The long wooden stool from the fast-food restaurant was surprisingly heavy.
Fueled entirely by adrenaline, Li Xi swung it with every ounce of strength she possessed.
Bang!
The solid stool slammed directly into the back of the attacker’s head.
The force instantly knocked him unconscious. His body crumpled onto the tiled floor, and the fruit knife flew from his hand, skidding several meters away.
Li Xi rushed forward immediately and kicked the knife even farther out of reach before kneeling beside the injured mother and child.
Thankfully, the little boy hadn’t been hurt.
He clung desperately to his mother’s blood-soaked clothing, crying hysterically. Meanwhile, the woman herself groaned weakly in pain while gently stroking her son’s hair, whispering for him not to be afraid.
Nearby, three more victims lay collapsed in pools of blood, all suffering from stab wounds of varying severity.
Employees from nearby stores hurried over carrying first-aid kits, but the supplies inside consisted mostly of gauze and basic hemostatic powder. Since nobody present had professional medical training, all they could do was apply pressure to the wounds while waiting desperately for the ambulances to arrive.
Li Xi pressed a thick wad of gauze firmly against the mother’s worst injury.
Fresh blood instantly soaked through the white cloth.
She quickly replaced it with another layer.
“Thank you… thank you for saving my child…” the woman whispered weakly. “I almost lost him…”
“Please stop talking. You’re losing too much blood…”
Before Li Xi could finish speaking, a violent pain suddenly exploded inside her chest.
A loud buzzing erupted in her ears.
The surrounding screams and voices instantly became distorted and distant, as though submerged underwater.
She couldn’t understand why everyone around her suddenly looked so horrified.
All she knew was that her back felt as though it had been pierced by burning metal.
Her heart ached unbearably.
Her entire body rapidly lost sensation.
Her hands turned ice-cold, and sweat poured from her forehead nonstop.
It felt as though her life itself was draining away little by little.
“Oh my god! He had another knife hidden on him!”
“The paramedics are here!”
“Move! Let the critical patients through first!”
It’s so noisy…
Darkness swallowed her completely.
…
“We interrupt this program with urgent breaking news. At approximately 4:48 PM this afternoon, a violent stabbing incident occurred at Dafuwong Shopping Center in our county. The attack resulted in one fatality and four serious injuries…”
The female news anchor delivered the report calmly and professionally.
To the television station, it was merely another tragic statistic.
Inside the Langhuan Realm, however, the dense white mist had thinned dramatically.
The visible area of the space had expanded considerably.
Li Xi stood silently in the clearing, repeatedly trying to leave.
Exit.
Exit.
Exit.
No matter how many times she tried, nothing happened.
Only then did the truth finally settle over her.
She was really dead.
Thinking back on her impulsive decision to intervene, she honestly didn’t know whether she regretted it or not.
Still…
Her two brand-new apartments.
Her new SUV.
The four million yuan still sitting untouched in her bank account.
Just thinking about them made her heart ache.
At the very least, all the supplies she had painstakingly hoarded still remained neatly stored inside her dimension.
If she had known she would die this suddenly, she would have spent every last cent.
As the fog gradually dispersed further, the entire bamboo pavilion finally revealed itself completely.
Li Xi slowly climbed the stone steps and gently pushed open the door.
To her shock, the door swung open effortlessly.
Previously, no matter how hard she pushed, it hadn’t moved at all.
The interior was nothing like she had imagined.
Rather than darkness and dust, the pavilion glowed brightly beneath a luminous pearl suspended from the ceiling.
Rows upon rows of wooden shelves lined the walls.
The shelves held countless boxes and containers made from jade, wood, and iron.
Li Xi picked up a small jade box curiously.
Several elegant characters were carved onto the surface:
Lesser Return Pill.
Her eyes widened instantly.
Wasn’t that the kind of medicinal pill found in cultivation novels?
The moment she opened the lid, a refreshing medicinal fragrance filled the air.
Inside rested several smooth, round pills about the size of malt candies, each glowing faintly with a translucent sheen.
She quickly examined nearby containers.
Qi Gathering Pills.
Youth Preserving Pills.
Heart Cleansing Pills.
Could it be…
Had she somehow entered a cultivation world after death?
Unable to suppress her curiosity, Li Xi climbed the bamboo staircase to the second floor.
Unlike the first floor, which resembled a storage room, the upper floor clearly looked like living quarters.
There was a bamboo bed without bedding, a dressing table, and a beautifully lacquered jewelry box decorated with floral patterns.
Judging from the furnishings, the pavilion’s previous owner had likely been a woman.
Aside from these items, the enormous room remained entirely empty.
Li Xi opened the jewelry box.
Inside, she found several cultivation manuals along with a handwritten letter.
After painstakingly deciphering the ancient text, she finally learned the truth behind the Langhuan Realm.
Long ago, during the flourishing age of cultivation, a female cultivator named Daoist Master Qinglu had accidentally discovered this miniature world.
At its peak, the Langhuan Realm had been unimaginably vast.
Mountains.
Rivers.
Plains.
Oceans.
Spiritual springs.
Dense spiritual energy.
Everything existed within it.
With the support of the realm’s resources, Daoist Master Qinglu rapidly advanced from Golden Core stage to Nascent Soul stage.
Unfortunately, the cultivation world was brutally dangerous.
In order to obtain a legendary Deity Transformation Pill, Qinglu became involved in a deadly struggle against several powerful cultivators.
Although she managed to kill her greatest rival, another hidden enemy ambushed her afterward, reaping the benefits like an oriole waiting behind the mantis.
Her injuries were catastrophic.
Even though she escaped into the Langhuan Realm, her cultivation permanently regressed to early Golden Core stage.
To avoid pursuit, she fled the cultivation world entirely and hid among ordinary mortals.
Over time, her shattered meridians made further advancement impossible.
Knowing her lifespan was nearing its end, she eventually accepted her fate, married, and had children in the mortal world.
Before dying, she used the last of her spiritual power to compress the entire Langhuan Realm into a simple silver ring.
The ring passed down through generations of women in her family until Li Xi’s blood accidentally awakened it.
Unfortunately, countless years had passed since then.
The spiritual energy of the mortal world had grown disastrously thin.
Unable to sustain itself, most of the Langhuan Realm had collapsed.
Only the small clearing and bamboo pavilion remained accessible.
Li Xi walked to the rear window and pushed it open.
Outside lay a small medicinal garden.
The herbs growing there looked sparse and withered, nearly devoid of life.
At the center of the garden stood an ancient stone well.
Its depths were dark and impossible to see through.
This was probably the spiritual spring mentioned in the letter.
Just as Li Xi stepped closer to investigate, an overwhelming sensation of suffocation suddenly struck her.
Pressure exploded inside her chest and lungs.
It felt as though her body was being crushed alive.
“Xiyue! Xiyue, wake up! Please don’t die! How am I supposed to face your father if you’re gone?”
A shrill woman’s cries rang through the air.
The voice sounded almost theatrical, like an opera singer.
“Tiezhu’s wife, stop crying already. The Li girl’s clearly gone. Hurry and inform her father so the funeral can be arranged.”
“What terrible luck. Master Muyin’s daughter only returned recently, and now this happens…”
“Both mother and daughter truly lived pitiful lives.”
“Qingshan, hurry home and change clothes before you catch cold.”
A young man sat beside the village pond, drenched from head to toe.
His wet hair hung heavily over his shoulders while water dripped steadily from his clothing into the mud below.
Pushing through the crowd, Wang Zhen’er looked first at Zhu Qingshan, then at the pale body lying beside the pond.
The moment she saw them both soaked through, realization instantly dawned on her face.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“This… this isn’t true, right, Brother Qingshan?”
Zhu Qingshan looked at her silently, his expression complicated.
“Zhen’er, stop crying over him!” another young man interrupted loudly.
This man was Zhu Qingshan’s cousin, Zhu Qingshu, commonly nicknamed Ergou.
“I told you long ago that Zhu Qingshan was secretly meeting the Li girl by the water, but you refused to believe me!”
He pointed accusingly at his cousin.
“Look at them now! They’re both drenched, and he was practically hugging her when he dragged her out of the pond!”
“Brother Qingshan, tell me he’s lying!” Wang Zhen’er cried weakly, looking as though she might faint at any moment. “You only saved Miss Li because she fell into the water, right? You weren’t secretly meeting her?”
“Zhu Ergou, stop talking nonsense!”
The village chief stepped forward angrily.
“Qingshan and the Li girl have always behaved properly. Don’t spread baseless rumors!”
Zhu Qingshu shrank back slightly but still muttered stubbornly, “But it’s true…”
At that moment, the crying woman suddenly lunged at Zhu Qingshan and tightly grabbed his leg.
“My poor Xiyue!” she wailed. “Why didn’t you drag this beast down to hell with you?!”
Zhu Qingshan frowned deeply and tried to shake her off, but the woman clung desperately to him.
“Tiezhu’s wife!” the village chief shouted furiously. “Everyone saw Qingshan jump into the pond to save her! Even if the girl couldn’t be rescued, you cannot accuse her savior like this!”
“How am I wrong?!” the woman screamed hysterically. “This bastard must have lusted after our Xiyue’s beauty! He probably tried forcing himself on her, and when she resisted, he pushed her into the pond! Then he pretended to save her afterward!”
She spat viciously onto the ground.
“He’s nothing but an animal wearing human skin! Give me back my Xiyue!”
Standing among the crowd, Wang Zhen’er stared at Zhu Qingshan in horror.
“Brother Qingshan… tell me you’re not that kind of person…”
Zhu Qingshan suddenly laughed coldly.
Without offering a single explanation, he forcefully pulled his leg free, grabbed his dry outer robe from the grass, and walked away beneath the villagers’ suspicious gazes.
Why is it so noisy?
And who exactly is Xiyue?
Li Xi’s fingers twitched weakly against the muddy ground.
Then she suddenly coughed violently.
A huge mouthful of pond water burst from her throat.
The villagers, however, were too busy crowding around the fainted Wang Zhen’er to notice.
Slowly, Li Xi pushed herself upright while clutching her aching head.
“A ghost!”
Zhu Qingshu’s terrified scream pierced the air.
Staring at Li Xi’s pale, soaked appearance, which resembled a drowned spirit crawling back from the underworld, Zhu Qingshu’s eyes rolled backward.
Then he collapsed unconscious straight into the mud.