When Gu Yanqing arrived at the lake, shimmering sunlight rippled across its surface. A mountain breeze blew from the opposite shore, bending a cluster of reeds low.
The lake wasn't large, but the water was crystal clear, revealing cobblestones on the bed and a few small fish lazily flicking their tails.
Crouching behind the shrubs at the pine forest's edge, he scanned the shoreline inch by inch.
Nothing. Tightening his grip on the hilt, he kept his steps light as he circled around half the shore.
Thickets, piles of loose stones, reed marshes.
He checked every spot where a jade-eyed wolf might lie in ambush, yet didn't even find a flattened patch of grass.
He began to calculate in his mind.
The original book stated it would come to drink in the afternoon, when sunlight reached the mountain's shaded side.
The sun was already slanting west; the timing should be just right. Demon beasts were territorial creatures and wouldn't easily abandon their domains.
Could he have arrived too late?
Had it already finished drinking and left?
Or had it not come to the lake at all, heading straight out to hunt instead?
His expression turned grim.
If the jade-eyed wolf wasn't by the lake, it was likely prowling the mountain. And Lin Zhixue was on this mountain right now.
He instinctively glanced at the system map.
The red dot was still in the northwest, roughly four to five hundred meters away from him, moving at a crawl.
She was likely still searching for herbs, safe for the moment.
Yet he couldn't afford to wait. He had to find that wolf as soon as possible.
Holding his sword, he began searching along the cliff face on the mountain's shaded side.
...
Lin Zhixue crouched beneath a stone cliff, carefully peeling back a layer of damp moss with a small trowel to reveal a small cluster of mushrooms glowing with a faint blue light.
With a calm expression, she harvested the mushrooms, placed them into the bamboo basket on her back, and stood to continue climbing upward.
The bamboo basket already held quite a few items.
A few stalks of Spirit Gathering Grass, a small bundle of spirit herb roots for foundation solidifying, two rock ear fungi, and an unexpected piece of low-grade spirit ore.
Normally, this haul would have been considered bountiful.
Yet she couldn't bring herself to feel happy. The thing she wanted most remained nowhere in sight.
Cold Marrow Grass. She had asked around at the herb shops in the market, but the shopkeeper told her it was quite rare, leaving her no choice but to search the mountain herself.
Yet she had already combed through most of the mountain's shaded side. Between the rock crevices lay only moss and gravel; let alone Cold Marrow Grass, she hadn't even spotted a single leaf that looked remotely similar.
Moreover, the mountain was far from peaceful.
When she had first started up the mountain, she spotted the tracks of a demon beast in a patch of mud. Larger than a wolf's yet smaller than a bear's, the claw marks were deep and sharp—clearly not left by an ordinary wild animal.
She had hesitated at the time, but climbed on anyway.
Because she had no retreat.
Without Cold Marrow Grass, she couldn't cleanse her meridians.
If her meridians couldn't be cleansed, her cultivation would remain stuck at the fourth layer of Qi Refining for the rest of her life, and she would never have a day to rise above her station in the Lin family.
Therefore, she was exceptionally cautious, stopping every few steps to listen for movement and only pressing forward once she confirmed there were no unusual sounds.
She stepped over dry twigs with care, minimizing every noise and keeping even her breathing as faint as possible.
As she skirted a patch of bushes, she suddenly froze.
Ahead lay a relatively open patch of gravel, at the edge of which was a modest cave. Its entrance was pitch-black, offering no clue to its depth.
Vines and moss crawled all over the stone wall beside the cave entrance.
She narrowed her eyes.
Beneath the vines seemed to be the stems and leaves of a plant. Its shape differed slightly from what she had seen in the herb manual, but the color was remarkably close.
That frosty, pale blue shimmered with a faint luminescence in the dappled sunlight.
Cold Marrow Grass.
Her heart skipped a beat. Just as she took a step forward—
Two orbs of jade-green light flickered to life inside the cave.
The lights shifted, followed by a low growl rumbling from deep within a throat.
Immediately after, a demon wolf with grayish-black fur padded out from the cave entrance.
Its build was not massive, but its limbs were thick and powerful, its claws scraping harshly against the gravel.
Raising its head, those jade-green eyes locked straight onto Lin Zhixue.
Lin Zhixue's pupils shrank abruptly.
A Foundation Establishment demon beast. The judgment struck her almost instantaneously. She had to run.
Even a Foundation Establishment cultivator's sword qi might fail to pierce the hide of such a beast. At the fourth layer of Qi Refining, fighting it would be little more than tickling its skin.
Run.
Without hesitation, she spun on her heel and bolted.
Gravel clattered and slipped underfoot. She nearly twisted her ankle, but didn't dare slow down.
The footsteps behind were right on her heels; the wolf was far faster than she had anticipated.
Before she had run fifty paces, the snarling behind her sounded right against her ear.
She could even smell a foul, bloody stench mingled with damp earth.
She couldn't outrun it.
The instant that thought flashed through her mind, she made a second judgment.
She couldn't keep running in a straight line.
Lunging violently to the side, she tumbled into a thicket by the path. Twigs ripped through her sleeves and scratched her cheeks, stinging sharply.
Paying no heed to the pain, she reached back and drew her sword from the storage bag at her waist.
Rolling over inside the brush, she gripped the hilt with both hands and pointed the tip toward the lunging gray shadow.
She didn't cry out.
Her eyes simply remained fixed on the direction the demon beast was lunging from, her arms trembling.
A fight to the death.
And then...
The wolf ran.
As if someone had stepped on its tail, it let out a sharp yelp of pain, its grayish-black silhouette streaking across the gravel ground.
In the blink of an eye, it vanished toward the cave entrance, leaving behind only a messy trail of blood.
Lin Zhixue still held her sword aloft, frozen in the brush in a parrying stance.
She looked down at the sword in her hands.
There was not a single drop of blood on the blade.
Her gaze shifted back toward where the wolf had disappeared. The trail of blood extended all the way across the gravel ground to the cave entrance. That blood was definitely not caused by her.
What happened?
She crawled out of the bushes, her arms still shaking, her heart hammering like a war drum.
She stood rooted in place for several breaths, her thoughts spinning rapidly, yet unable to come up with a reasonable explanation.
Forget it.
Regardless of why that wolf had fled, lingering here was not a wise choice.
There was more than one demon beast in these mountains, and the commotion just now might attract something even more troublesome.
She sheathed her sword and briskly walked away from the cave.
Rate on N.U.
