The first light of dawn crept over the horizon, and thin mist drifted through the valley.
Golden sunlight filtered through the gaps between the trees, casting dappled shadows across the grass.
A few birdsongs echoed from the distance, deepening the valley's tranquil silence.
Shen Hongmei slowly opened her eyes, every inch of her body aching.
She pushed herself upright, her long hair sliding off her shoulder to reveal the mottled red marks beneath.
Memories of the previous night surged into her mind, and those frenzied images set her face burning.
She had cultivated for over a hundred and fifty years and had been through three husbands.
Sadly, none of them had ever managed to break through to Foundation Establishment, and they had each passed away in turn.
Since the death of her last husband, she had kept herself chaste for decades, devoting herself entirely to cultivation and turning away from matters of the heart.
Yet last night, of all places — out here in the middle of this desolate wilderness — she had ended up with a young disciple she had never even met before...
Shen Hongmei shook her head, pushing the stray thoughts aside.
She circulated her cultivation technique to steady her breathing, and noticed that her spiritual energy felt several degrees purer than before. She couldn't help but feel a quiet sense of surprise.
She turned to look at Chen Yang, who was still asleep, her gaze complicated.
In the morning light, the young disciple's features were clear.
He was not strikingly handsome, yet there was a resolute quality about him; even in sleep his brow was faintly furrowed, as though he carried some heavy burden.
Shen Hongmei noticed that his well-built body was covered in scars, old and new intertwined, speaking of a life of hardship.
Most striking of all were the crimson tiger-stripe marks and frost-white traces — already faded, yet still faintly visible.
"What a reckless fool," Shen Hongmei murmured to herself.
She couldn't understand why a disciple at the fifth level of the Qi Refinement Realm would devour so many demon beast demon cores, pushing himself into such a severe state of Demonization.
What surprised her even more was that in his Demonized state, he had managed to unleash the power of the seventh level of the Qi Refinement Realm.
At that thought, the images from the night before surfaced in her mind again.
Shen Hongmei's face flushed red and she quickly averted her gaze, inwardly cursing herself for letting such a thing unsettle her after a hundred years of cultivation.
Her eyes fell on the Flood Dragon's carcass not far away, and she was startled.
The enormous body had been devoured clean; all that remained was a single intact dragon head lying alone on the grass.
Its mouth was slightly open, as if trying to speak some unfulfilled last wish.
The dragon head's eyes were wide open, glinting with an eerie light in the morning sun.
Shen Hongmei felt as though she were being watched, and it made her deeply uncomfortable.
Though they were out in the open, what had happened last night was still a private matter, and being "observed" by this dead thing was most unsettling.
Moreover, the Flood Dragon had been no ordinary creature in life — there was no guarantee some residual consciousness didn't linger.
She formed a spell technique with her fingers, and a stream of Pale Blue True Fire shot from her fingertip, enveloping the dragon head and the remaining bones.
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As the flames danced, the Flood Dragon's remains turned to ash and scattered on the wind, leaving behind only a patch of scorched black earth.
With that taken care of, Shen Hongmei looked at Chen Yang once more.
The young man was still sleeping soundly, his breathing even and calm — nothing at all like the savage beast he had been the night before.
A flicker of killing intent crossed Shen Hongmei's heart — if she killed this boy, no one would ever know what had happened last night, and she would be spared a great deal of trouble.
But looking at that youthful face, she ultimately couldn't bring herself to do it.
After more than a hundred years of cultivation, she was no soft-hearted woman — yet she was unwilling to take a life without cause.
Besides, the fact that this young man had survived Demonization meant he was no ordinary person.
"Forget it. Let it be nothing more than a dream," Shen Hongmei said with a soft sigh. She took a fresh Spirit Robe from her Storage Bag, changed into it, and prepared to leave.
It was then that she noticed a jade token hanging at Chen Yang's waist.
The jade was warm and fine-grained — clearly of superior quality — and carved upon it was an elegant character: "Yan." The brushwork was fluid and graceful, as if written by a woman's hand.
Shen Hongmei's eyes narrowed slightly, and she committed the jade token's appearance to memory.
It might well be an important clue to uncovering this young man's identity.
She straightened her robes, restoring her cool and otherworldly bearing as a Foundation Establishment Elder.
She cast one last glance at Chen Yang, then rose into the air on her Flying Sword in a streak of blue-green light and vanished into the distant sky.
The valley fell silent once more, filled only with the rustling of leaves in the morning breeze and the occasional birdsong.
About thirty minutes after Shen Hongmei's departure, Chen Yang slowly opened his eyes.
The sunlight was harsh; he raised a hand to shield his brow, feeling a bone-deep ache throughout his body.
He struggled to sit up and was startled to find his clothes in tatters, barely covering him.
"What is this..." Chen Yang looked around, completely disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings.
He clearly remembered fighting the male tiger — so how had he ended up in this strange valley?
He strained to recall what had happened the night before, but his memory stopped at the moment of his brutal battle with the Blazing Flame Tiger.
Everything after that had been wiped away as if by some unseen hand, leaving only a blank no amount of effort could fill.
"How did I end up here?" Chen Yang murmured to himself, and began carefully checking his injuries.
Strangely, despite the aching all over, he had no serious external wounds.
The deep gashes left by his fight with the Blazing Flame Tiger had nearly all healed, leaving only a few faint reddish scars.
Even more astonishing was the state of his spiritual energy — it surged through his meridians in a rich, powerful torrent.
His cultivation had clearly broken through to the peak of the fifth level of the Qi Refinement Realm, and he was only a single step away from the sixth!
"What is going on?" Chen Yang was both shocked and overjoyed.
He clearly remembered being at the fourth level of the Qi Refinement Realm last night — how had he broken through just by sleeping?
And it seemed the sixth level of the Qi Refinement Realm was not far off either.
This rate of cultivation was simply staggering.
He carefully sensed the changes within himself and found that not only had his cultivation risen, but his meridians had also widened considerably, allowing his spiritual energy to flow far more smoothly and freely.
The energy vortex in his dantian was denser and more solid as well, radiating a faint glow.
It felt as though he had been reborn through some extraordinary baptism.
Chen Yang stood up, enduring the aching, and looked around.
There were clear signs of a battle on the grass, along with some scorched black marks that looked as though they had been seared by intense flames.
A strange fragrance lingered in the air — faint and elusive, yet somehow stirring to the senses, carrying a feeling of inexplicable familiarity.
He strained to remember something, but was struck by a splitting headache, as if some force were actively blocking him from recalling the events of the previous night. He had no choice but to give up.
"Whatever the case, a breakthrough in cultivation is always a good thing," Chen Yang told himself.
He found some intact scraps of clothing nearby to cover himself as best he could, then decided to leave this strange place as quickly as possible.
If some powerful demon beast or cultivator were to find him in his current state, he would be hard-pressed to cope.
Before leaving, he noticed some glittering fragments on the grass — they looked like pieces of some kind of jade.
He picked up a few and examined them closely, but couldn't make out what they were. He only noticed that they felt warm and smooth to the touch, as though imbued with some special power.
"Perhaps some cultivator had a fight here and left these behind," Chen Yang thought, carefully pocketing the fragments in case they might prove useful someday.
He got his bearings and set off in the direction of the medicine garden.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled patterns on the ground, and birds sang cheerfully in the branches — everything was peaceful and serene, as if nothing at all had happened the night before.
Chen Yang remembered nothing of what had taken place in this valley the previous night.
* * *
Dozens of miles away, Shen Hongmei stood atop her Flying Sword and turned to look back at that stretch of valley, her expression unreadable.
She touched the Flood Dragon Demon Core tucked against her chest, then thought again of the jade token at the young man's waist, and of his body — scarred all over, yet brimming with vitality.
"The character 'Yan'..." she murmured softly, a glimmer of contemplation passing through her eyes. "I'll need to look into this disciple properly when I get back."