Chapter 105 – Recommendations Against Adopting a Divine Physique

The fall into the Void did not end in a blast. It ended in silence.

Of the pain that dragged on for an unknown stretch of time, only a fragment of memory remained. The taste of cold mud. The smell of wet grass crushed against the side of his face. He had tried to force his neck up. He had tried to spread his perception and map the surroundings. Nothing answered. For the length of a single dragged breath, he remained paralyzed on the floor of an unknown forest, unconscious and crushed by the weight of his own physique, before exhaustion pulled his mind back into the abyss.

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Zhì Yuǎn did not regain his senses with a start. Consciousness returned slowly, dragged to the surface by a suffocating weight that seemed to press every bone in his chest against the floor.

By reflex, he tried to expand his Divine Sense around him, but his perception did not leave his body. His intent struck his own skin and ricocheted inward, locked behind a rigid barrier.

The Dantian was still dry, and the soul, imprisoned in the singularity of his collapsed Inner Universe, sent not a single drop of response to the flesh.

How am I conscious? he thought, sending the mental order to raise his right hand.

The arm did not answer. Not from lethargy, but from oppressive weight. Without the support of his inner cosmos pushing the muscles, his Primordial Qi body had become a burden. His physique remained dense and impenetrable as immortal metal, but now it was impossible to move without energy.

A soft rustle of straw sounded beside him.

Through the single loose slit of the bandage over his left eye, the dimness of a low ceiling of pale wood—whose grain looked carved from the heart of a single tree, exhaling an old smell of resin—was cut by a silhouette leaning over the mat.

The bitter smell of the herbal paste gave way to a different scent—warm, slightly wild, and sweet.

Strands of orange-red hair fell near his shoulder. Just above them, the weak light of the window revealed the outline of two fluffy ears, the same color as the hair, twitching in small snaps of attention.

The blurred vision of his left eye failed for a moment.

Mèng Lián?

He blinked slowly, trying to focus. The doubt lasted only the length of a breath. Mèng Lián might be a fox, but she would never wear old village rags, and she certainly did not have… the ears and tail of a real fox.

What seemed to be a girl noticed the movement of his eye and leaned her face a little closer, revealing her human features: smooth pale skin, large emerald eyes, and a small, delicate nose that sniffed discreetly toward his neck.

"Sū'rhā… tāi nù?" she said, her voice coming out in a soft melody, punctuated by a crackling hiss at the back of her throat.

It was not the human tongue that seemed universal across the Realms. The syllables were short, direct, and completely foreign to his ears.

Zhì Yuǎn tried to move his cracked lips to demand that she take the bandages off his face.

"Where…" His voice was nothing more than a torn grunt, dry as old wood creaking.

The fox-girl blinked, surprised by the sound. The fluffy ears tipped forward in a gesture of naive curiosity. She let out a muffled little laugh, shaking her head as if speaking to someone who had lost his mind, and picked up a clay bowl from the bench beside her.

Without asking permission, she shoved a wooden spoon of dark, bitter syrup straight between his teeth.

Zhì Yuǎn forced himself to swallow, feeling the warm liquid burn in his stomach without producing the slightest spiritual effect.

Immobilized like a bandaged corpse, without access to his own Qi and locked inside a body that weighed like a mountain, he stared at the girl while she wiped the corner of his chin with the tip of her finger, smiling, satisfied at having fed the refugee she had rescued.

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Zhì Yuǎn remained silent for the next two days.

Immobilized by his own flesh and unable to move, he used the time to listen. While the girl with the fluffy ears changed the leaf paste on the bandages, brought water, and cleaned his skin, the man stayed silent, dissecting every sound that left her mouth.

The short phrases, the rhythm of the pauses, and the repeated consonants were noted and organized in his mind. For an intellect used to dissecting Laws, decoding the structure of a dialect that appeared rustic required no more than continuous attention. By the end of the second afternoon, the words had stopped sounding like noise.

The fox-girl remained seated on the wooden floor, grinding roots in a stone mortar. The orange-red tail swayed in a calm rhythm, tapping the boards while she talked to herself.

"My mother said I shouldn't have brought a human home," the girl murmured, her ears pinned back in stubbornness. "She said I've been an adult for a few decades already, and that picking up a stranger without a mark would look bad to the rest of the clan. But what does she know? I was the one who found you."

Decades? This little girl? Her speech was far too simple for someone claiming that much life—or he was the one who no longer knew how to calibrate what "simple" meant, Zhì Yuǎn thought, with a cynicism that was already starting to sound like stubbornness.

She stopped the mortar, leaned over the mat, and brought her nose to his neck. The small nose sniffed the gap between the bandages, and her eyes closed for a moment.

"You smell so good," she said, quietly, with a satisfied laugh. "Everyone else's smell is so bad compared to yours. Even mine. Yours is so good it makes me want to eat you."

Zhì Yuǎn did not change the rhythm of his breathing. Instead of remaining still, however, he contracted the muscles of his back and forced his torso upward.

The wood of the bed cracked loudly. Without the weight of Qi to balance his center of mass, lifting that body demanded raw physical effort. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, but Zhì Yuǎn pushed his back against the wall and sat on the mat.

The girl jumped backward. The mortar rolled across the wooden floor while her ears shot upright, rigid with fright.

"You should have broken my bed," she exclaimed, staring at the bowed wood with her emerald eyes wide. "You're incredibly heavy for a human. When I dragged you here, the floor almost gave out."

Zhì Yuǎn adjusted his shoulder, ignoring the pull of the bandages, and fixed his one free eye on her.

He assessed the slender frame and the thin arms. Except for the ears and the tail, her structure was entirely human. How did a girl this fragile manage to drag my body around?

The answer seemed obvious. The half-beasts of this Realm must possess a mundane physical strength that simply contradicted their appearance.

"Lī'ya," he said, his voice hoarse, but pronouncing the syllable exactly in the tone of her dialect.

The girl blinked twice. Her tail froze in the air.

"You understand what I say?" she asked, taking a cautious step closer to the bed.

"I understand enough," Zhì Yuǎn answered, his tone dry. "Where are we?"

Lī'ya recovered her posture in a instant, lifting her chin with naive pride.

"In my house," she declared, pointing at her own chest. "On the edge of the Red Leaf Clan. And you're under my roof, so you're my human. I was the one who saved you and took care of you for the whole month."

Zhì Yuǎn watched the girl without answering the provocation.

A month… he thought, exhaling. I hope she's all right. They must be looking after her with the slaves' help.

He could still look inward, but his Dantian was isolated, the Mill stopped, and the Inner Universe locked behind the collapsed singularity. His Primordial Qi body was impenetrable from the outside, but without being able to circulate energy through his core, he was little more than a statue.

Excited that her human was so intelligent, Lī'ya leaned forward and stretched her pale hands toward his face.

"That's enough of these dirty cloths," she murmured, her fingers about to pull the knot of the bandage.

Zhì Yuǎn's right arm moved in a raw reflex. He gave a dry, firm slap against the girl's hand, rejecting the touch in the same instant.

The snap sounded loud. Lī'ya pulled her fingers against her chest, blinking, stunned, while the fluffy ears drooped backward, shocked by the sudden rejection from her "human."

Zhì Yuǎn lowered his hand slowly, feeling the weight of his muscles. Before anything else, without being able to use his disguise technique, he could not expose his own face. Walking through that territory with his features would draw unwanted attention from local sects or cause useless commotion.

"I need something to cover my face," Zhì Yuǎn said, his tone non-negotiable.

Lī'ya wrinkled her nose, rubbing her own hand, her ears still tipped to the side.

"Why? Your eye is so pretty. I bet the rest of your face has already recovered too, and it can't be anything unpleasant, since you smell so good."

"It's to avoid trouble," he answered, direct. "Do you have a hat or a mask?"

Lī'ya rubbed the back of the struck hand, narrowing her emerald eyes while she assessed him in silence.

"Hmmm…" she murmured, the fluffy tail swaying slowly in a thoughtful rhythm. "All right."

Even so, the fox-girl hesitated for an instant. Her cheeks gained a discreet rosy tone under the pale skin, and the tail changed rhythm, stirring in a sudden, embarrassed flick. She turned her back, walked quickly to the cedar chest in the corner of the room with bouncing steps, and rummaged through the drawers at the bottom.

When she turned back, she held a piece of dark carved wood in her palms.

The piece had been carved by hand, representing a fox's face with fine features. The eye slits were narrow, the snout was pronounced, and simple marks in red ink drew whiskers on the wooden cheeks.

"I've been making this since I found you," Lī'ya murmured, without looking directly at him as she held out the object. "The carving didn't even come out well. The shape of the snout gave me trouble."

Zhì Yuǎn took the mask. The wood felt like wild maple, smelling of dry sap.

His thumb ran along the edges, recognizing the precision of the carving. He lifted the mask and settled it over his face.

The wood locked firmly over the bridge of his nose, covering from forehead to chin and leaving only the eye slits open to the dimness of the room.

Lī'ya took half a step back, her eyes shining as she saw him masked.

"It looks… right," she said, her voice falling to a quiet tone, the tail dusting the smooth wooden floor. "Now no one will be able to say I brought an unmarked stranger into the house."

Zhì Yuǎn adjusted the leather tie of the mask at the nape of his neck.

Through the openings in the wood, his vision focused on the floor.

His Primordial Mill would never process energy this impure. To reopen access to the Inner Universe, he would have to abandon his own pride and act like a common cultivator, adapt the technique, absorb the raw Qi of the environment, and forge a method to unlock the singularity in his chest.

He braced his hands on the bandaged thighs and tested the weight of his legs. The movement was slow, dry, and unhurried.

Lī'ya picked up the clay bowl and the mortar from the floor, watching him with a satisfied smile. To the girl, the heavy, silent human she had rescued was under her protection.

Zhì Yuǎn rested his head against the wooden wall and closed his eyes behind the fox face.

The path home would start there—one thread at a time, from zero.