“Boom!”

  Eyes shooting open, Jian Yunxi swiftly grabbed her sword and leapt to the corner of her room beside the entrance. Before she was truly awake, Jian Yunxi had flicked out a stone falling from the still shaking ceiling towards the opposite end of the cave where it cracked against a protrusion.

  With a crisp click, a mechanism activated opening an opening in the wall in which Jian Yunxi wedged herself through, before it closed behind her. In the tight pathway Jian Yunxi’s brain finally caught up to her situation and noticed several oddities.

  To start, everything felt stale from her rigid clothes, to numb muscles and joints, and her foggy mind. Looking down at herself, Jian Yunxi could even see distinct joints on her fingers and her calluses were gone leaving a smooth nearly skeletal look behind.

  Deciding actual light was needed for further external review, Jian Yunxi crossed her arms across her chest with the sword and closed her eyes. Falling into a light meditation, Jian Yunxi was stunned by the state of her internals.

  I’ve dealt with healthier corpses.

  Her organs were shrivelled, her stomach was nearly eating itself, and qi was less than an infant. Extending her senses slightly, the sword on her chest was somehow in a worst state with zero qi and nearly crumbling.

  Just falling a couple zhang unexpectedly and I’ll crumble.

  With what she could only assume to be a break-in, Jian Yunxi knew she couldn’t fight in her current form and instead slowly moved deeper into the crevice.

  Staying as quiet as possible, Yunxi attempted to stretch while moving to prepare for a worst-case scenario. As her joints began to develop some feeling, Yunxi heard some voices and through straining her ears she could decipher some words, though it was a dialect she hadn’t heard before.

  Foreigners? Hopefully the way they found this place wasn’t the most in depth on all the passages. Though considering they had to break in I doubt they know much.

  Listening as they approached, Yunxi held still while taking slow deep breaths through her nose. Through the words ancient, sect, mission, and senior brother; with knowing they had a violent entrance, she could guess a few things. Without noticing any mention of her name, or anyone she knew, she doubted they were specifically coming for her; or even expecting someone to be in here. She was curious how and why they were here, if they weren’t expecting anyone inside.

  Judging from their voices they couldn’t be much older than her, and hearing their steps demonstrated their weak qinggong. With these Yunxi just became more nervous, as even her father couldn’t have forced his way like they had, causing her to expect either a silent senior to be with them or outside.

  With this casualness I could probably take one hostage by surprise, doubt there is much of a point though.

  As they finally passed by the other side of the wall Yunxi then counted five breaths, before slowly making her way down in the opposite direction as the intruders. With the paths diverging she quickly was unable to make out any noise coming from their direction.

  Fully stretched, Yunxi slightly picked up her pace and made it into a larger cavern where a fresher smell struck her nose. Going over to a wall, she reached to open an airtight barrel. Popping off the lid, a noxious gas rushed out and after one sniff Yunxi quickly stepped back and kicked over the barrel. Now holding her breath again, she repeated the process with the other four barrels finding much the same.

  How long was I out? These should’ve lasted for years if not decades.

  Going over to a corner in the room, she picked up the leather satchel. Before it started to raise though, it crumbled in her hands leading to the coins inside to scatter across the floor.

  Probably should’ve expected that. At least my clothes survived.

  Picking the coins off the floor, Yunxi placed the gold coins in an inside pocket while the silver and bronze were placed in her outside pockets. Finally having everything together, she tied her sword to her waistband and left the room flicking another switch once out.

  The wall closing in behind her, Yunxi was satisfied with the construction of the mechanisms surviving at least as well as she had. Each step forward brought a fresher scent to her nose.

  As the cavern came to an end, Jian Yunxi took a few deep breaths to calm her slightly speeding heart.

  Pulling out her sword, Yunxi took a stance and cycled her miniscule volume of qi throughout her meridians a few times. With a grunt as she emptied her qi into her sword, Yunxi swung three times against the wall before her.

  That shouldn’t have been that difficult, even with the low qi volume that wall was tougher than she remembered.

  Fully out of qi now, Yunxi panted a few times as a triangle shaped stone fell out of the other side of the wall. Thankfully the qi was enough to protect her sword from any further damage.

  Climbing through the gap, Yunxi had to squint to protect her eyes from the bright light from the mouth of the now natural cavern she found herself in. After a quick look around, she put her sword back into her waist and limped out of the cave now even more sore than when she first woke.

  I haven’t felt this bad in a while, hopefully at least one of my spots hasn’t been raided, even if everything is rotten.

  Covering her eyes as she walked out, Yunxi gave her eyes time to adjust while she finally saw more than just white. At this point she wasn’t even surprised that nothing was where she remembered, the trees were out of place and any messages left for her were gone.

  Guess it’s been more than a couple decades, not a single part of the environment matches her memory.

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  Seeing a tree that was similar enough to her memory, Jian Yunxi sat underneath one with crossed legs and waited.

  Closing her eyes, Yunxi was able to focus on her other senses which hadn’t deteriorated as much as the rest of her body. In the distance she heard the faint flow of a mountain creek, the chirping of various birds and could feel the unfettered smell of nature.

  Feeling a change, Yunxi reached out her left hand just in time to catch a fruit falling from the tree. With her eyes opened, she peeled off a piece of the skin to rub the juice on her forearm before pocketing the peach-like fruit and going back to waiting.

  Repeating the process a few more times, and seeing no reaction on her skin, Jian Yunxi used her sword to cut out a slice of the peach and placed it under her gums.

  This should be enough to get everything started again, doubt my I’m ready for solid food yet.

  Then standing up, she began a trek through the forest towards where she’d heard the running water earlier. With every noise causing her to pause and hide at some nearby tree until deciding it was safe to continue, slowing her down more than the trip should’ve.

  Roughly halfway through the journey, Yunxi had sucked the juice out of the slice leading to her replacing it with another slice. Increasing her speed, she ended up finishing another two slices before reaching the stream.

  These have more energy than before, how much has changed?

  Once there, staying in the tree covering, Yunxi followed the stream downwards. As she moved further along, similar small streams joined the original causing it to increase in speed and widen.

  By the time she had finished sucking the juice from two peaches, she began to hear a crashing waterfall in the distance.

  That’s closer than I remember, has it been centuries then? Or longer?

  Slowing down her pace, Yunxi crept forward until she could see the cliff but began to hear some faint noises over the sound of water. Straining her ears again, she was able to tell the voices apart from the ones in her cave, though they were speaking with the same dialect.

  Either to speak over the waterfall, or to scare animals away, they were speaking loud enough for Yunxi to barely make out their words when focused.

  This time she decided to find a spot to recover her energy and listen to the conversation at the bottom of the cliff. Finding a place hidden in the leaves of a tree, Yunxi fell into a light meditation with her senses still opened.

  “What do you think Senior Brother Liu is looking for? There isn’t anything valuable around here.”

  Nothing valuable.

  A different, gruffy sounding voice responded.

  “Don’t know, don’t care. Don’t get too involved, Brother Liu is giving enough rewards to buy my silence.”

  The original youth pushed in his lighter tone.

  “Come on, there is enough to go into closed door for at least a year. You’re not curious why this recon mission in these backwoods is worth so much.”

  Backwoods, I don’t know if I would share those views. But things change.

  “Not curious, just cause Junior Brother Lin is gone doesn’t mean I’m going to start snooping where I don’t belong. If you find whatever Brother Liu is looking for, what are you going to do? Take it? He’ll kill us then get whatever he wants anyway. Best outcomes just to do our job.”

  “Fine, fine, no more on that then. Are you ready to try for the sect competition next year, I’m probably not even going to try until the one after.”

  As the conversation moved along, it jumped from topic to topic. Yunxi heard about seemingly everything, from the strength of sect members, new techniques, and even the affairs of Elders.

  Weak discipline, is this their first experience or something? Just standing around and gossiping, no checking for spying. I hadn’t heard a lot of these terms before I could guess the relative levels, but I don’t have a baseline to compare what ‘Qi Training Level 8’ meant to me.

  After a lengthy conversation with one member mostly giving basic acknowledgements while the other talked his lips off, they finally got to a topic Jian Yunxi was interested in. Taking something from his pocket and placing it in his mouth, the rowdy one changed the topic back to the rest of their group.

  “I should’ve taken more of these pills; we’ve been in the mortal realm for nearly a month now. I’m going to need at least a week to clear the residue. At least we can leave after they get back, what do you think is taking them so long?”

  Before the other could respond, Yunxi heard some rushing through the woods below. The same voice she’d heard in her cave joined in.

  “Was that a complaint I just heard. Guess this mission was too easy for you, maybe I should ask Brother Liu to give a fairer reward.”

  Even this leader is petty, is this just some training for them?

  “No, no, Brother Lin, no, Senior Lin, I was just worried about you. We were just planning on going over to see if we could be of assistance, right Brother Shu.”

  To the near groveling of the rowdy boy, the gruffy one stepped in to help change the topic.

  “That’s right, little Xiao and I were discussing plans to provide a greater service to you. With you back now we can be at ease. What can we help prepare? Xaio and I are ready to leave when you choose.”

  To respond, the ‘Brother Lin’ gave a small snort of acknowledgement and allowed the topic to change.

  “We’ve finished our part, pack up and we will head off. After a night at the village, we go straight back to the sect.”

  After saying this, the two members from the beginning, Xiao and Shu, quickly moved and leapt through the waterfall.

  That’s another option gone.

  In a short time, this Lin and the other member took some dry food out of their pouches. To eat they just crossed their legs to sit on the ground, no conversations between these two. A few minutes later, the group came back out from the waterfall, carrying large bags on their backs.

  Knowing they were about to leave; Yunxi stopped her meditation and opened her eyes. Based on their actions, she was confident that she would be able to trail them without being found.

  After they moved, Yunxi went over the cliff to peak over the edge. By the time she made it, Jian Yunxi could only just make out their retreating backs.

  Seeing that they were not trying to hide their tracks, Yunxi decided to have a quick check in the cave before following. Focusing on the cliff face, Yunxi mentally plotted a path to descend on.

  I haven’t had to do this in a while, probably should play it safe in my condition.

  Deciding to review her qinggong on her way down, Yunxi stepped over the edge. Quickly falling, she pushed off one outcropping to another ledge keeping her pace steady.

  At the start, Jian Yunxi was focused on each step moving forward, but as she regained confidence she was able to build her speed. The first third, about six zhang, took eight breaths, while the second took six and the final only four.

  Stomping on the final ledge, Yunxi used her momentum to shoot herself forward towards the bottom of the waterfall. As she reached the ground, Yunxi ran twice on the balls of her feet before jumping straight at the waterfall.

  Crossing across the crashing water, Yunxi was instantly able to tell it’s been plundered at least once. The open cavern had smashed barrels littered on the floor, while all the hidden passages she remembered had their entrances burst open.

  I already expected this, but everything being found is still disappointing. Though this one wasn’t too hidden, the others are probably not worth the time for what they have.

  With a sigh of annoyance, Jian Yunxi turned back around to leave regretting the rush just to get herself soaked.

  Not bothering to dry, Yunxi just went back through the waterfall. Back outside, she looked around and quickly found the tracks of the group.

  After one last deep breath, Yunxi shivered a bit before following the trail; leaving the now unrecognisable mountain behind.