"..."
Night fell.
A campfire burned inside a secluded cave deep in the Heavenly Spirit Mountain Range.
Su Yueli sat cross-legged at the cave entrance, her eyes closed as she rested.
Deeper inside the cave, Gu Qinghe tended his wounds by the firelight.
He took off his tattered Green Robe, chewed up several Blood-Staunching Herbs he had gathered along the valley's edge, and applied them to the claw marks on his chest, which were deep enough to expose bone.
The moment the herbal juices touched his wounds, a piercing pain stabbed through him.
Gu Qinghe clenched his teeth, cold sweat covering his forehead, and did not utter a single cry of pain.
The physical pain came nowhere close to the desolation in his heart.
After tending his wounds, he dressed and sat beside the campfire.
The firelight illuminated his face, revealing a pair of lifeless, dead-fish eyes.
"Thank you for saving my life, Senior." Gu Qinghe's voice was hoarse. There was no relief at having survived in his tone, only a calm that bordered on numbness.
Su Yueli opened her eyes and looked at him.
"Once your wounds have healed, take me to gather every high-grade medicinal herb in the area. Then come with me."
"Yes." Gu Qinghe agreed without hesitation.
His life no longer belonged to him. Besides, he had nowhere else to go.
The Lineage he had once taken pride in, the place he had once considered his refuge, was now a poisonous mire that could swallow his life at any moment.
Over the next two days.
Gu Qinghe led Su Yueli through the depths of the Heavenly Spirit Mountain Range.
Demonic beasts above the Fourth Realm had keen senses. Detecting the terrifying physical pressure emanating from Su Yueli, something wholly unlike human spiritual power, they gave her