the way?” Su Li spoke unhurriedly, her voice soft and sweet, as if she were merely commenting on the pleasant weather.
Bai Cen's expression softened slightly, but he was still indignant. He replied sarcastically, “That certainly works out well for you. Saves you the effort, yet you still get forty percent of the elixirs for nothing.”
Suppressing her anger, Su Li maintained her polite facade. “How can you say that, Elder Bai? I have been doing my absolute best to track her down. It wasn't easy to find out that she went from Beizhou City to Black Mountain Fort. How can you speak of me this way?”
Hearing the words “Black Mountain Fort,” the gloom on Bai Cen's face finally dissipated a little. He stared at Su Li and said in a half-warning tone, “Act faster. Without her soul, neither of us will get these elixirs.”
Su Li replied with a beaming “Understood” and turned to walk out the door. The moment the door closed, her face turned cold—expressionless and devoid of warmth, like a block of ice. The fog had cleared at some point, and the sunlight fell upon her, yet it offered no warmth.
“Damned fool,” she whispered, her voice so soft that only the bird on her shoulder could hear. Back in the Beast Taming Sect, anyone who dared speak to her like that would have long since been chopped up and fed to the dogs. She glanced at the vermilion little bird on her shoulder. The bird tilted its head to look at her, its beady black eyes reflecting her face. She did not smile, and the bird did not chirp.
She endured it. Now was not the time to fall out with him. Bai Cen was still useful, the medicine had not yet been obtained, and the sword pill was not yet complete. Taking a deep breath, she walked quickly toward the Beast Taming Sect. The sunlight cast her shadow long and thin, like a needle piercing the ground. There was no one on the road, so she no longer had to maintain her smile. She hated Bai Cen, but she hated herself even more for having to smile and tolerate him. She wouldn't settle this debt with Bai Cen alone; one day, she would settle it with everyone.
She didn't want just forty percent of that sword pill; she wanted it all. There was no rush; she could afford to wait. Bai Cen was anxious, but she was not. Once Bai Cen paved the way, once the sword pill was refined, and once she obtained what she wanted... it was still uncertain who would end up being whose dog. She looked up at the sky, which was a dusty blue. A few birds flew overhead, but none of them were hers. Retracting her gaze, she quickened her pace. The fog had cleared, and the road ahead was visible. But the path she walked had never been shrouded in fog.
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