The underground cavern was utterly silent except for the echoing occasional drips. Dark still water filled the expansive cave. It was thick and slimy carrying a foul stench of stagnation.
Drifting across this murky surface was a young man. His face was deathly pale. Blood flowed freely from his injured right arm mixing into the slimy water and turning the ripples a deep crimson.
He was unconscious and hovering on the very edge of death.
Ahead of his floating body the solid stone wall began to shift. A vertical seam appeared in the rock. The damp glistening entrance was uncanny. It curved and swelled outward bearing an undeniable resemblance to a woman’s vagina.
The organic fleshy stone lips slowly parted revealing a dark and mysterious void within.
The sluggish current of the bloody water gently carried the young man forward. His body drifted closer and closer to the strange aperture. The stone folds remained wide open inviting the dying young man inside.
The moment he floated past the threshold and his body was entirely enclosed in the dark space the fleshy stone lips violently snapped shut. They merged seamlessly back into the cavern wall leaving no trace that a door had ever existed.
Far above the underground depths the atmosphere at the edge of the bamboo forest was pure chaos. The trees rustled violently as a group of Hua Clan elders burst from the thicket.
They were heavily out of breath and their robes were covered in dirt. Between them they supported two dishevelled and frantic young men. These were Hua Jing and Hua Luo two of young masters of the clan.
"Make way! Everyone clear the path!" Elder Hua Lin roared. His spiritual energy flared pushing back the curious onlookers who had gathered near the forest entrance.
The mortals and lower ranked spirit masters scattered in panic but their eyes were wide with shock. Whispers quickly broke out among the crowd.
"Heavens above! Are those the two young masters? Why do they look so terrible?"
"Look at their torn robes! Did a group of demonic cultivators ambush them in the woods?"
"Do not speak nonsense! We are the Hua Clan of the southern border. This is Tie Zhu mountain! What demonic cultivator would dare attack our young masters right on our doorstep? They would be courting death!"
"But look at the elders. I have never seen Elder Lin sweat so profusely. The young masters only seem to have minor injuries. Why the immense panic?"
Before the crowd could discern any more details the elders rushed the two brothers straight into the Healing Hall of the Hua Clan. The heavy wooden doors slammed shut locking the secrets inside.
However secrets rarely stayed hidden for long in a cultivation clan.
Less than an hour later heavily armed spirit masters and several more elders charged out of the main gates. They moved with desperate urgency heading straight back into the perilous depths of the forest.
They looked as if they were turning the mountain upside down to search for something precious.
The truth soon leaked out and spread around the clan like wildfire.
"Have you heard the news? The youngest young master is completely missing!" a disciple whispered to his peers.
"Missing? How is that possible?"
"The three brothers went hunting deep in the woods. They encountered a terrifying beast. Some say it was a Mountain Back Bear! It attacked them viciously. The youngest brother being the weakest took lot of damage during the assault and vanished during the escape!"
"A Mountain Back Bear? Merciful heavens! That beast requires at least a Rank 3 spirit master to deal with it! Our young masters are talented but they could never hold their own against such a monster. No wonder they fled for their lives!"
While the entire clan was in an uproar searching the woods a very different scene unfolded in one of the luxurious inner courtyards. Heartbreaking sobs echoed through the beautifully decorated halls.
A stunningly beautiful woman sat slumped on a wooden chair. Her face was haggard and her eyes were swollen from endless crying. This was missing young master’s mother.
A young girl around the same age as him knelt beside her. The girl had tears streaming down her own delicate face but she tried her best to offer comfort. She wrapped her arms around the weeping woman holding her tightly.
"Auntie please you must stay strong," the young girl muttered her voice trembling. "He will not die like that. He is incredibly resilient. The elders have gone to search for him. They will definitely bring him back!"
The beautiful woman shook her head wildly. She hugged the young girl back with a desperate gripping strength. The sheer terror of losing her son broke whatever composure she had left.
"My baby... my poor baby Hua Ke," she sobbed her voice cracking with pure agony. "He was so young. If those beasts tore him apart out there... how can I go on living? My precious child!"
Her grief echoed through the air, an ache that nothing could ease except the presence of her son.
Yet beneath the deep underground far away from the crying and the chaos Hua Ke finally stirred.
A strange and overwhelming sensation washed over his body. His eyelids felt heavy but he managed to force them open.
The moment he awoke a flood of terrifying memories rushed into his mind. He remembered the hunting trip. He remembered being chased by a pack of vicious hounds. He remembered his brothers attacking him and leaving him behind.
Then he remembered the horrific moment when one of the hounds leaped onto him clamping its jaws down and tearing a massive chunk of flesh and bone from his arm.
He remembered falling backwards into a hidden crevasse plummeting into a deep underground cave bleeding out and finally losing consciousness.
He expected to wake up in the stomache of an beast. Instead he found himself in a very bizarre place.
He looked around. It was undeniably a cave and it seemed to have several winding paths branching outward. But the entire environment had a moist and fleshy look to it. The floor the walls and the ceiling were completely wet gleaming under a faint mysterious light.
The most bizarre thing however was where he was currently sitting.
Hua Ke realized he was inside a deep circular basin carved directly into the fleshy stone. His entire body was submerged in a very thick white liquid. Only his head rested above the surface.
He tried to shift his legs and noticed a strange lack of resistance. "My clothes... they are completely gone. Did they dissolve in this fluid?"
He braced himself for the agonizing pain in his arm but the pain never came. In fact he felt absolutely no pain anywhere on his body. Instead a warm boundless wave of vitality surged through his soul.
He felt incredibly invigorated as if his life force had been multiplied by ten.
He lifted his right arm out of the thick white liquid. His eyes widened in sheer disbelief. The arm that had been brutally chewed apart by the hound was entirely whole.
Fresh smooth skin covered the area where bone had previously been exposed. There was not even a single scar remaining.
"What kind of incredible treasure is this place?" he muttered to himself staring at his flawless skin.
He looked down at the thick white liquid surrounding his naked body. It was completely opaque. He brought his hand close to his face and took a deep sniff. The liquid emitted a very distinct and fragrant aroma. It was sweet and rich.
Hua Ke furrowed his brows. "This smell... it is incredibly familiar."
He stared blankly at the cave ceiling as his mind tried to place the scent. Suddenly a series of vivid flashbacks played in his mind.
He saw a blurry vision of himself as a tiny infant, crying until he was fed his mother’s milk, squeezing her breast as he greedily drank every drop until there was no more.
The scene shifted to him as a toddler greedily chugging a wooden bowl of sweet wild cow milk getting a thick white mustache on his upper lip. Then he remembered a time he secretly drank a whole jug of sweetened condensed milk in the kitchen and got a terrible stomach ache.
He blinked snapping back to reality. He looked at the white liquid then smelled his hand one more time.
"Wait a minute," he said aloud his voice echoing in the moist cavern. "Isn’t this just milk?"
He stood up splashing the fragrant white liquid over the edges of the fleshy basin. He stood completely naked staring at his miraculous healed arm and then glancing around at the bizarre anatomy of the cave walls.
"Just what kind of insane place did I end up here?" he muttered to himself shaking his head in absolute bewilderment.