Lu Chen shook his head. "You stay here. Once the formation is set, someone needs to guard it. Death qi will seep out through the formation eyes. If too much seeps out, the formation foundations will loosen. Keep an eye on those iron nails—hammer any that come loose back in."
Zhou Tieshan fell silent for a while. "You're going alone to set up the formation?"
Lu Chen did not answer. He turned and headed for his tent.
Yun Qingyue was not in the tent. A bowl of medicine was warming on the stove, with a piece of dried rations and a dish of pickled vegetables beside it.
The rations were fresh, softer than yesterday's piece, as though they had been soaked in water before being baked again. The pickled vegetables had been shredded into fine strips and arranged neatly.
He drank the medicine, ate the rations, then sat in his chair and closed his eyes to regulate his breathing.
The true essence in his dantian had recovered to twenty percent.
It was not much, but it was enough to set up the formation.
At sunset, he opened his eyes.
Outside the tent, the last streak of sunset glow was fading from the horizon.
The wall of fog to the north stood out even more in the gathering dusk. Grayish-white mist churned within it like a pot of boiling porridge.
The edge of the fog wall had advanced another li since yesterday. At its nearest point, it was less than twenty li from Northern Garrison Pass.
He tucked the Red Sun Pill and the Nine-Turn Soul-Returning Pill close to his body, then took that sword from his storage ring.
The silvery-white blade gave off a faint glow in the dusk, like an iron bar freshly pulled from the fire.
He fastened