Late at night.
Mingdu's clamor gradually fell silent in the darkness. Once its bustle faded, only the soul streetlamps remained, casting dim yellow light over the empty streets.
Yet a light still burned in an unremarkable little courtyard.
This was the courtyard Nana had rented with the Gold Soul Coins Lu Ren had left her. It was small, but secluded.
The courtyard lay deep within a remote alley in Mingdu's old district, surrounded by ordinary households. Outsiders rarely came this way.
An old locust tree grew in the courtyard, its dense foliage shrouding more than half the grounds in shadow.
At that moment, however, the courtyard was bustling with activity.
Lu Ren had brought Ji Juechen in with an arm supporting him.
The sword fanatic's clothes were soaked through with black, foul blood, clinging tightly to his body and giving off a faint rotten stench.
His left arm hung limply at his side. A gruesome wound where a bone spike had pierced through marked his sleeve. Although he had crudely stopped the bleeding with Soul Power, the whitened flesh around the wound showed that the injury was far worse than it appeared.
A section of his chest had caved in around his ribs. Every breath came with the faint grating of fractured bone, making his brows draw together slightly despite himself.
But his right hand still gripped that silver-white longsword.
From beginning to end, he had never let go.
Nana was startled at the sight.
"Go get medicine, quickly!"
Lowering her voice, she urgently instructed the people behind her.
Several people hurriedly took medical supplies out of their Storage Soul Tools and covered the table in the side room with them.
Ji Juechen was helped onto the bed. His expression remained calm, as though he could not feel the pain