North of their current location was the Ice Phoenix Mountain Range, which passed through the border between the Shang and Zhou Kingdoms. A sprawling forest lay at the mountain range’s base. That forest was where Zhou Lihua’s and Master Wong Jiu’s were currently racing through.

Zhou Lihua did not know how long she had been running for. She’d left Wu Jian at the river, which must have been several dozen lî away at the very least. It did not sit well with her that she was being forced to flee while Wu Jian fought to protect her. She understood it was because her martial prowess could no longer keep up with his because of the path she had chosen, but it still galled her.

“Lihua… I… I think we should be… far enough… away… now…”

Master Wong Jiu gasped for breath as they raced through the dark forest. It was night now. The massive trees blotted out the stars and cast the forest in everlasting darkness. The only reason they could even see where they were going was because she made liberal use of her Heavenly Ghost Flame to light the way.

“We don’t know that for sure… but I doubt we can run much further like this. Very well. Let’s find a place to rest for the night,” Zhou Lihua suggested.

“M-more beautiful words have never been spoken,” Master Wong Jiu muttered with a relieved sigh.

Zhou Lihua would have truthfully liked to get a bit further, but she knew her master was getting up their in his years, and his cultivation wasn’t rising anymore. He probably wouldn’t get much stronger than he was now. In either event, she decided they needed to at least find a place to stay the night. They couldn’t very well camp out in the middle of a dangerous forest.

This forest was filled with magical beasts of all kinds. They had already been attacked several times, and though she had dealt with each magical beast that came their way, there was always a chance they would run into one she couldn’t defeat. There were also magical beasts who hunted in packs. Many wolf type magical beasts made forests like this their homes. Zhou Lihua was not confident she could take down an entire pack unscathed.

They searched for a place to spend the night and eventually found what appeared to be an unused burrow. It looked like something had carved out a hole in a massive tree and turned it into a nest. No magical beasts were present, and Zhou Lihua could tell from the lack of a scent that this burrow had been unused for a long time. Magical beasts often marked their territory so other magical beasts would know to stay away.

“This is as good a spot as any to get some rest… I suppose,” Master Wong Jiu mumbled. His face scrunched up like he had swallowed a lemon.

“I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused, Master,” said Zhou Lihua.

Her master shook his head as he sat down. “None of this is your fault. You cannot be blamed for the actions of others.”

“Master is too kind,” she mumbled, sitting down as well and drawing her knees into her chest.

They didn’t dare start a fire for fear of it attracting attention. The air was cold, but that wasn’t enough to bother a cultivator at their level. More importantly was their lack of provisions. Master Wong Jiu only had alchemy pills and ingredients in his storage ring, and all she had was a few pieces of jerky. Her bodyguards had been the ones with all the food stuffs for their journey.

Zhou Lihua placed her head against her knees and tried to get some sleep, but it would not come no matter how much she longed for it. What happened during surprise attack was burned into her mind. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her bodyguards dying. Even Zhou Chao, who she had known since she was a child, had been killed by those two women.

“How are you fairing, Lihua?” asked Master Wong Jiu.

“I’m fine, Master.” Zhou Lihua hid her true thoughts behind a smile.

He sighed irritably. “You cannot hide your thoughts from me. I’ve known you for far too long.”

“I guess not.” The smile vanished as she looked at her shoes. The slippers were scuffed and covered in dirt. “I am… in shock, I think. Everything happened so fast that I’m having trouble processing it. I never… could have imagined Zhou Chao would be killed so easily. It happened in an instant.”

“Mmmm. Death is rarely a slow thing, especially in the world of cultivation. It almost always happens in the blink of an eye,” Master Wong Jiu said. “I know this is hard, but do your best to rest up. We’ll have to continue on tomorrow. Our goal is the Ice Phoenix Mountain Range.”

Zhou Lihua looked up with a horrified expression. “You can’t mean to leave Jian Wu behind.”

“That is what he wanted.”

“Screw what he wanted! I’m not abandoning him! We’ll wait for him before traveling any further!”

“Haaaah… that stubborn streak of yours is going to get you into a lot of trouble, but I know there’s no point in arguing with you. I couldn’t make you move even if I wanted to now. You’ve already surpassed me in both strength and alchemy.” Master Wong Jiu waved an irritable hand as though warding off a flee. “Fine. Fine. We’ll begin searching for the young man tomorrow. I just hope this doesn’t come back to bite us.”

“Thank you, Master.”

“Whatever. Just get some sleep.”

Zhou Lihua knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep with all these thoughts running through her mind, so she crossed her legs and formed a tiger seal with her hands to begin circulating her chi. She wasn’t in the right state of mind to contemplate the Dao of Alchemy. Instead, she allowed her mind to wander, and of course, her mind wandered to the man who even now was fighting to protect her.

The rumbling of thunder echoed in the distance.

***

The sun rose and Zhou Lihua opened her eyes. She looked out through the burrow at the first rays of light streaming through the canopy.

She hadn’t slept at all last night, but she had been able to medidate, so she didn’t feel tired. Standing up, she stretched her arms. Her hands almost bumped into the burrow roof.

Master Wong Jiu lay on his side, sound asleep. He used his left arm as a pillow for his head. His face was scrunched up as he shifted around like he was trying to find a more comfortable position. Well, she didn’t blame him. Sleeping on the ground like this was a lot different from sleeping on a soft bed or even the sofas of their carriage.

Zhou Lihua stepped outside and surveyed her surroundings. The forest was starting to wake up. She heard the chirping of birds as they flitted through the woods. Mixed with the birdson was the hiss of snakes, the croak of frogs, and the yowling of wolves. There didn’t seem to be any magical beasts in the vicinity, which was good. However, she couldn’t let her guard down.

Her master woke up a few minutes later, and they agreed to split up and search for Wu Jian. There was a slight risk of running into those two women. However, the need to cover more ground and find their companion outweighed the risks. They also had a plan put in place if either of them ran into trouble, so they should be okay. She hoped.

Her stomach gurgled as she walked through the forest. The jerky she’d eaten last night was not enough to satiate her. They would have to catch their own food, but she’d never done something like that before. Well, before she found something to eat, she needed to find Wu Jian. He said he would catch up to her. She believed him. She did not think he would break her promise no matter what obstacles he faced.

She soon came upon a burbling stream. The clear water looked very pure. Fish swam upstream. Maybe she could catch some for breakfast.

Zhou Lihua knelt beside the stream and cupped some water in her hands. She splashed it against her face. It would have been nice if she could take a bath, but not only was the water cold, this stream was not deep enough to even consider it.

As she stared at her reflection in the water’s surface, red liquid began mixing with the stream. Was that blood? It was. Blinking in shock several times, she turned her head to follow the source, and found something that made her blood run cold.

“WU JIAN?!”

She raced over to the body half-lying in the river and knelt beside it. A gasp escaped unbidden from her lips when she noticed the copious amounts of blood pouring from where his arm should have been. Should have as it was no longer there. There was nothing from the shoulder down. The entire arm was just gone.

“Oh, no… Wu Jian! Wu Jian! Wake up!”

Zhou Lihua turned Wu Jian onto his back and pulled him onto her lap. His mask was still in place somehow, so she removed it, revealing a face so deathly pale it looked drained of blood. There were no wounds on his face. His mask must have protected him. Yet his body was covered in blood, scrapes, and bruises.

Did those two do this to him?! How powerful are those women?!

Wu Jian was one of the strongest people she knew. He could fight cultivators an entire realm above him and win. Did that mean those two Human Limit Realm cultivators were also capable of doing the same? It must have. Dammit. If only she were stronger.

“Hang on, Wu Jian. I’ll help you. I won’t let you die.”

Zhou Lihua quickly summoned a blood clotting pill, crushed it in her mouth, and pressed her lips to his. Wu Jian tried to cough the liquid back up, but she massaged his throat to make him swallow. She waited and watched as the blood running down his arm slowed to a stop. Then she summoned a blood replenishing pill and did the same thing. That would help him replenish the plasma he had lost during his battle.

His arm? Where is his arm?

She searched frantically for his arm and soon found it lying several chih away, on the other side of the stream. With a wave of her hand, the arm flew toward her. She caught it. The frayed edges of the arm almost made her vomit. She could see the bone and muscles where the arm had been removed. Fortunately, the cut was extremely clean. It looked like something had just severed straight through his shoulder with no resistence.

“Come on. I’m going to get you somewhere safe.”

Zhou Lihua placed the mask back on Wu Jian’s face, lifted him into her arms, and carried him back to where she was staying. She set him on the ground and started a fire with some random twigs she found. Wu Jian’s body was cold from blood loss and being half-submerged in water. She needed to warm him up.

Master Wong Jiu returned not long after she had. He saw the damage done to Wu Jian and grimaced.

“That’s going to take a lot of effort to heal,” he said.

Zhou Lihua nodded. “I know. Master, do you have the ingredients for a Low-Grade Regeneration Pill?”

The Low-Grade Regeneration Pill was a tier 5 pill that could reconnect lost limbs. It didn’t require a heavenly flame, but it was still difficult to refine.

“I do… but I have no confidence in refining one myself… and I’m missing one of the key ingredients,” Master Wong Jiu confessed.

“Which ingredient are you missing?”

“A tier 5 monster core with a wood element.”

“That means we need to find a wood type magical beast at the Human Limit Realm.” Zhou Lihua pressed two fingers to her lips and furrowed her brow. “I know this area. It’s called the Cuòjué Forest. There is supposedly a penghou at the Human Limit Realm living deep within this forest.”

Penghou was the ancient word for drumbeat marquis. It was a tree spirit spoken of in ancient folklore, a creature that evolved from the essence of wood. Zhou Lihua had read about them in a beastiary. They looked like black dogs with no tail.

“Don’t tell me you plan to enter the deeper parts of the forest? That’s suicide!” Master Wong Jiu looked aghast.

“What’s suicide is not healing Jian Wu,” Zhou Lihua said stubbornly. “Those two women defeated our strongest fighter. They will be coming for us. We need Jian Wu to recover if we want to survive.”

Master Wong Jiu’s lips became a thin line as he clenched his hands. He opened his mouth several times but no words came out. He knew he couldn’t argue with her reasoning. This was her victory.

“Please look after Jian Wu for me,” she said with a smile before leaving the burrow. Chi flew from her feet as she lifted herself into the air and blasted toward the forest’s epicenter. She didn’t know how much time she had before those women arrived, but she knew it wasn’t long. Zhou Lihua was in a race against time.