Chapter 10: He Is Hers

What entered his eyes was… a somewhat familiar roof.

Shen Ci opened his eyes. Before him was that crude house on Shen Cang Mountain with which he was all too familiar.

Everything around was very quiet. 

There was no sense of danger.

This indicated that the crisis had already been lifted. 

They had successfully retreated within the barrier of Shen Cang Mountain.

It seemed that after he fell unconscious it was Sang Zhi who had brought him back.

Shen Ci slightly circulated his mental method and examined his own body internally.

The situation was not good, yet it had not fallen into a dead end either.

Earlier, in order to forcibly display movement techniques and escape the danger, he had poured pure spiritual energy that had not been completely refined into both legs, causing fine cracks to appear in several main meridians of his lower body.

And his back had hard-resisted a strike from that late-stage Foundation Establishment turbid beast. 

Although the golden light of the dharma form had offset most of the power, the residual waves had still shaken and injured his lungs and organs.

However, to the former Flawless Dao Son these injuries were nothing more than insignificant ripples in the long years of cultivation.

Just as he prepared to regulate his breath, a delicate face suddenly entered his field of vision.

“You’re awake?”

Sang Zhi held a pottery bowl in her hands and stood by the bedside.

Her hair was somewhat disheveled. 

The plain clothes she usually loved to wear were stained with quite a bit of earth, making her look rather wretched.

“Your injuries are very severe, especially the meridians of both legs, and also the bruises on your back. I already went to the deacon’s office and exchanged for medicinal herbs for treating wounds…”

Sang Zhi placed the pottery bowl upon the wooden table to the side and quickly walked to the front of the bed.

Shen Ci nodded slightly and said nothing more.

He supported himself with one hand upon the edge of the wooden plank bed and prepared to rise.

“What are you doing!”

Sang Zhi’s voice suddenly rose high.

She immediately stretched out both hands, one left and one right, to support Shen Ci’s shoulders and carefully pushed him backward.

Only when Shen Ci’s back steadily rested against the wall did she let out a breath of relief.

“Your meridians are damaged. You must not casually move about.” 

Sang Zhi softly scolded. 

“If you injure the foundation, how will you go to the White Jade Capital in the future?”

Looking at the young girl before him who cared for him in every possible way, Shen Ci smiled slightly and spoke in a gentle tone.

“It’s fine. I’m not going to die yet. I’m not as fragile as you imagine.”

Hearing these words, Sang Zhi pressed her lips together and lowered her head without speaking.

White mist rose from the medicinal soup. A brief silence.

After a while Sang Zhi seemed to have made some kind of decision and raised her head once more.

She moved a wooden stool over, sat down by the bedside, and stared straight at Shen Ci.

“Shen Ci.” She softly called.

“Mm.”

“Inside hell… why were you able to run so fast?” Sang Zhi probed as she opened her mouth. 

“That turbid beast was so powerful that even I found it difficult to escape.”

“You had only just drawn qi into your body. How… did you manage to carry me and dodge those attacks?”

She knew this question had to be asked.

An outer-sect disciple of the first layer of Qi Refining had displayed an escape ability comparable to that of a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

If she did not ask, it would instead make her, as the “fated one,” appear insufficiently concerned about him, and might even arouse Shen Ci’s vigilance.

Shen Ci leaned against the wall, his expression without the slightest ripple.

He had long anticipated that Sang Zhi would ask this.

“I don’t know either.” 

Shen Ci’s tone was frank. 

“At that time I saw that you were heavily injured, and there was a monster pursuing us within the gray fog. My mind was a complete blank. I only knew that I had to take you away from that place.”

He paused for a moment and continued, “Perhaps it was that at the critical moment between life and death a person instinctively overdrafted their qi and blood. I only knew to keep running forward. As for how I dodged, when I think back now I have no impression at all.”

This was a vague and unclear answer.

Mortals erupting with potential at the border of life and death and forcibly overdrafting their life force to escape.

Although rare, it was not without precedent in the cultivation world.

Moreover he indeed currently had damaged meridians in both legs, which precisely corroborated the claim of “overdraft.”

Sang Zhi stared into Shen Ci’s eyes yet could find no flaw whatsoever.

Yet she was clearly not ready to give up.

The young girl slightly rose from the wooden stool and leaned her body forward.

The distance between the two instantly closed.

Sang Zhi stretched out a hand and tightly grasped the palm Shen Ci had placed by his side.

“Shen Ci, you… are you hiding something from me?”

She gazed at him without blinking, her voice gentle, her appearance pitiful and delicate.

“The Mountain Lord bestowed the red string and made us share life and death.”

“In this world we are each other’s only reliance.”

“Therefore… between us there cannot be secrets.”

Shen Ci lowered his eyelids and glanced at their clasped hands.

Then he raised his head to meet Sang Zhi’s gaze and calmly nodded.

“Mm.” Shen Ci softly responded, “I truly cannot remember the matters of the past.”

“If later I recall anything, I will certainly tell you at the first moment.”

Having obtained this promise, Sang Zhi finally satisfiedly released her hand.

“You rest first. The medicine is about to cool. I’ll bring it to you.”

She turned around and walked toward the wooden table.

Looking at the busy back of the young girl, Shen Ci narrowed his eyes slightly.

There cannot be secrets?

Shen Ci found it somewhat amusing.

Within the gray fog Sang Zhi had briefly released a strand of divine sense.

Qi-Refining cultivators fundamentally could not condense divine sense. 

That was a hallmark only Foundation Establishment cultivators possessed.

Not to mention that pure true essence within her body that, although suppressed, had leaked a trace at the critical moment of life and death…

That should not be something the Plain Yin Jade Pivot Art of Shen Cang Mountain could cultivate.

Sang Zhi was a genuine Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Moreover the grade of the technique she cultivated was absolutely not low.

A person with such cultivation willingly disguised herself as a Qi-Refining farm girl.

Lurking upon this remote Shen Cang Mountain, every day pretending to be innocent and pure as she dealt with him.

What was she after?

She spoke of fated ones not being allowed secrets, yet she herself hid the greatest secret tightly and solidly.

However, Shen Ci did not point any of this out.

Since she was willing to act, then let her act.

As long as she had not yet displayed killing intent, this identity of “fated one” could serve as an excellent layer of cover for him upon Shen Cang Mountain.

Shen Ci withdrew his thoughts and slowly closed his eyes.

He banished distracting thoughts and began to circulate the Purple Yang Profound Record within his body.

As the technique circulated, the pure spiritual energy drifting in the surroundings began to gather toward him, seeping in through the pores and slowly repairing the damaged meridians and the bruised organs.

The flight within the gray fog had thoroughly made Shen Ci recognize the current situation.

This era was not peaceful.

That so-called hell, as well as those turbid beasts that shared the same origin as the mutated cultivators of his previous life yet were completely different.

All proclaimed that although the single sword he had delivered years ago had severed the connection between the divine corpse and the Nine Provinces, the residual waves left behind were still influencing this world in some manner unknown to him.

He had to recover his cultivation as quickly as possible.

Yet the greatest predicament he faced was that the Formless Sword Scripture and Qingming Dao Canon of his previous life completely could not absorb this pure innate spiritual energy of the present.

Without the corpse miasma of the extraterritorial divine corpse as a carrier, those supreme inheritances were like a furnace that had lost its fuel—possessing only the framework yet unable to operate.

However, Shen Ci was not panicked.

In his previous life he had been the Flawless Dao Son who appeared only once in ten thousand years.

His dao heart had been tempered step by step, stabilized amid the grief of slaying his master, and polished to great completion upon the dead-end path of alone reversing and attacking the Heavenly Dao.

Since the old dao methods were not suited to the new era.

Then he would change them.

The laws had changed, so he would re-deduce the laws.

The spiritual energy had changed, so he would rebuild the meridians.

As long as the core true meanings of these two dao methods remained, he completely possessed the ability, relying upon the foundation and vision of ten thousand years in his previous life, to transform them into new inheritances adapted to pure spiritual energy.

He would not only change them, but would also make these two dao methods, under the driving of pure spiritual energy, erupt with power that surpassed his previous life.

Yet the premise of all this was that he must first thoroughly understand this vast spiritual energy of the new era.

Although the Purple Yang Profound Record was simple, emphasizing only absorption and not refinement, treating the body as a wooden bucket for holding water.

Yet as a foundation for familiarizing himself with the spiritual energy of the new era it was most suitable.

Shen Ci’s thoughts turned. He guided that pure spiritual energy within his body to scour the damaged meridians again and again.

Just as Shen Ci concentrated on regulating his breath.

Sang Zhi, sitting by the table, was gently stirring the medicinal soup in the bowl with a wooden spoon.

Her movements were very light, yet her gaze gradually grew deep and profound.

Sang Zhi slightly turned her head. Her peripheral vision fell upon Shen Ci who was cultivating with closed eyes.

She recalled the scene within the gray fog of being horizontally carried in Shen Ci’s arms as they fled for their lives among the ancient trees.

In that instant her dao heart that had long been extremely cold and ruthless had actually… stirred with a trace of palpitation.

Although she was unwilling to admit it, she had indeed detected it.

Sang Zhi drew a deep breath. The fingers gripping the wooden spoon continually tightened.

True… shameful, ridiculous…

She absolutely would not allow herself to give rise to this kind of soft emotion toward a prey.

That was something she could not accept.

However, she also absolutely would not allow any accident to befall Shen Ci.

Shen Ci was hers.

From the moment the master set down the cause and effect, from the moment the red string was tied upon their wrists.

Shen Ci’s destiny, fortune, fruit of the dao, and even this physical shell had already been stamped with her brand.

He was the stepping stone the sect had bestowed upon her, the sacrificial offering she must devour in the future to step upon the supreme Great Dao.

Since he was her possession.

Then she would absolutely not allow him to be damaged by anyone or any monster.

That damned turbid beast in the gray fog had actually dared to act against her sacrificial offering and had actually dared to injure Shen Ci.

If not for the need to conceal her strength, she would absolutely have pulled out the tendons and peeled the skin of that turbid beast, grinding even its divine soul into dust and scattering the ashes.

Aside from herself.

No one had the qualification to touch a single hair upon Shen Ci’s head.

Shen Ci’s life could only be taken by her.

Shen Ci’s blood could only be drunk by her.

This person Shen Ci, from the inside out, from soul to flesh and blood, had long ago been stamped with the brand that belonged solely to her, Sang Zhi.

Before that day arrived she would play well the role of an infatuated and gentle fated one.

She would carefully care for him, assist him in cultivation, and with the most perfect disguise weave a net.

Until… the day he willingly offered up everything.

Thinking of this, the gloom in the depths of Sang Zhi’s eyes completely dispersed.

“Shen Ci.”

She walked to the bedside, scooped up a spoonful of medicinal soup with the spoon, and blew upon it by her lips.

“The medicine is no longer hot. Drink the medicine.”

Shen Ci opened his eyes and stopped the circulation of the Purple Yang Profound Record.

He looked at the clean smile of the young girl before him and calmly accepted the other’s care.

“Many thanks.” Shen Ci said gently.

“Between you and me, what is there to thank.” Sang Zhi’s brows and eyes curved. Her smile grew even more brilliant.