When An Fei’s bleary eyes finally opened to expose themselves to the world, she found herself not rousing within the safe confines of the Sanctum, but instead was facing an unfamiliar ceiling of stitched wooden planks.
As she attempted to move her limbs, the young girl heard the subtle rustling of cloth brush against her ear.
“What…”
What happened to her?
The whisper of surprise escaped the young girl’s lips as her body abruptly arose onto a seated position, her mind strife with alarm and befuddlement. An Fei’s dulled senses gradually began to recover, and she began to glance around her surroundings.
She… was laying on a bed, surrounded by a warm blanket of wool.
“My clothes!”
An Fei’s mind screeched to a halt as her arms ascended from the dense cover of the wool blanket to feel over her body, sighing with relief as soon as she felt the unique pattern of knots brush against the left side of her waist.
However, it didn’t take much longer for the young girl to fall into panic for the second time after she had finished surmising her condition.
Her qama… where did it go?
An Fei’s countenance paled at the malignant thought of having lost her weapon, and the young girl leapt from the bed in her haste to search. If anyone mishandled the steel knife or utilized it upon a foe, then the consequences could be disast-
Crash!
The instant her feet contacted the floor, the young girl collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion.
“Wu…”
An Fei grit her teeth as the highly discomforting and not unfamiliar mixture of fatigue and numbness cascaded over her bones and limbs, immobilizing her onto the ground.
The young girl reached out with her hands to grip onto the edge of the bed, only to discover that her arms lacked the strength that they possessed not more than a few seconds ago.
Her body…
Her circumstances seemed to have returned to that of a year prior when she first awoke on the Shattered Star Continent, incapable of any physical exertion.
An Fei’s mood plummeted to the lowest as the notion of a once-again crippled physique brushed against her mind-
Creak!
The door opened with a slight screech of badly oiled metal grinding against the other in a fit of protest, and the figure of a young person emerged into view.
When she recognized the silhouette, An Fei inadvertently released a sigh of relief.
“Little Sister!”
Shen Ming Yue quickly placed down the bowl of soup clasped in her hands and rushed to support the young girl’s trembling body, lifting her into the air and onto the bed in a swift motion. The youthful girl then planted her palms on her hips as a chastising expression crossed her dazzling countenance.
“Little Sister, what exactly happened to you!?” Shen Ming Yue half-heartedly roared in exasperation.
“If it weren’t for your cute little fox, you would have been dead when we discovered your body. Just what were you doing, to end up in such a condition in a dark alleyway on the streets!?”
Ahem!
The young girl’s lips twitched as she received the youthful girl’s berating in silence, her heart laden with a curious emotion.
An Fei motioned for Shen Ming Yue to guide her back into the blankets, her lips parting to ask a question.
“How long until I woke up?”
“-if you do something like that, Elder Si- huh?” Shen Ming Yue paused, tilting her head to the side in thought.
“About a week? Father became extremely concerned when the doctor had to visit twice in a day…”
“Oh…”
An Fei leaned into the pillow as she felt her eyelids drooping, her stuttering vision forewarning another wave of exhaustion.
The young girl opened her mouth to clarify the matter regarding her equipment, but the incoming darkness was far beyond her current capacity to withstand.
“…ah, that’s right, the Esteemed Senior seemed to have a few things to give you since last time…”
As her hearing faded into static and her vision cut out, Shen Ming Yue seemed to be talking in earnest regarding the old shopkeeper she had met the other day…
Though, An Fei didn’t have the patience and stamina to necessarily care about it, until it arose on its own to slap her on the cheek.
–
For the next twelve days, An Fei did not depart from the bed in which her body lay.
…nor was she granted the opportunity to swiftly recuperate in the Sanctum, for Shen Ming Yue tittered besides her constantly, without a single period of break in which the young girl could take advantage of and escape.
Fortunately, An Fei wasn’t necessarily uninformed of the current circumstances, but her satisfaction after knowing the information was sufficiently negative.
The young girl’s mood plummeted at the thought of repeating the grueling process of wheedling information from the ‘Elder Sister’ Shen Ming Yue, deigning to remain silent and blissfully unaware.
The first area of interest of which An Fei had casually brought up after finishing a bowl of heartwarming mushroom soup, was where she was at the moment.
The instant the words had departed from her lips, the youthful girl had fallen into another frenzied rage as she stood to plant her palms against her hips, and berate the bedridden young girl for the next hour and twenty minutes.
The gist was that due to the carnage imposed onto the room by An Fei and the six assassins, the Yang Clan was unwilling to allot them another room for the two young girls to reside in, even after Shen Haoren had offered to pay double of the asking price.
Ultimately, after Yang Jian’s timely intervention, An Fei had been granted a room in the servants quarters, and Shen Haoren relinquished his pleasant nighttime with his wife to allow Shen Ming Yue to use the other, previously unoccupied bed.
…that was to be expected, for nobody would be willing to clean up a room with six decomposed, heavily bleeding and mutilated corpses spilling their blood and their vitality over every proffered corner.
After hearing such news from Shen Ming Yue at that time, the young girl only had one silent question racing through her mind.
If… that drunken fellow of the Xiao Clan back at the Bone Spirit Town had not disintegrated into sub-elemental matter, would the Peaceful Road continue to exist after the incident…
“-are you listening!?”
The roar split across An Fei’s eardrums, and the young girl yelped in shock. An Fei licked her lips to search for any residue of the spiced mushroom soup, her stomach gesturing for more.
“Yes, yes, I’m listening! It’s just that… yelling at severely anemic patients isn’t a great idea, especially if you want them to recuperate…”
“Then what did I say just now!?”
“…Wu…”
An Fei flinched as she received the youthful girl’s glare, and cowered behind the sheets of the blankets.
Facing the angered expression on Shen Ming Yue’s countenance, the pitiful young girl wondered whether her current physique was capable of implementing the <Steps of Underlying Shadow>.
The second area of interest was that the public security of Dong Lin City, operated by several of the supervising clan’s joint surveillance, had been alarmed by the incidents at the Plum Blossom Inn and at the alleyway obscured behind the grand inn. The day after the incident, the presence of soldiers on the streets had magnified by a significant margin.
Furthermore, the guards patrolling the wall had discovered an assassin’s dead body perished against the base of the stone wall, the body decapitated and reduced to a mass of holes from the buzzards’ earnest feeding.
“Currently, you can’t purchase a single object without having to display a proof of identity, be it a citizen plate of Dong Lin, a cultivator’s emblem, or an association’s insignia,” Shen Ming Yue grumbled as she unloaded the contents of the wooden basket onto the tray placed on An Fei’s lap.
“Thank goodness I updated my status at the administration office a year ago, otherwise my outdated emblem would have netted me into significant trouble.”
“Cultivator’s emblem?” the young girl asked curiously after swallowing a spoonful of rice and bamboo leaves.
“What’s that?”
The youthful girl patted her arms in a sign of self-consolation, reaching forwards to assist An Fei’s shaky movements. As she spoke, however, Shen Ming Yue’s expression darkened until a powerful frown had torn apart her graceful and lighthearted countenance.
“Every cultivator within Great Yong registers at an office established by the Hundred Clan Coalition – to record the status of cultivators in the empire, as well as grant privileges in business transactions, transportation, and more. Ultimately, it’s a fancy golden plate that describes your most recent attainment in cultivation, granting an equivalent status – so to speak.”
“Then, if you don’t have such an emblem, then…”
“Then, you’re treated as an ordinary commoner mortal,” the youthful girl replied with a grim expression.
“If you dare venture into a cultivator’s meeting without a status plate, such a fancy notion as even the slightest modicum of dignity and respect won’t be granted to you. That’s why, Little Sister, you shouldn’t go outside these days, since you don’t have a citizens plate, cultivator’s emblem, or any insignia of an association.”
“If you were to step outside, the soldiers would haul you into prison without waiting for your words of protest, and you would experience a miserable hell, ah.”
Third, one small nightmare had poked its head from the doorway to leer at her downcast expression.
