The Frail Body

The curtain of rain thinned. The silence in the mountain temple was just as it had been when Xu Yuan and the others left, and the pool of blood before the door had already congealed.

Suddenly,

two figures descended from the sky, landing on the patch of ground stained red by the corpses.

A man and a woman, both dressed in fitted martial outfits, somewhat like those worn by the dozens of bodies scattered across the ground.

Black with red trim, their robes bore a ferocious Coiled Dragon embroidered in gold thread across the back.

Black boots stepped into the blood, which had nearly congealed, making a sticky, liquid squelch.

The man had a stubbly beard and a sword strapped to his back. His roguish eyes swept over the carnage around them. He covered his nose and shook his head gently.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. What a mess. Looks like whoever kidnapped the Third Young Master is no ordinary person."

The woman's expression was stern. Her long hair reached her waist, tied into a high ponytail that swayed behind her. Her waist was slender, and her chest strained against her close-fitting martial outfit. Her eyes swept over the corpses on the ground.

"Can you tell who did this?"

Strolling leisurely among the corpses, the man studied the bodies around him and shook his head carelessly, his voice tinged with interest.

"How could I? They were all cut down by ordinary Sword Qi. The attacker didn't even use a sword technique."

The woman lowered her eyes slightly and surveyed the positions of the corpses on the ground.

"They formed an array."

The man nodded.

"I know. Mm, the cuts on these people aren't deep. Each one was just enough to kill, and it all happened in an instant."

In an instant?

The woman frowned at his words and looked at him. "Could you do that?"

The man raised a hand to rub the back of his head and glanced at her with an amused look.

"So that's what you think of me? That I'm that useless?"

After a pause,

the man shook his head gently again, pointed at a corpse leaning against a dry well in the temple courtyard, and said with a squinting smile,

"But you're right. I really couldn't do it. At least, I couldn't kill someone the way Zhou Yuan died."

At his words, the woman focused her gaze on the body.

The corpse beside the dry well belonged to a middle-aged man with a full beard. Even through his clothes, his thick, bulging muscles were visible. But now his sleeves hung empty: both forearms had been severed at the wrists, and a fine sword cut across his throat had been the fatal wound.

It was easy to picture what had happened before his death.

A streak of Sword Qi had shot out from the temple's main entrance. The middle-aged man, who had been the array's focal point, tried to block it with both hands, but the Sword Qi had pierced his protective aura and cut off his arms. The remaining force had then sliced his throat, killing him.

Not a single bit of strength had been wasted.

"I could kill him with one strike, but someone like Zhou Yuan, a martial arts expert, I couldn't handle with such precision."

As he spoke, the man pretended to grip a sword and grinned as he made a couple of swings at the corpse through the air.

"If I'd attacked, his head would've come right off."

When he finished,

the man let out a faint sigh and glanced at the dark interior of the temple, his gaze deep.

"Besides, that Spirit Buddha in there—I couldn't cut it down with a single strike without using Source Qi."

As he spoke, a hint of gravity entered his eyes.

"That person might be stronger than me."

The woman fell silent.

Meanwhile, the man lazily ruffled his disheveled hair and sighed.

"The Eldest Young Master has already come all the way from the Imperial Capital to Jingjiang City because of the Third Young Master. Quite a few people have died in the city already. Go back and report to him. The one who made this move might well be a Grandmaster."

The woman stared at the man. "What about you?"

The man ran a hand over his stubbly chin and grinned.

"Obviously, I'm going to keep chasing them. Even a Grandmaster can't move fast while carrying the Third Young Master. I'll leave marks along the way, so make sure you hurry back. Otherwise, by the time you catch up, I might be a corpse~"

With that,

the man patted the woman on the shoulder. Without waiting for her response, he leaped away and vanished from the bloodstained clearing before the temple.

The woman stood where she was, silent for a long while. In the end, she too became a streak of shadow and raced off in the opposite direction.

Two days later.

The rain had long since stopped. Sunlight broke through the clouds and spilled down, bathing everything in gold. A few rays pierced the treetops and fell into the forest, where the air was filled with the scent of grass and fresh earth.

"Hah... huh... ha..."

Xu Yuan braced himself with one hand on his hip and the other against a towering tree beside him. With difficulty, he managed to get two words out.

"L-let's rest."

The black-clad woman walking ahead glanced back at Xu Yuan's pale, sickly face. Without a word, she stopped and sat down to meditate.

Xu Yuan plopped straight down onto the ground, drenched in sweat and panting heavily.

He'd never imagined a person could have such a weak body. He'd never imagined that body would be his.

Even on level ground, after walking no more than a few kilometers, his legs started trembling uncontrollably, his steady breathing turned labored, and a burning sensation slowly spread through his chest.

If they walked for even a little too long, he could feel a dull ache starting in his lower back.

These past two days, Xu Yuan had sometimes wondered if the original owner might've died in a woman's bed within just a few years, had Ran Qingmo not kidnapped him this time.

He hadn't just failed to control his lust—he hadn't even bothered to exercise.

Worse still, every so often, his body would grow restless with a craving much like an addiction to tobacco, only several times stronger.

That almost convinced Xu Yuan that the original Third Young Master had definitely been taking drugs too.

Transmigration hadn't reset his body's ailments to the factory settings. That unlucky bastard, Xu Yuan, had inherited them all exactly as they were.

And with all the problems caused by his frail body, the two of them could barely creep through the forests of the Wanxing Mountain Range.

As he rested, Xu Yuan's breathing gradually settled. He looked at the black-clad woman across from him, who had her eyes closed as she meditated.

Sunlight filtered through the treetops, dappling her fair skin with light.

Looking at her, Xu Yuan suddenly spoke.

"Mr. Ran, at the pace we're going, it could take us another month to reach Heaven Gate Mountain."

"I know." Ran Qingmo kept her eyes closed, her voice calm.

Xu Yuan considered this for a moment, then said softly, "If this goes on too long, we could be caught at any time."

"..."

Ran Qingmo didn't answer. She merely opened her eyes and watched him in silence.

Xu Yuan gave an awkward smile.

He knew this was all because of his body. But every time they stopped, he'd already pushed himself to his physical limit. It was just that the limit of this body was ridiculously low.

After a pause, Xu Yuan hesitated, then made a tentative suggestion.

"So, could you... go catch a yao beast? Mm... so I could ride it."

After weighing it carefully for a long while, Xu Yuan finally voiced his suggestion.

There was a risk, but not much.

If the yao beast turned out to be dangerous, Ran Qingmo was strong enough to kill it before it could make a move.

Ran Qingmo thought it over for a moment, then gave a slight nod. She stood with her sword in hand, remained still for two seconds, then glanced to one side. In an instant, she vanished.

As Xu Yuan stared in surprise, a mighty tiger's roar came from a thousand meters away.

"ROAR!!!!"

Then came a dull thud.

"BAM!"

"ROAR!!!!"

"BAM!"

"Yow..."

"BAM!"

"Whimper..."