In a daze, Zhou Hao felt as if he were adrift in chaos.
There was no time, no space, only endless darkness.
"Pain!"
Wave after wave of searing pain from his left arm dragged Zhou Hao's consciousness back from the darkness and chaos.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and immediately checked the nine Cloud Seal tattoos on his left arm.
Just as he'd expected, their color had deepened a little, as if someone had gone over them again with ink.
"The three-year mark is coming around again..." Zhou Hao lay on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused.
Come to think of it, this was already his second life.
In his previous life, he'd been born with the nine intricate Cloud Seal patterns on his left arm. At first, his parents had been delighted, believing he was destined for greatness. But no one could have guessed that he'd been frail since childhood, and that every three years, as the patterns darkened, his health would worsen. Even after consulting every renowned doctor they could find, no one could discover the cause.
In the end, Zhou Hao had concluded that it was an incurable disease. He'd taken all kinds of tonics, dragging his once-comfortable family into ruin, but still hadn't made it to eighteen.
Then came this life.
As for why he still remembered his previous life, Zhou Hao couldn't explain it himself.
Maybe having another chance at life was a good thing.
But the Cloud Seal patterns on his arm had followed him like a curse, filling Zhou Hao with despair.
Was he going to have to watch himself die all over again, unable to change a thing?
Fortunately!
Fortunately, when he was six, he'd met his master, True Person Daoyi, an old Daoist whose lifelong wish was to cultivate the Dao and become an immortal.
It was his master who had taught him Daoist martial arts from childhood. The breathing and circulation methods of Internal Martial Arts had allowed Zhou Hao to grow up healthy, instead of spending his days bedridden and waiting to die like in his previous life.
As for his condition, his master had been studying it all along.
True Person Daoyi believed that the nine Cloud Seal patterns were innate Daoist markings, and that only Daoist true essence could truly activate them.
But where could a mortal body get Daoist true essence?
So they could only devour the vitality within his own body, eventually draining him of life and causing his death.
"Right."
An image from before he'd passed out suddenly flashed through his mind, and Zhou Hao's eyes lit up.
"This is another world—a world with great demons!"
He flipped up from the bed and sat, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings.
The place was a felt tent, its wooden frame covered on the outside with various animal hides.
It was quite spacious, a good forty or fifty square meters, though the table, stools, and even the bed he sat on were all carved from rock.
Thick furs covered the bed, soft and comfortable to the touch.
"Is this the girl's home?" Zhou Hao wondered. "They live in felt tents. Could they be nomads? The furniture is all made of rock, and she was wearing animal hides. It seems the civilization here isn't very advanced."
Someone had changed his shirt, too. He now wore a soft hide garment, lined with material that had been specially treated. It felt perfectly comfortable against his skin.
"You're awake?"
The two animal hides hanging over the tent's entrance suddenly bulged as someone pushed through them.
A boy wearing white fur and carrying a stone basin came inside.
"Aunt Xiangcao said to give you this once you woke up."
The boy looked about six or seven, with a round, lively face.
Aunt Xiangcao? Was that the girl?
Zhou Hao stepped over and took the stone basin from the boy. It was surprisingly heavy.
It was filled to the brim with a milky-white liquid that gave off a rich fragrance.
"What kind of milk is this?" Zhou Hao asked. "Horse milk? Goat milk?"
He remembered that the nomadic peoples on Earth seemed to drink goat or horse milk.
"It's Wild Ox Milk," the boy said. "Aunt Xiangcao said you're too weak. You got chased by a few gray wolves and fainted. This'll make you stronger. I drink it every day, and that's why I'm so sturdy."
He was certainly sturdy.
The basin of Wild Ox Milk must have weighed at least thirty pounds, basin included, yet the boy had carried it without any trouble.
An ordinary six- or seven-year-old child on Earth wouldn't have that kind of strength.
The rich fragrance of the milk made Zhou Hao suddenly feel ravenous.
He didn't stand on ceremony. Sitting on a stone stool, he lifted the basin and started gulping it down.
Delicious!
As he swallowed mouthful after mouthful of the sweet, rich milk, warmth spread from his stomach through his entire body.
Zhou Hao felt invigorated, and the exhaustion from waking after a long sleep vanished.
He drank more than half the basin in one go—at least twenty pounds of Wild Ox Milk—before setting it down and breathing out deeply.
That hit the spot!
"Grrr..."
Hm?
Only then did Zhou Hao notice the little boy leaning over the stone table, chin resting in his hands as he stared at him with wide, dark eyes.
"Want some?"
"Mm."
"Then first tell Uncle your name..."
With the Wild Ox Milk as temptation, the boy answered every question.
His name was Iron Pillar, though the adults all called him Zhuzi. He was only four years old, not the six or seven Zhou Hao had assumed.
The girl who'd rescued him was Xiangcao, the boy's biological aunt.
Their tribe was called the Iron Ox Tribe, and the tribe chief was Iron Pillar's father, Iron Ox.
This wasteland was called the Great Wild Plains.
"Zhuzi." Zhou Hao looked at Iron Pillar. "Your Aunt Xiangcao said there are great demons and cultivators on the Great Wild Plains. Is that true?"
Iron Pillar was only four, after all, and couldn't answer many questions.
But Zhou Hao cared most about cultivation, so he still wanted to learn as much as he could from him.
"It's true. Dad killed a great demon."
Iron Pillar kept his head down as he drank the Wild Ox Milk.
"Dad and Uncle Zhamu left the tribe this time to trade the great demon's corpse for millet and a cultivation manual. Then I'll be able to cultivate too."
"When I grow up, I'll kill great demons just like Dad and protect Aunt Xiangcao..."
There really was cultivation!
Zhou Hao sprang to his feet. "Zhuzi, where's your dad? I want to meet him."
"Dad hasn't come back yet." Iron Pillar set down the now-empty stone basin and looked at Zhou Hao's excitement in puzzlement. "Aunt went to meet them. You'll see him when he gets back."
"Zhuzi, tell me more about great demons. Your dad killed one, so he must be really powerful..."
"Of course! Dad's the strongest warrior in the tribe!"
An endless wilderness stretched in every direction.
A pack of Black Cunning Beasts, shaped like leopards and crowned with horns, raced across it.
Nine of them carried hide sacks strapped to their backs. The other eleven all had riders.
At the head rode a burly man clad in black animal hides. Nine similarly dressed men followed him, along with a girl carrying a bow and arrows.
The girl was Xiangcao, the aunt Zhuzi had spoken of.
"Brother, that great demon, the An Beast—was it really only worth these twenty Black Cunning Beasts and a thousand pounds of millet?" Xiangcao looked at her brother, Iron Ox, who sat silent atop the leading Black Cunning Beast, her face full of resentment.
"The Black Hand Tribe are too ruthless. They insisted the An Beast had escaped from their hunting party, then claimed that they were only giving us this much out of respect for me."
"What respect? If they really respected us, would they have demanded a hundred extra Wild Oxen on top of our taxes?"
"The worst part is, even when we turned down the Black Cunning Beasts and millet and asked only for a Qi Refining manual, they refused..."
Before Iron Ox, who rode at the head of the group, could speak, several warriors from the tribe had already chimed in. One of them was even cursing the Black Hand Tribe furiously.
"Enough!" Iron Ox snapped, silencing them. "What good does cursing do? We were already incredibly lucky to come across a great demon that was badly wounded and on the verge of death. Otherwise, we wouldn't have gotten these Black Cunning Beasts or millet. With this much, at least we can move the whole tribe."
Move?
Everyone looked at Iron Ox.
"You've made up your mind?"
Zhamu, a warrior second only to Iron Ox in strength within the tribe, was the first to ask.
"The Black Hand Tribe has grown more domineering by the year. I hear they've already wiped out more than a dozen small tribes." Iron Ox nodded, gazing into the distance as if he could see the edge of the wilderness.
"Our tribe doesn't have a single Xiantian Lifeform. If the Black Hand Tribe truly wanted to deal with us, a couple of Xiantian Lifeforms could slaughter us without breaking a sweat..."
The whole group fell silent.
It was true.
Compared with the Black Hand Tribe, which could build a city on the Great Wild Plains, the Iron Ox Tribe was far, far too weak.
The Black Hand Tribe alone had several Xiantian Lifeforms, and their chief was said to be among the mightiest even within that realm.
If not for the fact that several of them had retired from the Liu Clan, one of the Great Wild Plains' hegemonic powers—and that Iron Ox had once been a Nine-Fang Warrior in the Liu Clan West Mansion Guard Army, far beyond an ordinary Post-Heaven warrior...
If another small tribe had gotten hold of a great demon's corpse, the Black Hand Tribe's people would simply have taken it by force.
"Have you decided where we're moving?" Zhamu asked again. "If we want to escape the Black Hand Tribe's exploitation, we have to go to the territory of one of the Great Wild Plains' five hegemonic powers. The closest to us is the Liu Clan."
At the mention of the Liu Clan, Xiangcao raised her eyebrows, about to speak.
"We're not going to the Liu Clan." Iron Ox glanced at his sister and gave her a reassuring look, then turned to Zhamu beside him. "We're going to Jade Dragon City.
"Jade Dragon City is the East Sea Sect's only city on the Great Wild Plains. It holds a position above the fray; even the other hegemonic clans wouldn't dare challenge the East Sea Sect.
"Besides, they're a cultivation sect. It'll be easier to get a cultivation manual there, too."
"Jade Dragon City, in the East Sea Sect's territory?" Zhamu nodded slightly, but the other warriors exchanged bewildered looks.
Ordinary tribe warriors had limited experience. Most spent their whole lives within the borders of their own tribe.
A hegemonic clan like the Liu Clan was already an unimaginable superpower to them. Could this Jade Dragon City really be even more powerful?
"Will they bully us like the Black Hand Tribe does?"
"Right! A power that big must collect a lot of taxes, too, doesn't it?"
The other warriors voiced their concerns one after another. Even Zhamu had only heard passing merchants talk about the place before and didn't know the details.
"They won't." Xiangcao picked up the conversation.
"I once heard Second Young Lady say that Jade Dragon City is backed by a true cultivation sect, and the territory within a ten-thousand-li radius belongs to them.
"Tribes within their territory only have to pay the regular taxes to receive Jade Dragon City's protection. And even great demons wouldn't dare..."
As they talked, the Black Cunning Beasts raced across the wilderness.
Far away, a small tribe came into view, with more than thirty felt tents and herds of Wild Oxen.
"We're finally back."
"Once we've gathered our things, we'll leave tomorrow."
After hearing Xiangcao's explanation, Zhamu and the others began looking forward to Jade Dragon City, a paradise beyond the mundane world, and the true cultivation sect that stood behind it.
To survive, the people of the tribe had to fight against the heavens, the earth, and the demonic beasts!
Life was hard enough as it was. Now they also had to endure the Black Hand Tribe's oppression. They'd had enough.
"They're back! They're back!"
"Iron Ox and the others have brought the millet home!"
From a watchtower outside the tribe's camp, the warrior on guard spotted Iron Ox and his party in the distance and immediately shouted excitedly into the tribe.
The entire Iron Ox Tribe burst into an uproar.
People ran out of their felt tents, and when they saw the hide sacks carried by the Black Cunning Beasts, cheers rang out one after another.
In the crowd, Xiangcao immediately spotted the young man holding Zhuzi's hand, just as excited as the boy.
"Him? Why does he look even more excited than the people from our tribe..."
Brothers, give me some support—add this to your collection and cast a vote, will you?
Before you continue