Who Am I, Really?

Just then, a cool breeze rushed head-on, clearing Yuan Ming's mind a little.

Following his gaze, he saw the forest ahead suddenly open up. Beyond the edge of the shade lay a blue-black river more than ten zhang wide.

The river water was somewhat murky, its waves rolling and surging with considerable force.

After gauging the distance, Yuan Ming realized that with his strength, there was no way he could leap across it. Yet when he looked down again, the two azure wolves chasing beneath him had become five.

"Jumping might kill me. Not jumping... will definitely kill me, and much worse besides." Yuan Ming knew he had no choice at all.

Standing on a horizontal branch of the ancient tree, he swayed up and down, borrowing the branch's motion to build up momentum.

Once, twice, three times...

"Here goes."

He let out a low shout. The instant the branch sprang upward, his bent legs abruptly exploded with force, launching his body into the air.

In midair, his body stretched taut and straight. His uninjured left arm reached out as far as it could, grasping for a branch extending from an ancient tree on the opposite bank.

Unfortunately, his strength was limited after all. In his injured state, seven zhang was already his limit; there was no way he could reach a branch ten zhang away.

Yuan Ming's body plunged downward. With a splash, he fell into the water. He struggled to bob up twice before the rolling muddy waves swallowed him, and he vanished into the river.

Seeing this, the azure wolves on the opposite bank gave unwilling low howls for a long while before turning and leaving one by one.

In the murky river, Yuan Ming's body was swept down to the bottom by an undercurrent, battered back and forth against the jagged reefs below. The wounds on his shoulder and chest split open again, and crimson blood streamed out, drifting like wisps of red gauze.

Enduring the pain and the suffocating sensation of drowning, Yuan Ming desperately grabbed hold of a reef on the riverbed with his arms and struggled back to the surface, greedily gulping down a lungful of air.

River water mixed with dead branches and leaves kept slapping against his face, blurring his vision.

Yuan Ming wiped the water from his face and saw that he was now less than two zhang from the riverbank. But there were no reefs in the middle of the channel for him to climb over. If he rashly entered the water, the undercurrent might very well drag him back down to the riverbed.

Just as he was considering how to cross to the other side, the wound on his chest suddenly began to hurt again.

Yuan Ming did not pay it much mind. He intended to dive back underwater and feel his way across using the reefs on the riverbed.

But immediately afterward, the wound on his shoulder began to throb violently as well. At first, it was only one spot, but before long the pain multiplied and grew dense.

The pain was no longer confined to the wounds on his chest and shoulder. Even uninjured parts of his body began to ache, and only then did he realize something was wrong.

Yuan Ming sharply drew in a breath and sank downward. Ignoring the river's pounding current, he opened his eyes underwater and looked at himself, instantly feeling his scalp go numb.

Nearly a hundred palm-sized fish were densely latched onto the wound on his chest. Their tails swished as they frantically squeezed into the wound, desperately tearing at his flesh.

"Damn it, piranhas!"

Ordinary fish would generally not attack a living creature so much larger than themselves. The only creatures capable of launching such a savage attack on him were piranhas.

Fish were also gnawing at other parts of Yuan Ming's body, but those places had no wounds and were covered in fur, so they were not much of a problem.

He reached out to pull the piranhas off himself, but before his palm could even get close, a large school of fish bit down on it.

At the same time, a huge black shadow was swimming toward him through the murky water from downstream.

Yuan Ming knew he could not delay any longer. After surfacing for another breath, he immediately sank beneath the water again, gripping protruding reefs on the riverbed and inching his way toward the opposite shore.

The black shadow in the distance noticed him fleeing and accelerated, closing in on him.

Yuan Ming finally felt the foundation of the opposite bank and began climbing upward. Behind him, the water split apart with a splashing roar—the black shadow had caught up.

He did not dare waste even a moment, nor did he dare look back even once. Grasping the bank with both hands, he hurled himself upward with all his strength and leaped onto the opposite shore at the very last instant before the black shadow reached him.

The black shadow ultimately pounced on empty air. It lingered beneath the water by the bank for a moment before gradually sinking out of sight.

Yuan Ming lay flat on his back on the riverbank, his chest heaving violently as he gasped for breath.

He felt around at his side and found that he had not lost his blood-storage pouch. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

Though he knew this was not the time to rest or relax, the crushing exhaustion and the weakness of having survived a calamity still kept him from getting up for a long while.

After resting briefly, Yuan Ming finally forced himself to sit up. Only then did he discover that strips of black-scaled piranhas were still hanging from his body.

There were especially many lodged in the wounds on his chest and shoulder.

Yuan Ming grabbed one piranha and, enduring the pain, tore it off himself. Holding it before his eyes, he saw that its mouth was ringed with sharp, saw-like teeth, snapping at the air. Its viciousness had not weakened in the slightest even out of water.

He was about to casually toss the piranha away, but the growl, growl from his stomach immediately reminded him not to do something so foolish.

Finding joy amid misery, Yuan Ming gave a chuckle. "You bite me, I eat you—returning courtesy for courtesy."

With that, suppressing his discomfort, he stuffed the entire fish into his mouth and bit down.

Raw fish flesh, mixed with bones, spines, and scales, was crushed bit by bit between his teeth with a series of crunch, crunch sounds. Soon, he tasted a faintly fishy sweetness.

Yuan Ming had thought he would find it revolting, but to his own surprise, he felt no aversion to the taste at all. He even found that he rather liked it.

One palm-sized fish was nowhere near enough to fill his stomach, so Yuan Ming began plucking fish from his body and eating them one after another.

Before long, he had removed fifty or sixty fish from himself and eaten every last one. Only then did the hunger in his belly ease somewhat.

Seeing fresh blood seeping from the wounds on his chest and shoulder, Yuan Ming suddenly realized something.

The two azure wolves had relentlessly pursued him, the piranhas in the water had come in swarms, and even that black shadow in the river—whatever it was—had all been drawn by the scent of blood from his wounds.

He hurriedly got to his feet, dug up some mud from the riverside shallows, and smeared it over the wounds on his body to conceal the scent of blood. Then he turned and left.

In such a harsh environment, lingering in one place for too long before finding somewhere safe to shelter was absolutely not a wise move.

As the setting sun gradually sank westward, the entire forest was cast beneath a vast shadow, welcoming the coming night earlier than anywhere else.

Yuan Ming searched cautiously through the mountains and woods for a long while before finally discovering a cave half-buried underground less than five li from the river.

This cave had originally been a pit in the ground. Two enormous boulders that had rolled down from the mountain leaned against each other above it, like a roof laid over the pit.

Yuan Ming inspected it carefully and found that the space inside was only about two zhang across. It was hardly spacious for his body, but it was just enough to shelter him.

The roof formed by the two rocks was tightly fitted together, but there were gaps at both the front and back.

The front entrance went without saying, but the crack at the rear was also some two or three chi wide—wide enough for medium-sized wild beasts to crawl through.

Yuan Ming searched the forest for a long time before finding rocks of suitable sizes. He carried them over one by one and sealed off the gap at the rear of the cave first.

After that, he searched for quite a while longer, but never found a rock of the right size to block the entrance.

In the end, he carried over an old tree root that had been split apart by lightning and fire from a distance away, using it as a temporary door to block the cave mouth.

Just to be safe, Yuan Ming tied one end of a vine around the old tree root and fastened the other around his wrist. If the root was moved, it would certainly tug at him and alert him.

Only after making all these preparations did Yuan Ming slowly lie down on the ground. Though waves of exhaustion kept washing over him, he forced himself not to fall asleep right away.

As he carefully listened to the sounds outside, he traced lines across the dark cave floor with his hand, reconstructing his escape route along the way and recalling every detail of his battles with the black bear and the green wolf.

After running all of it through his mind, he began doing his utmost to recall that fragmentary memory that had surfaced in his mind during the day, of himself practicing martial arts in a square.

"Who am I, exactly?"

With that question in his heart, Yuan Ming slowly drifted into sleep.

In his dream, Yuan Ming appeared on that training ground again, holding a long spear and swinging it without pause as he practiced a fierce spear technique.

At the edge of the platform, a vague, indistinct shadow appeared. The figure was tall and imposing, but its features were blurred. It stood with its hands clasped behind its back, silent and sparing with words.

Yuan Ming stopped practicing and wanted to step forward for a clearer look at the person, but then he heard an explosive roar: "Don't stop!"

In an instant, Yuan Ming jolted awake.

Sunlight streamed through the gap at the cave entrance and fell across his face. Dawn had already broken.

Yet Yuan Ming felt as though he had slept for only half a shichen, and the weariness had not completely faded.

Still, he braced himself and sat up, unconsciously rubbing his eyes with his furry hands.

Once he had recovered some of his energy, he untied the vine around his hand. Only then did he discover in surprise that the wounds on his chest and shoulder had already healed and scabbed over.

He had originally thought they would need at least three or four more days to recover to this extent, yet they had reached this state after only a single night's sleep.

"It seems that when I transform into a Hairy Beast, not only are my strength and speed enhanced, but even my recovery ability after being injured has improved." Yuan Ming grew increasingly satisfied with this body.

At the same time, he developed a keen interest in the "Blood Qi Method" Elder Huohuo had mentioned.

"Grrr..."

"Not only do my wounds heal quickly, I get hungry quickly too." Yuan Ming stood up, moved the tree root away from the cave entrance, and walked outside.

Sunlight shone through the forest, the leaves were lush and green, mountain breezes drifted gently by, and the thin morning mist was gradually dispersing. Only the ethereal calls of birds echoed all around, making the scene seem peaceful and beautiful.

Yet Yuan Ming knew that beneath this tranquility lay who knew how many dangers.