Yun Che stayed at home for three days.

  During those three days, he lowered all his defenses, becoming nothing more than an ordinary son who had returned from afar. He helped his father organize lumber, listened to his mother’s endless household chatter, and even followed Xiao Liu into the mountains once to cut firewood.

  On the morning of the fourth day, Yun Che was planing a wooden board in the courtyard when his divine sense suddenly stirred.

  From the direction of the town entrance, a weak yet familiar aura was slowly approaching.

  His hands did not stop moving, but his divine sense quietly extended outward.

  On the snow-covered road at the town entrance, a young man leaned on a wooden staff, stumbling forward. His face was pale as paper, lips cracked and dry. Every few steps, he had to stop to catch his breath.

  It was Wang Hao.

  Yun Che frowned slightly. Wang Hao’s condition was even worse than when he had last checked—

  not only was his cultivation completely gone, but his meridians were withered and chaotic, his vitality feeble, like a candle flickering in the wind.

  He set down the plane and said to his father,

  “Father, I’m going out for a moment. I need to see a friend.”

  Yun’s father nodded.

  “Come back early. Your mother’s making dumplings at noon.”

  Yun Che stepped out of the courtyard and headed quickly toward the town entrance.

  Wang Hao was leaning against an old tree, panting heavily. When he saw Yun Che, he froze for a moment, then forced a bitter smile.

  “Yun Che… what are you doing here?”

  “This is my home.”

  Yun Che walked up to him and grabbed his wrist without explanation, sending spiritual energy inside.

  This time, he examined him far more carefully.

  Inside Wang Hao’s body, almost all his meridians had shriveled shut. His dantian was completely empty. Only a wisp of extremely faint yin-cold energy lingered there, slowly gnawing away at what little vitality remained.

  “Backlash from that cultivation method?” Yun Che asked in a low voice.

  Wang Hao was silent for a moment, then nodded.

  “The Devouring Essence Art. It was never a proper technique—just an evil art that harms oneself to benefit others. Lü Yunjie forced me to cultivate it so he could siphon my essence and break through. When I realized it, I destroyed my own dantian and scattered my cultivation to sever the connection… but that turned me into a cripple.”

  He spoke calmly, but Yun Che heard the despair and brutality beneath the words.

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  “Where is Lü Yunjie now?”

  “I don’t know. On the day the sect fell, he left with Icewraith Realperson.”

  Wang Hao coughed a few times, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

  “Yun Che, don’t worry about me anymore. I came back this time to see my father one last time… then I’ll find a quiet place and wait to die.”

  Yun Che released his wrist, took out a bottle of meridian-warming pills from his storage pouch, and pressed it into Wang Hao’s hand.

  “Take these. They’ll ease the pain.”

  Wang Hao looked at the jade bottle, his eyes reddening.

  “Thank you… but I’m already a dying man. Why waste spirit pills on me?”

  “Take it.”

  Yun Che’s tone brooked no argument.

  “Take me to see your father.”

  Wang Hao’s home was at the western end of town—two dilapidated mud houses. His father was an honest woodcutter who had injured his waist years ago and could barely move now. Seeing his son return, the old man burst into tears, clutching Wang Hao’s hands and refusing to let go.

  Yun Che stood outside and did not enter.

  He could hear their conversation inside—

  Wang Hao forcing a smile, saying his “cultivation had succeeded” and that the sect had given him leave. His father believed every word, delighted, already planning to go buy meat.

  Mortals knew nothing of the dangers of cultivation.

  They only knew that their son had “made it.”

  Yun Che turned away silently. He bought rice, flour, oil, and grain in town and quietly left them at Wang Hao’s doorstep, along with a few pieces of broken silver—

  the only mundane currency he had left.

  When he returned home, his heart was unsettled.

  Wang Hao’s fate showed him, with brutal clarity, how cruel the cultivation world truly was.

  The weak did not even have the right to choose how they died.

  “Feeling shaken?”

  Li Han’s voice sounded in his mind.

  “That technique… is there a cure?” Yun Che asked.

  “The Devouring Essence Art?”

  Li Han scoffed.

  “What kind of technique is that? Just a trashy offshoot of demonic harvesting arts. The cultivator becomes nothing but a furnace, their essence stolen until nothing remains. Your friend destroyed his dantian and cut off the source, but the yin-sha energy has already invaded his organs. Without a pure yang spirit medicine to sustain his life… three months, at most.”

  Yun Che fell silent.

  “What, you want to save him?”

  Li Han’s tone turned mocking.

  “Pure yang spirit medicine isn’t cheap. Even the lowest-grade Red Yang Grass costs at least ten mid-grade spirit stones. Do you have that?”

  Yun Che did not answer.

  He truly did not—

  the thirty-odd low-grade spirit stones he had were all taken from Zhang Mingyuan’s storage pouch.

  But Wang Hao… was one of the very few friends he had.

  At noon, Yun’s mother made chive-and-egg dumplings. Yun Che ate slowly, his mind calculating constantly.

  After the meal, he returned to his small room. Though he hadn’t lived there in five years, it was spotless, the bedding freshly aired.

  He took out the three stalks of Ironwood Jade Ganoderma.

  Their jade-green bodies radiated dense wood-attribute spiritual energy—

  each at least three hundred years old.

  “Could these be exchanged for Red Yang Grass?” he asked Li Han.

  “Ironwood Jade Ganoderma is a high-grade wood-attribute treasure,” Li Han replied.

  “Its value far exceeds Red Yang Grass. But think carefully—this item is crucial to completing the Wood Phase of the Heaven-Reversal Pearl. Is it worth wasting it on a man who’s already dying?”

  Yun Che did not answer immediately.

  He walked to the window and looked into the courtyard, where his father was teaching Xiao Liu how to polish a wooden carving. Sunlight bathed the two figures, warm and peaceful.

  After a long while, he spoke softly:

  “If I watch him die today, my Dao heart will crack in the future.”

  Li Han was silent for a moment, then snorted.

  “Sentimental foolishness. Fine. Three hundred miles north lies Cold Crow Market, a gathering place for rogue cultivators. Go try your luck there.”

  Yun Che put the Ironwood Jade Ganoderma back into its wooden box.

  He had decided.

  Tomorrow, he would set out.

  Did Wang Hao’s story hurt to read?

  He wasn’t defeated in battle—

  he was used as a tool, drained dry, then discarded.

  without strength, even living intact is a luxury.