His consciousness flickered between clarity and confusion in the darkness.

Vaguely, it seemed Lu Hongti had carried him on her back, whooshing through the mountain forest—that soft sensation.

"How did you find me..."

"How do you think I found your home? I put medicinal powder on you—my Little Green can track you. If you'd betrayed me..." She paused. "It's just that this time you went too far..."

"If I'd known, I wouldn't have tried so hard..."

"What?"

Flames burned, yellow light illuminating the dirty surroundings. The roof tiles above were broken, and a crumbling, peeling deity statue loomed overhead. Lu Hongti squatted beside him, quickly unwrapping the bandages on his left hand before taking out medicine and a water-filled gourd, rapidly treating the burns on his left arm. The light reflected on her focused profile.

"I... I need brush, ink, paper. Need to write a letter... help send it to Jiangning city, to my home... Otherwise they'll start looking, and it's best they don't..."

"You're still thinking about this now."

"There's a friend, Nie Yunzhu, lives in... there's a two-story building over there where she lives with her maid. She looks like... Need to check if she's alright..."

"Got it."

"There are two people, two people who need killing, right at... right at a courtyard near Xinlin Port. One's called Xiao Si..."

"Good guys or bad guys?"

"They wanted to kidnap that friend of mine..."

"You sure have a lot going on."

Consciousness dimmed again. When he woke, Lu Hongti had brought brush and ink, and his left hand was already bandaged. She seemed not to want to wake him, but seeing him awake, she helped him sit up and placed the brush in his right hand.

"Can you still write?"

"Barely... I can manage."

"Really underestimated you before..."

"Just had to do it... My left hand, is it ruined?"

"If you hadn't met me, it really would be."

"Oh, thanks..."

"What exactly did you do before..."

"...Ran into a lunatic."

"Sleep. Wait for me to return."

The figure whooshed away.

What happened the rest of that night was unclear. Having spoken the matters weighing on his mind, exhaustion truly came crashing down like mountains and seas, toppling everything.

He woke the next morning, body still aching, so tired he felt he couldn't get up at all. Birds chirped, and morning light slanted in through the broken roof.

He finally struggled to his feet, finding fresh bandages on his chest, shoulder, and left hand, his clothes changed as well. What he'd originally worn had been taken from the houseboat—not much blood on it, but far too large. This was a broken temple in the mountains, and walking to the doorway, he saw Lu Hongti practicing martial arts in the forest ahead. She wore black skirt-robes, sleeves flying in the morning light, but each strike carried the iron and blood of battlefield killing intent. The beauty of hard and soft, fist wind and palm wind whistling—this indeed wasn't jianghu martial arts but iron-blooded techniques forged in battle. Morning light slanted through the forest too.

Ning Yi sat on the broken temple's steps watching quietly. After a while, Lu Hongti stood still to gather her breath, her gaze turning toward him, watching for quite some time.

"Alright, I've changed my mind."

"Hm?"

"You look like you really do have use for martial arts, and your temperament is sufficient."

"Ha." Ning Yi laughed. "That's the best news I've heard these days."

"There's a set I can teach you. Won't make you first-rate, but becoming second-rate should be enough for self-defense. I interrogated that Xiao Si and his accomplice, then went along the road you came by to look..." She shook her head, showing a smile. "Gave me quite a shock."

"Just a cornered rabbit biting back."

"Everything you asked is done. Your family was very anxious last night—that little maid was jumping with worry. But she's good—anxious as she was, she didn't cry, just ordered the household servants to do things, to search for you. I secretly placed the note where she'd see it. When she got it she immediately burst into tears, then ran crying to report your safety to your wife, even tripping and falling on the way. That girl called Nie Yunzhu is fine too—when I went, she was sleeping."

Ning Yi had written on the note that he'd left home for a few days due to a friend's emergency. With the note delivered, Xiao Chan and the others presumably wouldn't worry too much. As long as Nie Yunzhu was safe, he didn't care to ask about what happened to Xiao San and Xiao Si. The two sat on the steps for a while before Lu Hongti said, "I'll go cook some congee for you."

Lu Hongti had apparently lived in this broken temple for a while before—there was a broken pot, and she now had a bundle of belongings that had probably been stored somewhere in Jiangning and brought out this time. As they ate breakfast in the broken temple, Lu Hongti spoke: "Martial arts—once you really learn it, sometimes you can't help using it to solve problems. Make it your solution method and you'll unconsciously develop a violent edge. We had no choice where I'm from, but you're different. Unless you meet real enemies, if you can avoid violence, it's still best not to use it. You're educated with a firm temperament—I need you to promise you'll understand when you truly should act."

Ning Yi thought about it: "I really don't like relying on personal violence to solve problems. I promise you that."

Lu Hongti nodded: "Good. I'll start teaching you in a bit."

Ning Yi raised his left hand: "I can learn like this? And I have no strength now—I'm severely injured."

Lu Hongti burst out laughing: "I'll teach you the basics first. Remember them in your mind, or write them down if you have strength. Either way, you'll have to wait until you're home to start practicing."

"Should I kowtow and formally become your disciple?"

"No need, I'm only teaching you second-rate skills anyway." Lu Hongti thought for a moment. "In the afternoon, let's continue with Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. Best if we can finish it during these days."

"Heh, alright."

Thereafter, the two lived in that broken temple.

In the mornings, Lu Hongti would explain the cultivation methods for those second-rate skills, occasionally demonstrating and describing various situations. In the afternoons and evenings, Ning Yi would tell stories of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils or they'd chat about random things. Time was approaching the Three Fu days—both day and night were hot with many mosquitoes. At night Lu Hongti would burn some strange leaves in the temple to drive away mosquitoes, making Ning Yi run around cursing and laughing.

To put it romantically, it felt like a penniless young couple who'd made a home in this broken temple. They truly had almost nothing—that broken pot was used for cooking rice, vegetables, and boiling water. Fortunately on the second day Lu Hongti went out once and brought back pots and bowls, but besides one bundle, they had absolutely nothing else. At night Lu Hongti would apply medicine for Ning Yi's injuries—his left hand, and also his chest and shoulder which Ning Yi couldn't manage one-handed. Lu Hongti didn't mind this at all.

"I've seen all the men on the mountain. Yours isn't particularly good-looking, just a bit more solid than the average scholar."

She always looked disdainful.

Ning Yi had exercised for a year and made himself somewhat solid but still had no real muscle—naturally he couldn't compare to men truly forged in battlefield slaughter. Still, he felt he was quite well-proportioned. He'd wanted to ask if she'd seen above or both above and below, but times were different—such jokes couldn't be made carelessly or he'd probably get beaten. He could only mentally acknowledge the worldly experience of someone who seemed somewhat flustered each time.

Bandaging and applying medicine on the battlefield was probably somewhat different from doing so in these circumstances. Still, occasionally thinking about it, Ning Yi pushed such thoughts away.

A mountain spring bubbled not far behind the temple where they'd fetch clear water in gourds or bamboo containers during the day. Lu Hongti kept a small green bird that liked a rather peculiar fruit, which she would grind into powder—sprinkled on someone, the scent could last several days without dissipating. Without this, she never could have found him outside the city that night.

On the third day, a thunderstorm struck. The small broken temple was like a boat about to sink in that torrential rain. Lu Hongti picked dense branches and leaves to reinforce the temple roof, then sat with Ning Yi in the temple's only dry corner chatting, listening to Ning Yi tell stories. It felt like they were the last two people guarding the final refuge in a collapsing world.

Occasionally Lu Hongti would tell Ning Yi about Lüliang Mountains—not complaining, but Ning Yi could guess how hard life became when the Liao army invaded. Lu Hongti now probably led one branch of the Lüliang bandits, perhaps not large in scale. Her master had also been a woman, very intelligent, who took the risk of assassinating a Liao general. Though successful, she was surrounded and fought to exhaustion, slitting her own throat to avoid capture. This probably explained why Lu Hongti didn't teach martial arts carelessly.

"Master was both smart and formidable. If her martial arts hadn't been so strong, she probably wouldn't have considered assassination. If she'd used strategy, perhaps she could have killed him—or even if she couldn't, at least she wouldn't have died. If Master hadn't died and had led us afterward, more of us would probably have survived... So don't put blind faith in martial arts. You talk about investigating things thoroughly—that's enough. Smart people... shouldn't risk themselves. Living is more useful..."

People who'd walked the edge of death valued life even more. Perhaps after her master died and the burden fell on her shoulders, she'd felt that weight—supporting a small group required more than martial prowess alone. The difficulties of organization and coordination grew clearer to perceptive minds. Though Lu Hongti hadn't studied books, her intelligence was sharp, and her master had probably shared similar wisdom—no wonder she spoke this way now.

By the seventh day, Lu Hongti had roughly finished explaining the martial arts training, but Ning Yi's Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils hadn't ended. When she complained, Ning Yi said: "I also want to teach you some things that might be useful. I'd originally planned to trade them for these martial arts."

"Hm?" Lu Hongti's eyes lit up. "More of those strange and peculiar methods?"

Though she'd always called Ning Yi's methods crooked paths, she knew his character—in some ways quite reliable. Since he could confidently offer this, it must be useful to her. Ning Yi nodded: "Maybe partly. It's very much and very mixed. I didn't clearly understand your situation before and haven't completely organized the system, don't know if you can use it. So first, I also know a few martial arts sets you might reference."

Lu Hongti frowned, thinking he was joking. Ning Yi smiled: "Looking can't hurt, right? Maybe stones from other mountains can polish jade. Whether it's useful is up to you. Some things like vital points, joint techniques and such should still be fairly systematic."

Lu Hongti sighed: "...Don't even know what you're talking about."

But she was used to it anyway—like molecules, atoms, chemistry, physics, and other nonsense. She often didn't understand what madness he was spouting. Him wanting to teach her martial arts... obviously was the same...