Luo Qingci opened her eyes groggily.
Consciousness returned slowly, like something had stirred her brain, mixing memory and reality into a messy porridge.
The first thing that came into view was the dense canopy of trees.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, falling on her face, a little harsh.
She squinted instinctively, raising a hand to shield her eyes, but stopped halfway.
Her stomach hurt.
She touched it with her hand.
The moment her fingers made contact with her abdomen, the pain flared up like it had been set on fire, nearly making her cry out.
It hurt even more.
She lifted her head slightly and looked down at her belly—her white disciple robe was gone.
Instead, she was wrapped in a blue-gray outer robe that clearly wasn’t hers.
Though the clothes had been changed, she could tell that her Primordial Yin remained intact.
Through the gap in the fabric, she could see a large patch of bruising on her waist and abdomen, a deep bluish-purple that spread from her left ribs all the way to the right side, the color as dark as an overripe plum.
Had those snakes hit her with their tails?
She frowned, trying to remember.
Her memories were a jumble.
She only recalled running through a narrow passage, bursting out of a cave mouth, and then… diving into a river?
No, it was more like falling into one.
And after that?
She couldn’t remember.
The last image she had was of the emerald-green snake body glinting in the sunlight, the triangular head raised high, a blood-red forked tongue growing infinitely larger in her vision.
Then everything went black.
And then… now.
She was lying on a riverbank somewhere, covered in someone else’s clothes, with a mysterious bruise on her stomach.
And… wasn’t she supposed to have died already?
She was certain she had been poisoned.
That uncomfortable sensation rising from the depths of her dantian could not have been an illusion.
The poison of a peak Qi Refinement Azure Scale Python left almost no chance of survival for cultivators below Foundation Establishment.
Yet she was alive.
Who had saved her?
Luo Qingci slowly turned her head to survey her surroundings.
This was an open area by a riverbank.
To her left was a river about ten meters wide, with fallen leaves and dead branches floating on its surface.
To her right was a forest, trees of varying heights, the ground covered in thick layers of rotting leaves and weeds.
Next to where she lay was a campfire still smoking.
The firewood had mostly burned down, and gray-white ashes drifted gently in the wind.
“Man!”
A loud, forceful shout came from not far away, echoing through the open woods, startling a few unknown birds from the treetops.
Luo Qingci turned her head sharply.
About sixty meters away, in a clearing among the trees, a young man in a blue-gray robe stood before a large tree.
He appeared to be around twenty years old, with a delicate face and a lazy, easygoing look in his eyes.
His clothes were the most common Wandering Cultivator attire, the cuffs and collar washed until they were nearly white, but clean—clearly well-worn.
At that moment, he was holding his breath and focusing, his right arm bent at the elbow, his entire body drawn back like a full bow.
“Meteor Splitting Sky Elbow!”
With a loud shout, his figure vanished from where he stood.
Not that he had truly disappeared—his speed was such that Luo Qingci’s eyes could barely track him.
In the next instant, he reappeared beside the big tree, his right elbow slamming hard into the trunk.
“Man!”
Crack—
A tree that would take three men to wrap their arms around snapped cleanly in two.
The point where the elbow struck split apart.
The upper half of the trunk, still bearing all its branches and leaves, shot into the air, arcing low and flat toward the river before crashing into the water far away, sending up a huge splash of muddy water.
Luo Qingci lay there, her gaze slowly shifting from the flying tree trunk back to the young man.
The corner of her mouth twitched.
Meteor Splitting Sky Elbow?
What the hell was that?
She had never heard of such a technique.
In her four years at the Azure Cloud Sect, she had seen countless cultivation methods and martial skills, but this “Meteor Splitting Sky Elbow”… was it some obscure technique dug up from some corner of the world?
And with such an imposing name, why was there no special effect?
Logically speaking, a technique strong enough to break a three-arm-span tree with one strike would be at least a Yellow-grade upper-tier martial skill.
When executed, it should have been accompanied by outward spiritual energy, surging qi, flashing spiritual light—a grand display.
But this man’s technique had none of that.
No spiritual energy fluctuation, no light or shadow effects, no outward qi.
Not even the sensation of a “rushing wind” that ordinary cultivators produced when using martial skills.
It was almost like… a mortal’s martial arts.
No, even mortal martial arts at least produced the sound of tendons and bones straining.
This man’s technique was completely silent except for the final “crack” of the tree trunk snapping.
Wasn’t this just pure brute strength?
Luo Qingci watched as the young man slowly withdrew his elbow, straightened up, and brushed the dust off his hands.
He looked with satisfaction at the half stump still standing, the corners of his mouth even curling up slightly with a hint of pride.
She replayed the scene in her mind.
A three-arm-span thick tree, broken with one elbow strike.
No spiritual energy fluctuation.
‘These people are the craftiest.
Obviously strong as hell, but they pretend it’s some kind of technique.’
Luo Qingci averted her gaze and looked up at the treetops, feeling like she still wasn’t fully awake.
“Man!”
Why did he shout “Man” every time he struck?
Before she could figure it out, the young man noticed her and started walking toward her.
His pace was neither fast nor slow, the hem of his blue-gray robe fluttering lightly in the wind.
When he was about three meters away, he stopped and looked down at her.
Luo Qingci looked back at him.
Their eyes met.
The air was silent for a moment.
“You’re awake.”
he said.
His voice was neither loud nor soft, carrying a lazy, easygoing tone, as if stating something perfectly ordinary.
Luo Qingci didn’t answer immediately.
She quickly assessed the situation in her mind—
First, she was injured.
The bruise on her abdomen was no minor wound; it would need at least a few days to recover.
But the poison in her system was completely gone.
Second, she wasn’t sure who this man was, but at least one thing was certain—he had saved her.
Regardless, she was still alive, lying here instead of sinking to the bottom of the river to be eaten by fish.
Third, his cultivation level—she sensed it: peak Qi Refinement, the same as hers.
“I changed your clothes,” Xiao Han said, noticing her gaze linger on his outer robe.
He spoke up voluntarily.
“It was an emergency. You were soaked through. If I hadn’t changed them, you would have caught a chill from the cold.”
He pointed to a tree not far away.
Luo Qingci followed his gesture—her white disciple robe hung on a branch, swaying slowly in the wind, already half dry.
She turned back to look at Xiao Han.
“That bruise on your waist…”
Xiao Han continued, his tone carrying a subtle hint of something.
“You got hit by something. That’s how it was when I found you.”
She glanced at Xiao Han again.
Xiao Han looked back at her, his expression frank, but a little too frank.
Then Xiao Han said something that struck her as very subtle—
“Miss, rest assured. Since I saved you from fire and water, I won’t harm you.”
He paused.
“As for how you ended up in fire and water… I have a feeling you probably know… right?”
Luo Qingci was silent for a moment.
She pieced together the whole chain of events in her mind—poisoned, jumped into the river, rescued, the bruise on her waist, the flying tree trunk, and the man’s subtle guilty expression.
She came to a conclusion.
“Mm,” she said.
“I was poisoned by an Azure Scale Python, then one of those bastards hit me in the stomach with its tail, and I fell into the river.”
Xiao Han turned around to add firewood, his back to her.
“Oh, that Azure Scale Python is so wicked,”
he said, his tone still flat.
“Good thing I gave you a Detoxification Pill.”
Luo Qingci watched his back.
She was certain she didn’t know this man.
She searched through every face in her memory, but none matched the silhouette before her.
But he had saved her.
Changed her clothes, given her a Detoxification Pill, built a fire, covered her with his outer robe.
She didn’t know who he was or why he had saved her.
But overall—he was a lifesaver, and he hadn’t taken advantage of her while she was unconscious.
A true gentleman.
Luo Qingci lowered her head, then raised it again, looking at the back of the man who was boiling water.
Her voice a little hoarse, she said, “Thank you for saving my life.”
Xiao Han’s hand paused for a moment, then he continued adding wood to the fire.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
“Just lie down for now. I’ll call you when the water’s ready.”
Luo Qingci leaned against a stone behind her and slowly adjusted her body into a less painful position.
She watched the gray smoke rising from the fire, drifting toward the gray-blue sky, slowly dispersing, merging into the twilight.
‘My stomach still hurts a lot…’
‘That snake was really strong…’
She mentally cursed those few stinking snakes again.
“My name is Luo Qingci,” she said.
“If you ever need help in the future, come find me at the Azure Cloud Sect.”
There was a crackling sound from the firewood by the campfire.
“My name is Xiao Han.”
He didn’t turn around, his voice blurred by the firelight.
“You…”
Luo Qingci opened her mouth.
“The water’s ready,” Xiao Han cut her off, picking up the boiling kettle and pouring some hot water into a coarse clay bowl.
He turned and handed it to her.
“Drink some water first. Your voice is hoarse.”
Luo Qingci took the bowl, looked down at the steaming clear water inside, and was silent for a long time.
She had so many questions.
Where did this man come from?
Why had he saved her?
But she didn’t ask a single one.
He had cut her off, probably meaning he didn’t want to talk.
Besides, she was too tired now.
Tired in body, tired in mind.
She didn’t want to probe, didn’t want to test, didn’t want to put on a mask and guess his intentions in front of this complete stranger.
She had survived.
And this man hadn’t touched a single hair on her head while she was unconscious.
That was enough.
‘If I were still a man, I would have sworn brotherhood with this Brother Xiao without hesitation.’
Luo Qingci raised the bowl to her lips and took a slow sip.
The water was very hot, scalding her tongue until it went numb, but the warmth slid down her throat, all the way to her stomach.
She leaned back against the stone, watching the twilight slowly deepen, watching the clouds on the horizon turn from white to gold, from gold to purple, and finally to a deep gray-blue.
Xiao Han sat on the opposite side of the fire, poking at it with a branch, saying nothing.
The two of them, separated by the flames, each remained silent.