Medicine Fragrance Entwines, Qingwan Secretly Probes the Pseudo-Body's Trail

Morning light had just filtered through the window, and the tiles pecked by crows still bore several shallow marks.

I lay motionless in the pile of straw, the gash at my waist faintly burning beneath the Cloth Strip. I had buried that broken vine branch in the dirt beneath me. My fingertips could still sense its weak pulse, like a sleeping meridian softly resonating with somewhere deep underground.

Footsteps sounded outside the door.

They were neither guards nor Ji Hantian's men. The steps were light, carrying the rhythm of a medicine pestle tapping the ground—neither hurried nor slow, as though every step had been measured to fall between breaths.

The door had not been shut properly. When the wind blew, the wooden panel swayed.

She stood in the doorway, her Black Cloak draping down. The Green Jade Medicine Pestle remained hidden in her sleeve, but her gaze had already swept over every inch of the room's corners. I had not changed position after she left yesterday. The broken bowl shards were still on the floor, and the overturned stool faced the same way. But I knew what she was looking at—the Black Martial Robes hidden in the old chest beneath the bed, their cuffs stained with dried blood and pale golden fragments.

"I heard you were frightened last night." Her voice was as cold as well water. "I came to change your medicine."

I did not answer. I merely muttered in my throat and shrank another half inch toward the wall. The iron chain dragged a shallow groove through the dirt.

She approached and crouched before me. The instant her fingers touched my wrist, I let my heartbeat skip into disorder, my pulse scattering like a dried well with its flow cut off. It was a skill I had honed over three years; even the clan's consecrated elders could not find a flaw.

But she was different.

Her fingertips were icy. Her finger pads pressed against my cun, guan, and chi pulse positions, pausing ever so slightly. In that instant, the Pseudo-Primordial Body within me suddenly began circulating on its own. A thread of pale golden energy slipped through the depths of my meridians, so fast it was almost impossible to catch.

Her pupils contracted imperceptibly.

Rather than releasing me, she traced upward another inch along my pulse gate. I immediately drove my remaining Wasted Meridian to tremble, making the path of Spiritual Power appear shattered and chaotic. When she withdrew her hand, her face remained calm, yet the medicine pestle in her sleeve trembled for half a breath.

"Your old injuries have not healed, and the poison has seeped into your marrow." She said, "You will need your medicine changed for three days. I will come every morning at the hour of the dragon."

I grinned, drool running from the corner of my mouth. Reaching for her sleeve, I let my eyes go unfocused. "Big sister... where's the candy? Give me some candy... you smell so nice. I want a hug..."

She jerked her hand away, leaving her wrist wet. The medicine pestle gave an almost inaudible knock within her sleeve, as if it had nearly flown from its sheath. Yet she ultimately did not lose her temper. She merely gave me a cold look. "Filthy."

With that, she rose and left. Her cloak swept over the threshold, stirring a faint breeze.

I remained sprawled on the ground without raising my head until her footsteps had completely faded away. Only then did I slowly wipe the saliva from my mouth.

That probe had not merely been a diagnosis. She had followed the meridians to trace the source of that pale golden aura. Ordinary people would not notice anything amiss, but she could sense the texture of Spiritual Power—just as one could smell blood, she could also catch the direction in which power flowed.

I closed my eyes and feigned sleep, but my divine sense spread out like a spiderweb, blanketing the entire room.

Night fell quickly.

Moonlight slanted through the broken window, falling upon the old chest beneath the bed. It was made of pine, its edges and corners already rotten. Inside lay several ragged garments, half a broken rope, and those Black Martial Robes.

I knew she would come.

Sure enough, just after midnight, the aura outside the window changed.

It was neither killing intent nor hostility, but an extraordinarily restrained probing presence. She approached close against the wall, her boots making almost no sound on the gravel. If my divine sense had not locked onto the whole room, I would have barely detected her.

The gap in the door slowly widened inch by inch.

She slipped inside, moving as lightly as a leaf falling to the ground. Moonlight shone upon her face. Her eyes glimmered faint gold, and the tips of her hair flashed in and out of view, red as fire. Without a word, she went straight to the bed, lifted the chest lid, and swiftly searched through it.

I turned over and let out a groan like sleep-talking. "Mother... the house is on fire..."

She stopped and glanced at me.

I remained curled up, my breathing long and steady, as though deeply asleep.

She resumed her search and finally pulled out the Black Martial Robes. On the inner side of the cuff, several pale golden fragments were mixed into the dried bloodstains, as though something had crushed them before they stuck back onto the cloth.

She removed a small piece, placed it on her fingertip, and closed her eyes to circulate her power. Medicinal energy seeped into the fragment. That speck of golden light actually grew faintly hot, and in an instant, the outline of an extremely thin character for "pseudo" surfaced before vanishing again.

She opened her eyes, stared at the mark, and faintly furrowed her brow.

At that moment, I suddenly turned over in the straw. My arm flung out half a strip of rag, pinning down a corner of the chest. The movement was slight, yet it made her fingertips tremble.

She did not linger any longer. Quickly stuffing the clothes back into the chest, she retreated to the window. After one last glance at the robes, her figure vanished into the night.

The room returned to silence.

I opened my eyes, a glint of gold flashing through their depths. The gash at my waist was slowly healing. Pale golden patterns crawled upward along my calf, extending another inch farther than yesterday.

She had taken the evidence and confirmed her suspicions.

But I was not afraid.

What was truly frightening was not being discovered as abnormal, but having no one notice you at all. Now that she had begun investigating, if she followed this thread, she would sooner or later encounter the thing within the Forbidden Ground—that seal was precisely what the system had guided me toward.

I slowly raised my hand, palm upward. A thread of extremely fine Heaven-Slaying Origin circulated between my fingers, soundlessly blending into my bloodline. The Remnant Dao left behind by last night's Chaos phenomenon still drifted through the air, continuously absorbed by the system. Two strands of Origin were already full, and the third was condensing.

As long as I did not make a move, no one could determine that I had not been crippled.

But Ye Qingwan was different. She did not see this world with her eyes; she sensed it with her body. She had smelled something wrong, which was why she had come to investigate in person in the middle of the night.

I lay back down and tightened the Cloth Strip, covering the gash.

Outside, the wind stopped.

The crow atop the courtyard wall flew back and landed on a roof tile. Lowering its head, it pecked at something, then suddenly froze.

Its wings twitched. Its eyes turned cloudy. Then it vomited up a small pinch of ashes, flapped twice, and fell into the weeds beyond the wall.

I stared at the hole in the roof and did not move.

A moment later, a shadow swept over the courtyard wall and stopped where the crow had fallen. Ye Qingwan crouched down, picked up the pinch of ashes, and brought it to her nose to sniff.

Her brow furrowed even deeper.

Then she stood and looked back toward my room.

Under the moonlight, her gaze was no longer merely cold. It now held the sharpness of scrutiny.

She turned and left, her steps much quicker than when she had arrived.

I knew what she was thinking.

How could a perfectly healthy crow suddenly vomit ashes and die?

Unless something in this courtyard was leaking an aura—not poison, not a curse, but a kind of oppressive force that even birds and beasts could not endure.

I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing, and became once more that crippled wretch who could stop breathing at any moment.

But just as my consciousness sank into the Sea of Consciousness, the system sent a faint ripple of intent.

[Heaven-Slaying Origin: 2/10]

[Pseudo-Primordial Body stability increased]

[Primordial Blood Phoenix Body detected at close range. Hidden resonance triggered. Absorption efficiency +5%]

The corner of my mouth lifted slightly, then I swiftly pressed it back down.

She thought she was investigating me.

In truth, from the first step she took into this room, she had already set foot upon my path.