Night.
Qin Yi opened his eyes.
What came into view was that familiar wooden ceiling.
Feeling something heavy on his body, he slightly shifted his gaze and stared at the sleeping girl's profile for a moment, then looked away.
Everything was normal.
He didn't bother waking his older sister, who had half her body draped over him. Qin Yi stared at the ceiling, silently compiling the information obtained from the memory fragments.
First.
His origins did indeed come from some aristocratic family in the Central Plains.
This wasn't particularly surprising. Whether it was the jade pendant his older sister had been keeping safe, or the old man who had been by his side when he first woke up at four years old, both pointed to this fact.
That old man was very powerful.Otherwise, he could never have tamed Ruan Su.
When he had first found this older sister in the mountains, aside from her outward appearance of a little girl, her behavior patterns were no different from a monster attack.
The only thing that somewhat exceeded Qin Yi's expectations was probably the scale of his family background.
At least during the journey south with the refugee tide, Qin Yi had never seen battles of the caliber shown in those memory fragments. Compared to those two, the old man by his side when he woke up was nothing more than an ordinary person.
Second.
From now on, he'd better hide himself well.
Before he woke up, when the black-armored giant killed that scholar, the last look he directed at Qin Yi was witnessed with absolute clarity.
It was an helplessness born of despair and confusion.
If his family were still prosperous, if it had merely been a one-time assassination attempt with powerful reinforcements available, someone as strong as that wouldn't likely have shown such an expression.
Qin Yi gazed at the night sky through the small window.
That unknown family background re-entering his view didn't bring Qin Yi any relief. Instead, it gave him an unprecedented sense of urgency.
Getting Ruan Su to cultivate would have to be put on the agenda starting tomorrow. His older sister was currently the greatest violent asset he possessed.
Thinking of this, Qin Yi hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he should just wake Ruan Su up directly and have his older sister start cultivating from tonight?
"Rustle..."
There was no moon tonight. Thick darkness shrouded the mountain forests around the small cabin, with only some cold wind seeping through the cracks.
Then.
There was Granny Meng. She had been following him silently for seven years now. The purpose of this mother-daughter pair...
Just as he was thinking.
The surrounding light suddenly seemed to dim a notch.
Qin Yi's gaze, fixed on the small window, suddenly froze. At the edge of his vision, he saw a figure standing by the bed, staring at him.
The girl's breathing by his ear remained calm and steady. Her warm body heat came through the fabric of their clothes. Night wind rustled through the mountain forest like waves of wheat.
There was someone else in the room.
No fear, but in an instant, countless pieces of information surged through his mind. How long had this person been in the room? What about the traps in the yard? The hidden crossbow at the door? The tripwires inside?
These were all things Ruan Su would verify before going to sleep.
Should he wake Ruan Su now?
No. During his coma, Ruan Su had always slept lightly. The slightest disturbance would startle her awake.
Should he play dead and pretend he hadn't seen anything?
No.
The fact that this person could appear here already said a lot.
Qin Yi's pitch-black pupils shifted bit by bit, turning toward the bedside.
Hmm, it wasn't an illusion.
There really was someone standing there.
Ruan Su slept on the inner side of the earthen bed. Qin Yi lay flat on his back, quietly locking eyes with the person standing before the bed.
The shadows of night were as thick as ink. The figure standing before the bed was shrouded in darkness, its silhouette appearing somewhat stooped and hunched.
It was Granny Meng.
The two stared at each other for a long time before Granny Meng slowly turned around and walked toward the wooden cabinet directly across from the earthen bed.
She walked without making a single sound. She didn't trigger any of the tripwire traps in the room either, as if she had no physical form at all.
Qin Yi continued to stare at her hunched, thin back.
Having followed him for seven years, this old woman knew that his brain disease was real.
But had it really been this easy?
In the lightless cabin, all was silent. Everything appeared shadowy and indistinct. The broken square table leaned against the wall, and three chairs sat empty in the center of the room.
The old woman's dim, shifting figure crouched before the cabinet, seemingly preparing to dig out the belongings Ruan Su had hidden in the secret compartment.
If he could, Qin Yi actually really wanted to remind this old woman that the thing made a sound, and to be careful not to wake Ruan Su.
Otherwise, things would get very difficult for him.
But the entire cabin seemed to have fallen into some kind of vacuum. The faint "click" of the secret compartment's mechanism triggering never came as expected.
Under Qin Yi's watchful gaze, the old woman called Granny Meng took out that jade pendant from the cloth bag, then stood frozen in place, not moving at all.
What was she trying to do?
Taking out his jade pendant just to stand there in a daze?
As he pondered, Qin Yi's vision suddenly blurred. He blinked, and when his focus returned, a pair of lifeless eyes had appeared directly in front of him. Darkness shrouded the aged face. The old woman crouched beside the bed in a strange posture, revealing only her head, silently watching him.
They stared at each other in silence.
Qin Yi's breathing remained steady. His heart pumped as normal.
But in his dazed, unresponsive state, his body would produce instinctive reactions to such sudden changes. So he slowly reached out his hand toward the old woman's cheek.
"Ah... ah..."
As expected, his fingertip passed through nothingness. He grasped empty air.
Granny Meng's dead, lifeless eyes gave Qin Yi one last glance, then she turned and walked toward the side room's kitchen, melting into that patch of shadow like ink.
Still, she triggered none of the tripwires.
At the same time.
The girl beside him felt the boy's movements, groggily opened her eyes, propped herself up, and spoke with some displeasure.
"Don't... mess around..."
"Ah... ah..."
"Go to... sleep!"
"Ah... ah..."
"..."
A night full of conversation.
When the first ray of dawn fell upon the world, dispelling the gloom inside the cabin.
Ruan Su sat on the edge of the bed looking utterly drained of life. Having been kept awake all night by little Yi, who refused to sleep, she realized she wouldn't be getting any rest today.
Biting her lip, Ruan Su glanced at Qin Yi, who was facing the wall on the bed going "ah ah" at nothing, suppressed the urge to punch him, and thought to herself that she'd definitely write him a scathing entry in the diary later.
Barely holding back her exhaustion, Ruan Su got dressed, carefully disarmed the tripwires and hidden crossbow traps in the room, then jogged out to the well outside, planning to wash Qin Yi up and take him to town.
But just as she came back carrying a bucket of water, Ruan Su saw that Qin Yi had already gotten out of bed on his own and was putting on his clothes inside the room.
"Bang——"
The wooden bucket hit the ground. Water splashed everywhere, soaking the girl's pant legs.
Hearing the sound, Qin Yi turned back, slightly startled:
"Sis, what's wrong?"
Ruan Su's eyes flickered, shimmering with light. She gently pressed her lips together:
"You... you're... awake?"
Qin Yi paused in the middle of putting on his clothes, stared at the girl's expression, thought for a moment, then asked hesitantly:
"How long was I unconscious this time?"
Ruan Su's eyes held disbelief. She took a deep breath through her nose and stared intently at the boy:
"Yest... yesterday..."