They slept that night, with the woman wrapping her body very tightly around Hui, as if enjoying the heat. Rather usual for a snake.
The next day, after the snake found out Hui needed to eat, meticulously left for a while to show up with a couple hares she'd found. Hui relievedly cooked them with the few small branches she'd found around. However, strangely enough, the branches from that large tree at the center weren't burning, so she offhandedly decided to take the largest of the fallen branches to throw into her ring to examine later.
The snake woman noticed that she kept staring at the horizon after finishing her meal.
"Say, dear, you said you were lost, where do you need to go?" Questioned the woman gently as they lay in the hot water together.
Hui shrugged. "...I'm not confident where I am right now. It's true that I wish to go to my home, south from here…but…" she glanced down at the great expanse below them, as far as the eye could see, there were just rocks. Not a spring of life or civilization to be seen. Slightly to the south west of them she could view the valley she'd crawled out of, and south east of them were some treacherous mountains. There didn't seem to be much room between them, chances were there would be none. It wasn't looking good for her journey south.
The only route that seemed possible by foot, would be to head direct west, and hope to skirt the outside of the ghost valley, but even if she did so, once she was west of the ghost valley, if she headed south west from there, she'd hit the demonic cult, and she'd only just escaped from there, if she went straight west, she would hit the Blight. Southeast, or east she would hit mountains.
She sighed, "It doesn't look like I'll be able to get there, haha, I'd probably need wings…" Wait…wings? She glanced down at the bead in her hand. For some reason the chains didn't affect the bead's abilities…however, it still could only use the qi already present in her body, and she couldn't cultivate with her current bindings. This probably meant the chains only controlled her qi vessels, which was interesting in itself, but anyways...
"Say, could you try something with me?" Hui glanced over to the snake.
"Yes?" she replied, she followed Hui out of the water.
"Could you inject some of your qi into me?" This was an ancient beast, it probably cultivated to reach her current level of power. Her power was indeed beyond Hui's current perception.
"Ok!" The snake agreed far more readily than she was expecting.
Hui placed the bead on her tongue, and, sure enough, the extra qi that entered her body was easily guided for the bead's use, soon after, wings sprouted from Hui's back.
"Oh! You're leaving?" Asked the woman, disappointedly. Hui quickly comforted her, patting her back before hugging her.
"I must go, but Ill miss you, um, btw, how should i call you?"
"Me? Well, since I picked you up, and fed you, hmmm, how about mom?"
I meant name but…Hui smiled. The snake was too cute. "Ok, bye mom! I should visit again, sometime!"
The woman smiled in soft elation at the address, contentment spreading out from her heart, quickly bidding her farwell, without a drop of sadness left on her brow.
Hui took off.
–in the south–
A large crowd was gathered around a small arena, watching the scene unfold below.
A man stood over another, who was now being dragged off stage, completely incapacitated and bleeding from all orifices.
"Ha! To think this is all that the Qingcao Sect is capable of! So disappointing!"
This man was obviously running his mouth on stage, however, it couldn't exactly be ignored.
What was supposed to be a simple spar between disciples had long since escalated when two elders of either sect got into a fight and brought it onto stage. Only, when they arrived there, the unlucky elder of Qingcao sect ended up finding out that the elder that had challenged him, already had a half step into nascent soul. This undoubtedly ended up in his defeat, and now the small sect that had suddenly produced a nascent soul practitioner wanted to change its status as a third class sect in this exchange, by challenging the Qingcao sect in a duel of masters.
A third rate sect had no nascent soul practitioners, the highest man would be in the golden core realm, and there weren't often many in that realm; to become a second rate sect, they'd have to have at least one nascent soul expert, or at least 3 men at the peak of the golden core; and to become a first rate sect, they'd have to have at least two or more elders at the nascent soul and all elders in the golden core. The current number one sect had as many as 5 nascent soul experts. The sect they were currently challenging, the Qingcao sect used to easily be in the top three sects, however, in recent years, it had declined exceedingly and now only held two practitioners still in nascent soul: the sect leader and one elder.
However, the sect leader obviously couldn't come down from his seat to fight on the stage due to his high station, so he could only glance helplessly to his right side.
"Lu Biming, please."
The elder next to him held a noble bearing, his eyes as unreachable as the heavens, but looking down on all. His cloak was a deep blue, and he wore his hair in a simple updo.
He hated the weak the most, especially those who liked to squeal and spoke too much, so he gladly took up the offer, standing up eloquently and glided down to the stage.
"Heh. the great Lu Biming himself! What an honor for this fellow daoist!" Chimed the man in red satirically, his blade's handle was writhed in a flame-like design, and his deep brown and red coat contrasted well with Lu Biming's midnight one.
Lu Biming readied his sword, drawing it with a seemingly slow and graceful movement; ringing out as it sliced through the air to point at the ground arrogantly. "A mouse gets brave when the foxes are gone for too long."
"Or maybe the foxes haven't seen a wolf in so long, they've mistaken it for a mouse!" Cackled back the man in red.
Lu Biming charged at the man in rage at his disrespect. Such a meager ant sure liked to talk big! However, to his surprise, his blade was caught, and the man expertly pushed it to the side, changing it's movement mid-air to swing upwards towards his neck. Lu Biming lithely stepped to the side, the blade barely missing his sleeve.
"You sniveling ant!" He cursed, as he put 20% of his power into his blade this time, swinging it back down at Zi Yiliang.
However, Zi Yiliang actually managed to block a second time, sending out a 100 percent of his strength at once and forcing almost 30% of Lu Biming's out so that he didn't step back. Lu Biming grit his teeth in annoyance and finally released the brunt of his aura, which caused Zi Yiliang to step back.
Zi Yiliang was astounded. The difference between a half step into nascent soul and completely in nascent soul was a vast difference that couldn't be made up by just fighting ability. Zi Yiliang quickly pulled out every bit of strength he had to combat against him, barely managing to defend two blows, before finally making distance. His mind was now whirling with options of how to escape the fight.
The two blows he'd just taken had already caused several internal injuries, coupled with the fact that his foundation was still unstable from his incomplete attempt at ascending realms, he was completely disadvantaged if it continued. If he was hit hard enough again, he might even lose the nascent soul realm he'd barely taken a step into, which would drop his sect back into a third rate one. He wasn't about ready to let that happen.
However, despite his inner thoughts, his outside looked confident and relaxed. He was standing a little ways from Lu Biming still standing where he'd first landed. He brandished his blade. "Then, lets see it, match to match, qi to qi, lets fight with everything we got!" He had to at least let his loss look good. Lu Biming agreed with his challenge, taking the opportunity to completely wipe this weakling out of existence, even if he was pretty nifty with his blade. He summoned sword energy to completely surround his sword, two dragons merging as one with it, as his feet firmly planted themselves into the ground. Zi Yilian dove toward him, gathering fiery qi from all around as he did, directly bursting into flames so hot they could be felt from the audience. Everyone's breath was held, the small sect's leader was already off his seat. Qingcao sect leader remained calm, actually yawning in complacency.
Then, a white star fell from the sky.
"Bang!" the entire stadium erupted with a loud explosion, as the two met. Dust flew up, and the energies crashed, the sound resonating for thousands of li around. Only, abruptly, both energies disappeared, the dust slowly clearing to reveal two thin arms, each bound with a jade green manacle, that held both blades at bay. Beneath them, was a young girl: her face, completely enshrouded by her hair. Her legs and arms were both pale white, as if she hadn't gone in the sun for a day in her life, but her flesh was so little, you could see every bone.
The little girl, pushed both blades back, with her small arms, and then brought up her face to the audience, showing a face full of tears, as she tried to wipe it away with her bound arms.
With a sobbing girl abruptly showing up to the party, the fight was promptly discontinued.