The beast was gone.
Its trail of destruction carved through the underbrush — broken branches, gouged earth, dark smears of blood on bark. The sounds of its blind rampage had faded. The forest was still.
Di Yusheng stood alone in the ruined clearing.
His eyes moved to a tree at the clearing's edge.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then his stomach folded.
The hunger came like a hand closing around his insides. His legs gave out. His knees hit the dirt. His hands moved before thought caught up — grabbing, pulling, tearing at the herbs growing in the blood-soaked soil.
He shoved them into his mouth.
Roots. Stems. Leaves. Whatever his fingers found.
During the fight, the runes had flared under his skin. For one breath, his awareness had spread outward — not sight, not hearing, something else. Something that reached in all directions and came back carrying what it found.
The clearing. The trees. The blood. The beast.
And something else.
A presence. Hidden above. Watching.
A boy. Around ten. In the branches of the tree at the clearing's edge.
With cultivation.
Di Yusheng had none.
He had just fought a beast with a rock. He was tired. He was starving. Fighting someone with cultivation in that state was death.
So he pulled his awareness back. He fought the beast as if no one was watching. He never looked at the tree. He never flinched toward the presence.
He buried it.
He did not know that choice had saved his life.
If Lin Xue had known a five-year-old could think this far ahead, he would have killed him directly and worried about the sect later.
But Lin Xue did not know.
And Di Yusheng was still breathing.
Now the hunger owned him. His hands kept pulling herbs from the dirt. His jaw kept working. He could taste soil and blood and something bitter and green. None of it mattered. Only the emptiness mattered, and it was consuming him faster than he could consume the ground.
Then footsteps.
Two sets. One fast and uneven. One slower, steadier, carrying weight.
Di Yusheng's hands stopped.
He did not look up.
The footsteps entered the clearing and went silent.
A long pause.
Then a sound — sharp, thin, the disciple's breath catching hard.
Elder Han said nothing.
He stood at the edge of the clearing and looked.
Torn earth. Gouged bark. Beast tracks. Blood on the ground, on the trees, on the broken brush. And in the center of it all, a five-year-old boy on his knees, covered in blood, eating raw herbs off the forest floor.
Elder Han's hand moved to his sleeve.
He stepped forward.
Di Yusheng looked up.
Blood on his face. Soil on his mouth. Herbs clenched in his small fists.
He saw the old man.
Something broke through the hunger — faint, flickering, almost fragile.
He opened his mouth.
"Grandfather."
The word was rough. Thin. A voice coming out of a throat that had never spoken before.
Elder Han's expression did not soften.
His hand came up.
Low. Controlled. Cold underneath.
"Release my grandchild you demon."
The binding seal landed against his chest. Light. Precise. Enough to still his limbs without harming the body beneath.
His arms locked. His legs stiffened. The herbs fell from his fingers.
He could not move.
He thought about the situation then understood how this looked.
"Damn it."
He couldn’t help but curse at his amazing luck