She Really Survived

Cold, damp...

Yun Yun woke on a stone bed. Almost any movement sent pain piercing straight through her heart, and the state of her body was terrible. She was on the verge of collapse, with internal bleeding everywhere.

Only a warm current of energy kept repairing her battered body. It had already mended most of the places where she was bleeding internally, and it continued working tirelessly on the rest.

"Such high-quality healing medicine... Did Gu He save me?" Yun Yun murmured. Her first thought was of her sect's foremost alchemist. Apart from Gu He, she could think of no one in the Jia Ma Empire capable of refining healing medicine like this.

"I don't know who this Gu He you're talking about is, but, lady, I was the one who stabilized your injuries."

An infuriating voice came from beside her. Yun Yun turned her head with difficulty, only then noticing a young man sitting at the head of her bed with a roasted pig's trotter in his hand.

That young man was none other than Xiao Yan.

He had successfully hunted a Wild Boar Magical Beast and brought it back, skinned it, removed its innards, and roasted it over a wooden rack, coating it with a thick layer of spices.

All of this was thanks to the picky Xiao Yi Xian. If she had not insisted on preparing plenty of supplies before entering the Magical Beast Forest, he would probably have been eating tasteless roasted pig's trotters right now.

"You?" Yun Yun's eyes widened. Looking at this young man whom she had met only briefly, she immediately felt that something was terribly wrong.

She forced herself to sit up through the excruciating pain and began checking whether her clothes were intact.

Only after confirming that she was still wearing her original bloodstained clothes did she relax and turn a grateful gaze toward Xiao Yan.

But Xiao Yan was deeply hurt by her actions.

"Seriously? I saved you out of the goodness of my heart, and you thought I would molest you?"

"No, I..." Before Yun Yun could finish, her face turned pale again.

Xiao Yan frowned, set down the roasted pig's trotter, and helped Yun Yun lie back down.

"You should already be thanking fate that you're alive. Don't move around. I'll go prepare some liquid food for you."

Xiao Yan had never expected Yun Yun to survive, so naturally he had not prepared any liquid food for her. He could only make it now.

The ingredients were wild bananas and wild boar meat. After mashing both into a paste, he poured clean water into a pot, cooked the mixture, and added a little seasoning.

The taste was difficult to describe, but Xiao Yan could not be bothered to prepare anything better for this woman from the Misty Cloud Sect. It would have to do.

Yun Yun practically had to pinch her nose to finish the meal, but at least it gave her a good amount of the calories she needed to stay alive.

"Since you survived, let's lay down three rules." After washing the bowl, Xiao Yan stood about ten feet from the stone bed and held up three fingers.

"First, I won't touch you, so drop that unnecessary wariness."

"Second, I won't come looking for you except to treat your injuries. And please don't bother me unless it's important."

"Finally, once I've finished treating you, you're not allowed to ambush me."

"If you can follow those three rules, nod."

When Xiao Yan finished, Yun Yun nodded silently on the stone bed. Things had come to this, and her life was entirely in the hands of the young man before her. She was already more than satisfied that he had saved her. What right did she have to refuse?

Besides, his conditions clearly showed that he wanted nothing to do with her. She would simply keep her gratitude in her heart.

Perhaps he did not want to hear it.

Time slowly passed, and Yun Yun became barely able to get out of bed and walk. The first thing she did once she could move was change out of her blood-soaked clothes and take a proper bath.

There was already somewhere to bathe inside the cave. The small pool of clear spring water was just large enough for someone to sit in.

A change of clothes, however, was truly a problem. Her Storage Ring was not as high-grade as Xiao Yan's. Tong Xuan's slap had left several cracks in it, making it unusable.

She could only swallow her embarrassment and ask Xiao Yan for a set of clothes, promising that she would return them.

"No need to return them. I wouldn't want them after you've worn them anyway." Xiao Yan picked out an outfit he did not particularly like from his Storage Ring and handed it to Yun Yun.

"Um, I've actually been curious about something. You seem to really dislike me. Why?" Yun Yun accepted the clothes, hesitated for a while, and finally gathered the courage to ask.

"It's not you I dislike. It's someone connected to you."

"Who?" Yun Yun began thinking through the people around her, but no matter how she considered it, none of them could possibly have an enemy at the Dou Emperor level.

Unless it was her master, Yun Shan? But he had long since killed all his enemies.

"I have no reason to tell you." Disgust showed in Xiao Yan's eyes. Yun Yun's words had reminded him of Nalan Yanran throwing her weight around in the Xiao Clan's main hall over a year ago.

"Oh, one more thing. If we meet again in the future, please pretend you don't know me. Consider it payment for treating you," Xiao Yan added. Since he intended to fulfill the Three-Year Agreement, he would inevitably meet this Misty Cloud Sect Master again.

"All right." Yun Yun mistook the disgust in Xiao Yan's eyes as being directed at her. With a complicated expression, she carried the clothes back into the cave.

Seeing that Yun Yun could now move around on her own, Xiao Yan immediately began thinking of leaving. During the three days he had been delayed here, he had thought every moment about finding Xiao Yi Xian and telling her that nothing had happened to him.

Now, he was unwilling to wait any longer.

He took a bottle of healing medicine he had refined over the past three days out of his Storage Ring. It contained seven pills in total, enough to greatly accelerate Yun Yun's recovery.

Besides, this cave was beside the valley where the Amethyst Winged Lion King had originally lived. Most magical beasts would not come here, so Yun Yun's safety should not be much of a problem.

Thinking it over, he no longer had any reason to stay.

After setting down the pills, a pair of pitch-black wings with a span of over five meters appeared on Xiao Yan's back. As the attribute of his Dou Qi changed, the appearance of his Advanced Black Tier Flying Dou Technique, Eagle Wings, had changed as well.

He beat his wings and rose into the air. Xiao Yan did not dare fly brazenly at high altitude as Yun Yun had. Instead, he skimmed swiftly over the ground. Whenever he passed somewhere that might harbor a high-ranking magical beast, he would fold his wings without hesitation and continue on foot.

He headed toward Qingshan Town. Wherever Xiao Yi Xian intended to go after leaving, this first stop outside the Magical Beast Forest was somewhere she would undoubtedly have to pass through. Once he arrived, he would naturally be able to find out where she had gone.

What Xiao Yan did not expect, however, was that while he was on his way to Qingshan Town to find Xiao Yi Xian, violent spatial fluctuations suddenly erupted in the valley where he had died once.

An enormous Spatial Passage abruptly appeared above the valley. It covered nearly a third of the valley's area, and the distance it spanned was terrifying beyond estimation.

Two figures descended from the Spatial Passage, a man and a woman.

The girl had long purple hair and an intensely anxious expression. She was none other than Xiao Yi Xian, whom Xiao Yan had assumed had fled with Qing Lin.

The man, meanwhile, looked refined and easygoing, a tranquil smile resting on his face. Without seeing it firsthand, it would have been difficult to believe that such a massive Spatial Passage was his handiwork.

He was none other than Hun Tiandi!

"Adoptive Father, please help me revive Xiao Yan! He's right there!" Xiao Yi Xian pointed to a puddle of blood and flesh on the ground as she pleaded with Hun Tiandi.

"Don't worry. He won't die." Hun Tiandi chuckled.