"Munch, munch, munch…"
Yue Rin wiped biscuit crumbs from the corner of her mouth and stared into the fire. Her back rested against the cave wall, and warmth sank slowly into her bones. Most of her clothes had dried overnight. Only her cloak still felt heavy with damp, left near the flames like a stubborn shadow.
Thin sunlight filtered through the mess of branches and leaves she had stuffed over the entrance. It came in broken strips, pale and sleepy, like the world itself was yawning.
Not even a full day inside the secret realm, and she had already experienced more action than the past four years combined. Right now she just wanted to do nothing. To laze around and pretend this cave was a room at the inn and the worst thing waiting for her outside was A-Ling's teasing smile.
Still… she was alive.
That alone felt like an achievement.
And the spirit herb too.
Last night, she had been too exhausted to look at it properly. Now she dug the preservation box out of her backpack and opened it.
Inside lay the thing that had nearly killed her.
It was a small plant, no taller than her palm, the leaves were thin and curved, like petals frozen halfway between opening and closing. They carried a faint sheen, not bright enough to light the cave, but enough to catch the eye, like moonlight was trapped inside them.
Yue Rin stared at it for a long moment, then shut the lid.
She had no idea what it was. No idea what it did. If it was worth fifty spirit stones or five hundred.
She would figure it out later once she got out of this secret realm.
She finished the biscuit and reached for her waterskin. It was already half-empty from last night. She hesitated, then drank the rest anyway, letting the coolness slide down her throat.
For a heartbeat, she considered tossing the empty skin. Dead weight.
…But she kept it.
With a small sigh, she leaned her head back against the stone and checked her dantian.
Almost empty.
Of course.
Between the underwater scramble, Falling Leaf, and panic-running, she had burned through most of her Qi. Worse, even thinking about cultivating made her meridians and neck injury ache faintly, like bruises you only notice once the adrenaline is gone, she decided to go slowly as not to push herself too hard.
So she sat up, crossed her legs, and settled into a meditative posture.
Qi ran through her meridians in slow cycles, returning to her dantian like a trickle filling a cracked cup. It helped, but it wasn't painless. Each deeper breath pulled at the wound on her neck, and when she tried to speed up her circulation, a dull pressure bloomed behind her eyes.
Fine. Slow it is.
As she cultivated, last night kept replaying in her mind and one question refused to leave her alone.
How did the turtle know?
The moment the herb was plucked, it returned. It abandoned the fight like it had been stabbed from behind.
The book she'd read never mentioned that. Or maybe it did, and she hadn't paid enough attention.
Either way, it meant her orchid plan needed adjustment.
The strategy itself stayed the same. Lure the ape away with honey cake, snatch the orchid, then run. Because even if she had to assume that he might 'feel' the orchid being taken, she had the space to escape.
The turtle had been worse because of the pond. One way out. One surface. One narrow chance.
With the ape, at least she'd have trees and distance. She could sprint in any direction.
The problem was speed.
How fast could that a Mantle Canopy Ape at the mid Body Tempering realm move if it truly committed?
Could it catch her even if she used a Light-Step talisman?
Yue Rin let out a quiet breath through her nose.
"Sigh…"
Could nothing in this world ever go cleanly for her?
She decided to cross that bridge when she reached it, for now she focused on cultivating until her dantian no longer felt like a dry well. And then maybe climb this cliff she is in.
* * * *
By afternoon, sunlight poured over the secret realm's cliffs, turning stone warm and bright.
Yue Rin's fingers clung to a narrow crack as she hauled herself upward.
"Hngh…"
She climbed carefully, testing each handhold before trusting her weight. As a cultivator, her body was stronger than a mortal's, but that didn't make falling any less terrifying.
And she hated heights.
She kept her eyes up.
She kept them up.
…Then she glanced down by accident and almost lost her grip.
The drop beneath her was far bigger than her brain wanted to accept. Her stomach flipped. Her scalp prickled. For a split second, she imagined slipping, tumbling, breaking every bone, and dying in shock while still conscious enough to regret it.
Yue Rin jerked her gaze back upward so fast her neck stung.
No more looking down. Ever.
Rock by rock, she climbed. Twice her fingers slid on loose stone, and twice her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. But the top edge finally came into reach.
Her hand slapped onto the lip of the cliff.
Then the other.
Her head rose over the edge, hair sticking to her forehead, and she dragged herself up and rolled onto the grass like a corpse that had decided to live again.
"Huf… huf…"
She lay there, heaving, until her breathing stopped trying to murder her.
Then she lifted her head.
And blinked.
The cliff-top was… empty.
Just a wide spread of grass and wind. It looked like a platform carved out of the world for no reason other than to mock climbers.
Yue Rin pushed herself up, brushed dirt from her sleeves, and walked toward the edge to look around.
Forests and slopes stretched out below. In the distance, faint mountains sat like sleeping beasts. The sky was clean, the wind cool against her cheeks. Without thinking, she loosened her hood and let the breeze hit her hair properly.
Fine. She'd give this world one point.
Its nature was beautiful.
As she walked along the edge, scanning, something caught her eye far away.
A shape in the distance, half-buried in what looked like swamp forest. A structure that didn't belong among reeds and wet trees.
Yue Rin's memory stirred.
A church.
She had passed it the last time she entered. The thought about using it as shelter had even crossed her mind… right until a toad spirit beast the size of a hut scared her away.
If she could get closer, maybe that will jog her memory and she'd remember which direction led to the orchid.
Yue Rin let out a helpless sigh.
"It's been too long…"
Then she looked back at the cliff edge.
…Right.
She had climbed up here like an idiot.
Which meant she now had to climb back down.
Yue Rin stared at the drop for a long moment, then slowly took off her backpack and set it on the grass.
"…I'm taking a nap first."
And with that decision made, she lay down in the sun like a corpse again, closed her eyes, and let the wind cover her thoughts.
* * * *
Far from the sealed realm's misty boundary, night had already settled over the Dawning Vale Kingdom.
In the forest beyond its gates, four cloaked figures moved between the trees, silent as drifting smoke. Each carried a bag marked with an emblem too worn to recognize at a glance.
When they reached the road, the torchlight from the gate washed over them.
The guards narrowed their eyes.
"Halt!"
The cloaked group did not stop.
The world tilted for the guards, as if the ground itself had decided to roll. For a confused heartbeat, they saw their own bodies drop forward.
Then darkness swallowed them.
One cloaked figure stepped over the fallen heads and spoke in a flat voice.
"We go left from this gate until we meet senior by the sewers entrance. Follow me. Don't do anything stupid. Understood?"
The other three nodded at once and disappeared into the night.