Bai Sui left without a hint of hesitation, and no one suspected a thing. That gave him at least another hour to escape.
He roughly checked his bearings to make sure he wasn't heading toward the Uzumaki Clan Territory, then let his instincts guide him.
He avoided all the main roads, sticking to woods and wastelands. Every so often, he looked back over the path he'd taken.
He wanted to make sure no pursuers were on his heels, and to check whether he'd left any obvious traces.
There was no helping it. In his previous life, he hadn't learned any professional tracking or counter-tracking techniques, and he had no chance to learn them in this life, either.
For now, all Bai Sui could do was rely on the scraps he'd picked up from TV shows and movies in his previous life to cover his tracks.
But Bai Sui knew that, as a complete amateur, the more he did, the more mistakes he'd make. The longer he stayed in the wilderness, the likelier someone was to catch up with him.
His most pressing need was to find a populated area, preferably a large city. If that wasn't possible, even a small village would do, though a village might end up suffering because of him.
Bai Sui pressed on at a brisk pace, taking care to step on the road with every stride as he headed into the unknown.
At first, he still stopped now and then to look back. Later, he stopped slowing down altogether and simply left without looking back.
His upper body barely moved as his legs carried him faster and faster.
He walked from noon until nightfall, through torrential rain and morning fog, across forests and streams, over mountains and through water.
He went from fear and trepidation to opening his heart, from feeling constrained to feeling free. He broke through his shackles, cast off his chains, listened to his heart, and found enlightenment.
He walked for three days and three nights. Only when he encountered the first person did his Primordial Spirit return to him, and he stopped.
Coming back to himself, Bai Sui was delighted to discover that in just those three days, the pearl in his dantian had grown by a third. In other words, those three days had been worth nearly a year of hard work.
Although someone had disturbed him and pulled him out of that state of unity with nature, Bai Sui wasn't angry at all. In his view, perhaps it had been inevitable.
If he'd truly wanted to avoid these people, he would naturally have steered away from civilization in the state of communion between heaven and earth he'd been in. Since he hadn't avoided them, there must have been a reason.
Bai Sui was in a forest. About forty or fifty meters away were five people dressed like hunters.
They were only dressed like hunters in the sense that, unlike ordinary villagers, they each had a bamboo bow. They were clearly poor hunters.
They weren't hunting—or, rather, they'd already finished. A small black boar lay on the ground in the distance, but the five men had no time to deal with their prize. Instead, they were gathered around one of their companions, who sat on the ground. They had clearly run into trouble.
Thanks to his keen senses, Bai Sui pieced together what had happened from their words and actions.
The men had come from a village to hunt. They'd planned to catch a few choice game animals, but instead they'd spotted the half-grown black boar. After confirming it was alone, they decided to take a chance.
The encounter had been sudden, so they hadn't had time to dig a trap. They could only attack from several directions with the bows in their hands.
They'd all been in places the boar couldn't reach, either up in trees or atop boulders.
But the boar had been startled by the arrows and gone berserk, slamming its head into the trunk of a tree where one of the men was hiding. The impact had been violent, but it hadn't broken the trunk or caused any serious damage.
However, the man hiding in the tree had been frightened by the boar's charge. He'd lost his balance, fallen, and landed right in front of it.
The boar was still dazed from hitting the tree and couldn't move properly, so it hadn't attacked right away. But the man had fallen hard and couldn't get back to his feet.
With no other choice, his companions had emerged from their hiding places, hoping to finish off the boar while it was still weakened.
They'd both succeeded and failed. They'd managed to drive two daggers into the boar's neck, but its final struggle had injured several of them.
The most seriously injured man was now sitting on the ground, surrounded and protected by the others.
That was how the man who'd fallen from the tree kept retelling the story in a remorseful voice, over and over. "It's all my fault. If I hadn't fallen out of the tree, none of this would have happened..."
After learning the whole story, Bai Sui decided to approach them and see if he could help.
"Who's there?" "Who?" "Listen!"
The men were alert, and Bai Sui hadn't tried to hide himself. They spotted him when he was about ten meters away.
Bai Sui spread his hands to show he wasn't armed. "I'm a doctor fleeing a disaster. I was passing by and noticed someone seemed to be injured. Do you need my help?"
The men exchanged glances. They hadn't seen any weapons on Bai Sui, either, so their leader nodded and said, "We do have someone injured. Sorry for the trouble. Please take a look."
Bai Sui didn't say much. Ignoring their guarded looks, he walked over to the injured man.
The man's left leg was hurt. It looked as if something had torn open the outer side of his thigh. Judging by the scene, the boar had likely pierced it with a tusk and ripped it open.
Bai Sui tore open the man's trouser leg. Seeing this, the leader stepped forward and used his knife to cut it farther. Bai Sui nodded to him in thanks.
Once the trouser leg was open, Bai Sui's brows relaxed slightly. There didn't seem to be any serious deformity, and the bleeding wasn't too severe. It didn't look as if a major artery had been damaged.
He gently placed his right hand beside the wound and guided his ki into it. It wasn't for any other purpose; he only wanted to check whether the man had any internal injuries.
As he sensed the man's injuries, he examined himself inwardly for comparison. The man's bones were unharmed. It was only a flesh wound that looked worse than it was.
"This isn't a good place to stay. The smell of blood could attract other beasts. I'll bandage him up for now. Then take him back the way I tell you, and get him proper treatment. Don't worry, I've checked. No bones are broken; it's just a flesh wound."
Bai Sui asked them for a waterskin and rinsed the wound. He also discovered that he could ease the man's pain by using his ki to envelop the injured area. This further convinced the men that Bai Sui really was a doctor.
He tore the man's trouser leg into strips of cloth and used a fan-shaped bandage, starting at the knee and wrapping upward until the entire wound was covered.