"Drip... drip..."
Beneath the gloomy cliff, droplets gathered on the vines overhead and fell, one by one, onto a jutting ledge.
"Ugh..."
A handsome young man lay on the ledge, his clothes torn to shreds. A sizable pool of blood lay beneath him, though it had already dried, perhaps because so much time had passed.
The young man's fingers twitched. With a faint groan, he slowly regained consciousness.
As his vision gradually cleared, he felt something stuck to his face and instinctively raised an aching hand to wipe it.
A smear of blood came into view. Then he rolled over and continued lying there.
Looking up at the stars twinkling in the pitch-black night sky, the young man seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
"I survived..."
The young man was none other than Xiao Yu. After losing consciousness and falling off the cliff, he had landed on this ledge jutting from the cliff face. He had no idea how long it had taken him to wake up.
His head gradually cleared, his thoughts began working normally, and sensation returned to his body. All of that meant he was still alive, hence his heartfelt remark.
"I thought I'd kicked the bucket. That was way too close."
The corners of Xiao Yu's mouth lifted in a faint smile. Being alive was better than anything else, and that alone was worth celebrating.
After resting for a while, his strength gradually returned. Dragging his aching body upright, Xiao Yu sat up and began examining his surroundings.
He discovered that he had fallen off the cliff, but luckily, the ledge had caught him before he plunged any farther.
Looking down into the seemingly bottomless abyss, Xiao Yu felt his scalp prickle. If he had fallen down there, wouldn't he have been smashed into meat paste?
After spending a moment counting his blessings, Xiao Yu noticed a cave in the cliff behind him. This ledge extended outward from its entrance.
"This is..."
The scene felt familiar, reminding him of a passage from the original novel.
"Given the vastness of the Dou Qi Continent, there are many unknown, nameless recluses. When their lives draw to an end, these solitary souls may hide the cultivation techniques they created over their lifetimes somewhere, awaiting a person destined to claim them. A saying circulates on the Dou Qi Continent: if, one day, you fall off a cliff and land in a cave, do not panic. Take two steps forward, and perhaps you will become one of the mighty!"
Could that be what was happening to me now? There was a cave beneath the cliff, and not only had I survived disaster, I'd been lucky enough to land right outside its entrance. Wasn't this exactly the treatment a novel's protagonist received?
"Cough, cough!"
After coughing twice, Xiao Yu tried to stand, but the moment he moved, pain tore through his entire body, as though it were about to split apart.
"Hiss!"
Xiao Yu hurriedly examined himself. Gashes covered his entire body, deep enough to expose bone, and blood loss had left their edges deathly pale.
"Thank goodness, thank goodness. It's still there."
"Phew..."
Those wounds frightened Xiao Yu into immediately checking between his legs. Seeing that his giant python was still there, completely unharmed, he breathed a sigh of relief.
He hurriedly circulated the small amount of Dou Qi he had recovered, took a Spring-Rejuvenating Pill from his Storage Ring, and swallowed it. Only then did his condition begin to improve.
Sitting cross-legged, he began circulating his energy to dissolve the pill's medicinal power and repair his wounds little by little.
The third-tier Spring-Rejuvenating Pill had potent medicinal effects and worked best on flesh wounds like these. But his injuries were so severe that Xiao Yu had to take two in succession and spend nearly six hours healing every wound.
Then he took several Qi-Replenishing Pills to restore his Dou Qi before getting up and heading into the cave.
Who knew what awaited him inside? If there were traps, concealed weapons, or magical beasts, wouldn't entering with an injured body and depleted Dou Qi be courting death?
After this ordeal, Xiao Yu cherished his life even more and was trying to learn how to play it safe.
After all, once his life was gone, everything else would be gone too. How could he even speak of finding his way home?
Summoning the Dou Qi Armor exclusive to a Da Dou Shi, along with Blue-Silver Cold Lightning and the extreme-breaking ice flame, Xiao Yu cautiously made his way down the cave passage.
The traps and concealed weapons he had imagined never appeared, nor could he sense any magical beasts. Xiao Yu couldn't help wondering:
"Am I really this lucky? Is this actually where some mighty expert passed away in meditation?"
Eager to discover what was going on, Xiao Yu quickened his pace.
After he passed through the narrow passage, the space suddenly opened up.
Inside was a fairly spacious cave dwelling. A stone platform stood in the center, with a skeleton atop it.
The cave was dim but not damp. Instead, it felt rather dry and fresh.
The light of the extreme-breaking ice flame illuminated the cave, allowing Xiao Yu to take everything in at a glance. It made him feel increasingly certain that he had truly struck it lucky.
After searching for something to provide light, Xiao Yu lit a fire and began investigating his surroundings.
The place was very sparse, without any special mechanisms. The only thing of note was the skeleton on the central stone platform.
Xiao Yu approached the skeleton to examine it. Its bones gleamed with a flowing luster, and considerable energy still lingered within them.
"Clang, clang..."
"It looks like this person must have been quite powerful while alive. Otherwise, how could his bones remain so hard and lustrous after death?"
Xiao Yu reached out and tapped the bones. They rang with a metallic clang and were so hard that even his fingers hurt a little.
Scanning the stone platform, he discovered a sheet of paper covered in writing in front of the skeleton.
Curious, Xiao Yu picked it up and began reading.
"My name is Fei Huang, and I bear the title Medicine Sect..."
The paper recorded the deceased's identity and the deeds of his life.
After gaining a general understanding from it, Xiao Yu couldn't help marveling at his luck once more.
It turned out that the skeleton belonged to Fei Huang, a Dou Zong who was also a seventh-tier Alchemist.
He had come from the Central Plains. The paper also explained why he had traveled to a little place like the Jia Ma Empire in the Northwest Region.
After breaking through to Dou Zong, he had cultivated for several hundred years without managing to advance to Dou Zun, so he had set out in search of an opportunity to break through.
He had spent over a hundred years traveling across half the Dou Qi Continent, yet still failed to advance to Dou Zun. Sensing that his remaining days were few, he had abandoned his obsession with advancement and come to the Jia Ma Empire to spend his final years in peace.
He had once made quite a name for himself throughout the Northwest Region, and tales of him had spread across the Jia Ma Empire.
The paper also mentioned that he had once guided someone named Yun Potian. Whether that was true was anyone's guess, but if it was, Fei Huang had been pretty impressive.
Yun Potian, the founder of the Misty Cloud Sect, should have reached the Dou Zun level during his lifetime. He had once roamed the Central Plains, and even Ling Ying knew of his deeds.
Still, Yun Potian had lived who knew how many years ago-at least four or five hundred, surely. Who could say how much of this was true?
There was no telling how many years ago Fei Huang had lived either; the paper couldn't possibly have recorded that. All Xiao Yu knew was that he had lived for over seven hundred years before reaching the end of his allotted lifespan and choosing to pass away in meditation here.
Judging by when he had guided Yun Potian, it had probably been around a thousand years.
It was rather ironic. Fei Huang himself had never broken through to Dou Zun, yet Yun Potian, whom he had guided, had advanced to Dou Zun and earned some renown even in the Central Plains.
"Ah..."
Xiao Yu shook his head and sighed for this Medicine Sect.
The path of cultivation was always like this. Someone could cultivate for an entire lifetime, only to become stuck at one point and never advance another inch.
The man before him was a stark example. After cultivating for over seven hundred years, he had ultimately passed away in meditation in this little cave dwelling.
So absorbed had he been in cultivation that he had not even left behind a child, departing this world all alone.
"So this is cultivation. Even knowing there's no hope of breaking through, you're willing to leave your homeland for hundreds of years for that faint chance, all for a glimpse of a higher realm."
"To hear the Dao in the morning, one could die content that evening."
"What if it were me?"
Xiao Yu couldn't help pondering what he would do if he found himself in the same situation.
He figured that, once he knew a breakthrough was hopeless, he would most likely give up and start enjoying the rest of his life. He would father a few plump boys and, at least, spread the branches and leaves of the Zhou family in this other world.
If he hadn't possessed his current talent for cultivation, he would have given up striving back in the Xiao Clan. Why would he have worked so hard at cultivation, thinking about protecting Xiao Zhan and returning home?
But if Xiao Yu lacked that obsession with pushing forward, then, given his temperament, even his freakish talent would only have carried him as far as Dou Zong or Dou Zun. He would never have harbored ambitions of becoming a Dou Di as he did now.
His terrifying talent, combined with his obsession with returning home and protecting those dear to him, had made Xiao Yu who he was today. Neither could be missing...
"Perhaps this is life?"
It seemed that, in that instant, Xiao Yu's state of mind had reached a higher level.
The author deleted the passage about Tou She Ancient God from this chapter and apologizes to the readers whose comments were displaced.
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