Lu Chen lay in Northern Garrison Pass for three days.
It wasn't to recover from his injuries. His wounds had healed back in Return to Ruins—the crack across his collarbone, the long gash in his abdomen, the finger marks on his neck, all of them filled in by the Dragon Blood's self-healing, leaving only a few pale golden scars. He lay there because, after the weakened state passed, his body began to "grow."
His dragonification had jumped from 26% to 29%. This wasn't the kind of temporary surge that came in battle, but a permanent increase. Changes were taking place simultaneously in his bones, muscles, and blood, and his body needed time to adapt. On the first day, the tailbone at the end of his coccyx kept twitching beneath the flesh. It didn't hurt. It itched. An itch rising from deep within his bones, as though something inside were burrowing, trying to break free. Lying on the cot, his body would involuntarily jerk upright every so often—the tailbone was moving on its own.
When Yun Qingyue lifted the curtain and entered, she happened to see him jerk. Carrying a bowl of medicine, she stood in the doorway and stared at his waist for several breaths.
"Is a tail growing?"
"Mm."
She set the medicine bowl on the table and walked over. Her hand pressed against his lower back, her palm over the end of his coccyx. She held it there for ten breaths. Through the flesh, she could feel that little bone pulsing beneath her palm, beat after beat, like a heartbeat.
"How much has it grown?"
"I don't know. Last time I measured it, it was less than an inch."
She rummaged through the medicine chest and found a soft measuring tape used for taking pulses, then had him