"We are finally safe. Now we can live here and establish some connections with the cultivators. I hope we'll find some good luck along the way, and I'll be able to learn more about what happened in the village and who was responsible." As Mei Lin thought about her next steps, a sharp pain enveloped her body, snapping her back to reality.
Mei Lin quickly stopped thinking about the future and scanned her surroundings. The room was empty except for Yu Lan, beside her. The space wasn't ample, but its walls were decorated with intricate flower patterns.
Just as Mei Lin was about to approach Yu Lan to check on her, a powerful voice echoed through the mansion and pierced directly into her mind. "This mansion will be auctioned. Everyone must leave immediately!"
Mei Lin didn't recognize the voice, but she could tell it belonged to someone who had reached the Qi Condensation realm. The words invaded her thoughts, and she would have needed to use her cultivation base to block them. Worried, she turned to Yu Lan, who had just woken up, and tried to assess the situation.
"We need to leave. This mansion is being sold, so we'll head to the sect," Mei Lin said quickly, outlining her plan.
But as Yu Lan struggled to gather her thoughts, the doors to the room burst open. A young-looking cultivator stepped inside. His blue robe and the green pendant at his waist immediately revealed his identity. His long brown hair flowed gently around him, and he radiated a pleasant cultivation aura. When Mei Lin saw him, she couldn't believe someone so handsome could exist in this city. Unlike the ordinary people she'd encountered, his face looked as if it were carved from jade, though his youthful appearance didn't quite match the strength of his aura.
Mesmerized, Mei Lin forgot to shield her eyes and stared at him. Snapping out of it, she waved her hand to retrieve her bamboo hat and cover her face, but before she could, she was sent flying across the room. She slammed into the wall, her mind too slow to react to the sudden attack. Instinctively, she used her natural energy to shield her body just as she hit, but her consciousness faded, and she crumpled to the floor, leaving a web-like crack on the wall where she landed.
*****
A few minutes later, Mei Lin regained consciousness, immediately feeling excruciating pain in her chest. She coughed up blood. Despite the agony, she realized she was alive after an attack that could have been fatal. Touching her chest, she found a dark red bruise in the shape of a palm. The injury wasn't lethal, it seemed designed to suppress her rather than kill her. "So, he didn't want to kill us. Then why did that bastard attack?" she thought, her mind dizzy as she looked around for Yu Lan.
Yu Lan lay in the corner of the room, crying. Her clothes were torn to shreds, leaving her naked and lifeless, like a corpse. Blood trickled from her mouth where she'd bitten through her lower lip, and her hair was a tangled mess, matching the state of her battered body.
Mei Lin felt nothing. No emotions, no reaction. Yet, despite her numbness, a fierce desire to kill the one responsible burned within her.
"Lan, what happened to you? What did he do?" Mei Lin asked, but Yu Lan didn't respond, as if she were deaf. Observing her, Mei Lin began to piece together what had happened. She recalled a similar terror she'd nearly faced in the forest when she'd gotten lost.
Yu Lan's tear-streaked face and her once-vibrant aquamarine eyes—now empty of life—made Mei Lin's stomach churn. She began to hate this city more than anything. Yu Lan's body was covered in bruises, with dark purple and red handprints marking her neck, hands, and thighs. The cultivator's strength far surpassed Yu Lan's fragile frame, leaving marks even from the lightest touch.
Blood-stained Yu Lan's crotch, but what struck Mei Lin most was Yu Lan's fixation on a bloody handprint on her belly. She clutched her stomach, staring blankly into space. Mei Lin, with her innocent and still-unseasoned mind, couldn't immediately distinguish between violence and rape. Though she had killed before and narrowly escaped death herself, she didn't see Yu Lan's injuries as life-threatening at first glance. Yet Yu Lan's reaction felt wrong, and Mei Lin grew increasingly afraid that something terrible had happened.
"What happened, sister?" Mei Lin asked softly, examining Yu Lan's wounds. She noticed a palm-shaped bruise on Yu Lan's belly, like her own, but unlike Mei Lin, Yu Lan hadn't been able to disperse the blood pooling beneath it.
Tears of blood carved paths down Mei Lin's face, dripping onto the floor. "What will we do?" she thought, staring at the palm print. She reached out with her small hand to move Yu Lan's arms, but Yu Lan resisted.
"Move your hands, or I'll break them for you!" Mei Lin snapped.
Reluctantly, Yu Lan shifted her hands to cover her breasts and rolled onto her back. Her condition was even worse than Mei Lin's, and as a non-cultivator, she had no means to recover quickly. Mei Lin placed her hand on the bloody palm print and channelled her natural energy to assess Yu Lan's injuries. Though she'd never done this before, she could sense everything inside Yu Lan's body. Her internal organs were damaged, and her lungs were flooded with blood.
Mei Lin poured more natural energy into Yu Lan, working to expel the clotted blood from her system. Slowly, she began to stabilize her condition.
Yu Lan immediately began coughing up black blood uncontrollably, choking on it. It didn't take long before all the blood from her lungs was expelled.
After Yu Lan calmed down, Mei Lin placed her hand on Yu Lan's belly again and began pouring natural energy into her body. The process wasn't fast, but Yu Lan recovered quickly—some of her lighter bruises started to fade.
After more than fifteen minutes, Mei Lin was completely exhausted. Nearly all the natural energy in her cultivation sea had been depleted in her effort to heal Yu Lan's wounds. When she finished, Mei Lin sat beside Yu Lan in the lotus position and entered a cultivation state to replenish her exhausted reserves.