Yue Rin had been traveling for a while when her stomach finally began to protest. Only then did she remember she'd stayed up the whole night, guarding herself like a paranoid squirrel, and hadn't eaten or drunk a drop since.
The memory of the mess that had just happened replayed in her head, and her mood soured all over again.
"I saved you, and you almost killed me. Then you tried to kill me again. Heartless piece of shit!"
She still couldn't understand that girl's thinking. Yue Rin had only wanted to ask if she could spare one talisman. Just one. The one that split into those fire swords.
If Yue Rin had even a single one like that, she could stroll around this realm like she owned it. Fire swords hovering at her back. People too scared to breathe wrong in her presence.
"Even if it nearly roasted me… god, it was the coolest thing I've seen."
You'd think a cultivation world would be full of scenes like that, legends flying overhead every other day. But reality was far less generous. Most of what she'd seen were cultivators acting like hungry dogs.
Her stomach growled again, louder this time.
Fine.
Keeping her pace, she pulled her backpack around to the front without stopping, fingers finding her ration by feel alone as she kept her eyes forward. She grabbed some out, tossed the backpack onto her shoulders, and started munching biscuits as she moved.
"By this point, protagonists are already shaking mountains, and their names are echoing across the world." She chewed, then muttered, "And I'm still a nobody."
The familiar inferiority prickled at her. Sometimes it felt like the heavens had dragged her here only to forget about her. She even found herself wondering what other transmigrators were doing right now.
Probably soaring through the skies while she trudged through mud.
She knew comparing herself to others was poison, but it didn't stop the thought from biting. In the end, she forced herself to focus on the one thing that mattered.
The orchid.
She would get it. No matter what. After that, she'd find a safe corner of the realm, curl up, and rot peacefully until the secret realm spat everyone out.
Finishing the biscuits, she licked the crumbs from her thumb, and immediately felt thirsty. The same routine again: backpack to the front, waterskin out.
Only half full.
She stared at it for a beat, then drank anyway, draining it in one long pull. The water hit her belly like a stone.
When she lowered the skin, it was empty.
"…Great. Now I'm out."
Yue Rin exhaled through her nose and rubbed her forehead.
"I remember a river north of here."
It would pull her off her fastest route since the pine forest lay south, but there was no point rushing toward the orchid if she ended up dizzy from thirst halfway there. She wasn't gambling her life on "maybe I'll find drinking water."
Decision made, she changed course.
* * * *
A few hours later, the swamp finally began to loosen its grip.
The trees thinned. The ground stopped sucking at her boots with every step. The air still held dampness, but the heavy stink of rot faded, replaced by the clean, green smell of living wood.
The swamp didn't end in a neat line. It frayed out, turning into a mixed stretch of forest where reeds gave way to brush, and gnarled swamp roots became normal trunks. Leaves began to appear underfoot again.
Yue Rin didn't head straight north, even though that was the fastest route to the river. Instead, she cut diagonally.
It didn't take long before the trees opened up and the sound of water sharpened into something steady. The riverbank appeared ahead, but what made her guard go up were the cultivators scattered everywhere.
Some leaned against rocks. Some sat with their backs to trees, boots off, wringing mud from socks. A few had their hands buried in wounds, quietly applying paste or wrapping cloth. Most were in small clusters, heads tilted close, voices kept low.
The moment Yue Rin stepped out of the tree line, a wave of wary gazes slid toward her, but she acted like they didn't exist.
Walking to the water at an even pace, she appeared neither hurried nor hesitant before shrugging her backpack off as if it weighed nothing. That was when a few of those wary looks sharpened into something greedier.
Still, she didn't react. She had learned that lesson the hard way.
The river here was clearer than it had any right to be, this deep in the wild. It wasn't perfectly transparent, but the surface lacked that oily sheen, and the current carried a clean, biting chill.
Yue Rin scanned the water. On the opposite bank, where the river curved and widened, she spotted it, but she didn't dare stare too long. Instead, she let her gaze slide away, fixing on something else.
Deep in the heart of the pool, faintly visible through the clear water, strands of dark green kelp swayed around submerged rocks. When the light hit it right, the fronds gave off a soft teal glow from below, like something breathing underwater.
So it was still here.
She filled her waterskins without crouching too low, careful not to make herself look like prey drinking from a puddle.
After she was done, Yue Rin moved away from the crowd and chose a tree a little farther down the bank. Sitting with her back against it, she dropped her backpack beside her with a firm, careless thud, and rested her forearms on her knees as if she had nothing to guard.
But Inside, she stayed alert.
The bank fell back into its uneasy calm. People spoke in whispers. Teams murmured plans. A couple of lone cultivators stared at the glowing kelp like starving men staring at a locked pantry.
Yue Rin knew why nobody started fights here.
Not because everyone was righteous.
Because this place was a trap for the attacker.
If someone lunged at another cultivator on this bank, half the bystanders would rush in shouting about 'justice', not out of virtue, but because it was the perfect excuse to gang up, strip both sides, and walk away with a clean conscience.
In the end, the first one to draw their weapon would be the first one to get carved up.
Yue Rin kept her gaze lowered, refusing to meet any lingering stares. Looking back was an invitation.
Beside a tree farther off, Qiao Min squinted at the cloaked figure who had just arrived. Something about their height and the way they carried themselves felt familiar…
He leaned toward Deng Hai. "That cloaked one. I think it's the person from the pond."
Deng Hai cracked one eye open, clearly unimpressed. "You've said that twice already."
"This time I'm sure," Qiao Min insisted. "Go check. And if I'm wrong I'll extend our break till afternoon."
Deng Hai's annoyance vanished. "Deal."
He started to rise before suddenly Qiao Min yanked him back down so fast Deng Hai nearly cursed out loud.
"Sit," Qiao Min breathed, eyes fixed on the tree line. "A group is coming."
Kang Loen, half-asleep on Qiao Min's shoulder, blinked once at the tension and immediately shut his eyes again, pretending not to exist.
Deng Hai's face tightened. "Should we move away?"
Qiao Min shook his head. "They're already here."
The forest stirred, and a group stepped out onto the bank.
Seven people, at least. Qiao Min calculated.
They wore no sect robes, but their clothes were too fine, their belts too neat, their scabbards too well-made. They walked like they belonged on clean stone paths.
Around the bank, several cultivators quietly scoffed.
If you wanted to pretend you were rogue, at least pretend properly.
Yue Rin also noticed the group, but what surprised her more was how they were positioned.
Although they were spread out, it didn't seem they did that to watch the riverbank. Instead they were loosely circling someone in the middle, keeping a few steps of space around them without making it obvious.
A girl.
She looked young, maybe only in her teens, dressed in pale travel robes that should have been ruined in an outdoor environment, but somehow weren't. The hem had a few flecks of dried mud, as if dirt had only dared touch her at the edge. Her hair was pinned up neatly, not a single strand out of place, and a small ornament at her temple caught the sunlight when she turned her head, and she did that again and again.
Her eyes moved with open curiosity, taking in the wounded cultivators, the scattered packs, the tense quiet. But it wasn't the cautious curiosity of someone in danger. It was the idle kind, like she'd wandered into an unfamiliar market and was deciding what was worth looking at.
Then her gaze drifted to the river.
Yue Rin didn't know if they had come here to fight or something else, but her fingers slid toward her talisman pouch, ready to book it the moment things get dangerous.
Leading the group was a young man with sharp brows and a calm, polished face, the kind that looked harmless until you noticed how his gaze never wasted motion. His robe was a muted gray-green with subtle stitching. Even the way his hand rested near his sword was controlled and practiced.