Luo Shen Residence

Luo Shen City, inner city.

Unlike the bustle and prosperity of the outer city, the inner city had an air of ancient solemnity everywhere. Its streets were broad and clean, with towering old trees on either side. Faint Spirit Marks were carved into their trunks, giving off a soft glow that shrouded the entire inner city in stillness.

On the eastern side of the inner city stood a vast residence, built between the mountains and the water. Before its gates stood two white jade statues, each ten zhang tall. Both depicted women holding longswords, their expressions imposing and bearing a considerable resemblance to the statue of Luo Shen in the city center. An ancient-looking plaque hung above the gates, bearing three large characters: Luo Shen Residence. This was the outer residence of the Luo God Clan.

At that moment, in a secluded courtyard of the Luo Shen Residence, the door to a side room was flung open. Luo Lan rushed in, his head covered in sweat and a blood-soaked young man on his back. It was Xiao Yan.

"Physician! Get a physician, quickly!" Luo Lan had shouted himself hoarse. Carrying Xiao Yan on his back, he had raced all the way from Bluestone Village to the city, then used the token at his waist to pass through the Bewildering Tracks Array and rush straight into the Luo Shen Residence, without even pausing to catch his breath. Several servants in the courtyard jumped in fright and hurried off to fetch someone. Before long, a middle-aged woman in a plain white robe strode in with a medicine chest. She was one of the physicians in the Luo Shen Residence, named Luo Su, and enjoyed considerable renown in the residence.

Luo Su took one look at Xiao Yan, who lay on the bed at death's door, and her brows drew tightly together. She placed two fingers on his wrist and sent a wisp of gentle Spiritual Energy into him. A moment later, her expression changed sharply.

"This... what's going on?" Luo Su murmured, her usually calm face full of shock and doubt. "There are two forces fighting in his meridians. One is Spiritual Energy, and the other... I've never seen it before. That thing is terribly overbearing. The moment my Spiritual Energy went in, it burned it away."

"Can you treat him?" Luo Lan asked anxiously.

Luo Su was silent for a moment, then shook her head. "I can only stabilize his injuries for now. I'll use Spiritual Energy to seal a few vital acupoints near his heart meridian and stop the two forces from continuing to surge into it. As for curing him... forgive me, but there's nothing I can do."

She paused, then added quietly, "Young Master Lan, this man... I'm afraid he isn't from our Great Thousand World."

Luo Lan froze. "What do you mean?"

"I once read in the clan's records that some powerful people who broke through their shackles and came here from Lower Planes cultivated a power different from Spiritual Energy. When they first arrived in the Great Thousand World, the two forces would come into conflict like this." Luo Su looked at Xiao Yan on the bed, her expression complicated. "It's extremely dangerous. Out of ten people, I'm afraid not even one or two would survive it."

Luo Lan stood there in a daze. Though he didn't know exactly what a Lower Plane meant, he understood "not even one or two." His voice trembled a little as he said, "Then... what do we do?"

"I'll do my best for now." Luo Su sighed, took out several silver needles, and began using them to seal Xiao Yan's acupoints.

The silver needles were as fine as ox hair, with tiny Spirit Marks carved into their shafts. With each needle she placed, a wisp of gentle Spiritual Energy seeped through its tip into Xiao Yan's body, forming a small halo over each of several vital acupoints around his heart meridian. They temporarily held back the forces rampaging through his meridians. Even so, the unfamiliar, scorching force continued to batter the halos. Several times, Luo Su could clearly feel her Spiritual Energy letting out a faint wail as that force burned it.

By the time she finished placing the needles, fine beads of sweat covered Luo Su's forehead, and her face had grown somewhat pale. She gazed at the young man on the bed and murmured to herself, "This force, if he were at his peak..."

She did not finish, but a trace of deep apprehension flashed through her eyes.

News that Luo Lan had brought a blood-soaked outsider into the outer residence spread quickly. In less than a shichen, several uninvited guests arrived at the entrance to the secluded courtyard. Leading them was a lean-faced elder in a dark blue robe. Several young members of the Luo God Clan followed him, all dressed in fine clothes, their gazes carrying a hint of contempt as they looked into the courtyard.

"Luo Lan, how dare you?" The elder stood at the courtyard gate without entering and spoke coldly. "You brought someone of unknown origin into the residence without permission. Do you know that you've broken the clan rules?"

Luo Lan was keeping watch outside the side room. At the sight of the elder, his face immediately went pale, but he still steeled himself and went forward, bowing in greeting. "Elder Cheng... he's my friend. He's dying, I..."

"Friend?" The elder named Luo Cheng sneered. "A country bumpkin picked up in the outer city is fit to be friends with a member of my Luo God Clan?"

A young man behind him chimed in mockingly, "I heard it was for this fellow's sake that Young Master Lan got sent flying by a slap from Blood Butcher at the Luo Pill Pavilion yesterday. Tsk, tsk, you've disgraced yourself all the way to the outer city."

The others burst into laughter. Luo Lan's face turned crimson and his fists clenched tightly, but he gritted his teeth and said nothing.

"The Blood God Clan has already put out the word." Elder Luo Cheng's voice grew colder. "That pill seller at the Luo Pill Pavilion embarrassed Blood Butcher yesterday, and the Blood God Clan is searching the whole city for him. Now you've brought him into the residence. Do you want the Blood God Clan to lay this debt at our Luo God Clan's door? The clan leader is in seclusion, the clan has no end of affairs to deal with, and relations with the Blood God Clan are already strained. You're bringing trouble on the clan!"

"But he's the one the Blood God Clan targeted!" Luo Lan finally couldn't hold back. He raised his head and shouted, "Yesterday, Blood Butcher tried to snatch a pill formula at the Luo Pill Pavilion and injured me. He was the one who stepped forward and stood up to Blood Butcher for our Luo God Clan! The pills he sold Elder Qin can cure the Blood Fiend Palm's poison! How many people in our Luo God Clan have been struck by the Blood Fiend Palm and are lying in bed waiting to die? He's helping us!"

Elder Luo Cheng's gaze shifted slightly. The pills could cure the Blood Fiend Palm's poison? He had indeed heard a little about it, but he hadn't paid it any mind, taking it as that old fellow Elder Qin making a fuss over nothing again. But now, hearing Luo Lan say this...

After pondering for a moment, Elder Luo Cheng looked past Luo Lan at the young man lying on the bed in the side room, barely breathing. A calculating look flashed through his eyes, but in the end he snorted coldly and flicked his sleeve. "Even so, that's a private grudge between him and the Blood God Clan. It has nothing to do with our Luo God Clan. When he wakes up, if he still has a breath left in him, let him leave on his own. The Luo Shen Residence does not keep outsiders."

With that, he turned and swept away with the young clan members. Luo Lan stood in the courtyard, watching their backs, his eyes red-rimmed, stubbornly refusing to let his tears fall.

The night grew late.

Luo Su had already left the side room. Only Luo Lan remained, sitting on a stool he had brought to the bedside. Looking at the pale face on the bed, he chattered on, whether the other man could hear him or not.

"Don't you die... I've never really had any friends all my life. Those people in the clan either look down on me because I'm from a branch family, or they're after the little bit my parents left me. And the people in the outer city bow and scrape as soon as they see my token... You're the first person who's ever dared to say to my face that I snatched something from a child."

"My parents are away all year handling clan business. They don't even come back once a year. When I got sick as a kid, I always had to get through it on my own. Back then, I used to think how nice it would be if someone could sit beside me and talk to me... So you have to wake up, you hear? You still owe me a fist technique you haven't taught me..."

As the boy spoke, his voice gradually grew quieter. At last, unable to stay awake any longer, he slumped over the side of the bed and fell into a deep sleep, a trace of grievance still lingering at the corners of his mouth. What he didn't know was that, while he was speaking, the brows of the unconscious young man on the bed had twitched slightly.

Deep within Xiao Yan's consciousness lay a burning chaos. He seemed to be in a sea of fire, one half the flames of Dou Qi he knew so well, the other half that unfamiliar, dense Spiritual Energy. The two devoured and eroded each other, while his consciousness floated at the very center of the fiery sea, torn and scorched.

Amid that chaos, he faintly heard a boy's voice, chattering on and on. It was a little annoying, yet it gave his consciousness, which was on the verge of breaking apart, something more to hold on to. A wisp of extremely faint pink flame also flickered gently in the deepest part of his heart meridian, like a sleeping child turning over in a dream.

Xiao Yi...

Xiao Yan's consciousness clung desperately to that wisp of flame, refusing to let himself sink.

The oil lamp cast a dim yellow light. Xiao Yan remained unconscious on the bed, but his brows stayed tightly furrowed. Even in his unconscious state, the clash between the two forces inside him continued to torment him.

In the courtyard, moonlight lay like frost. At some unknown point, a figure had appeared without a sound beneath the courtyard's covered walkway.

It was an old man in a gray cloth robe. His hair had turned gray, yet his back was ramrod straight. He stood quietly in the shadows, as though he had become one with the night. Even if someone passed right by him, they probably wouldn't notice he was there. The old man's gaze passed through the half-open window and rested on the unconscious young man on the bed. He watched for a long time, a strange light slowly swirling in his seemingly cloudy old eyes.

"Dou Qi..."

He murmured to himself, his voice as soft as a sigh. "Someone actually came from that plane..."