"You're awake?" About half an hour after Chu Lian returned, the slumbering Kurosaki Satsuki slowly opened her eyes. The first to notice was Li Xiu'er, who had been watching over her, and she asked softly.
"I… what happened? What are you talking about?" Kurosaki Satsuki rubbed her temples, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. She listened to Li Xiu'er's Chinese, but her mind was muddled.
"You don't understand Chinese?" Li Xiu'er was slightly startled. Previously, communication with her had always been handled by Chu Lian, who knew Japanese. They had only watched and listened from the side, never trying to speak to her directly. So, whether she understood Chinese or not, Li Xiu'er really wasn't sure.
"Chinese?" The familiar yet foreign language… It was the same language her father had taught her as a child. But after five years of fleeing for her life, Kurosaki Satsuki had long since forgotten how to speak it. Now she could only recognize it as Chinese, without grasping the meaning.
"I've forgotten how long it's been since I last heard Chinese. Sorry, I can't understand it anymore." She murmured softly, then shook her head, indicating she didn't understand.
Although she couldn't understand Satsuki's words, Li Xiu'er could roughly guess the meaning. Her expression turned conflicted. She knew Chu Lian had suffered serious injuries and needed rest more than anything, and she shouldn't disturb her. But aside from herself and Inori, no one else here could speak Chinese.
She didn't want to trouble Chu Lian, nor burden Inori, who had been tending to Chu Lian all this time. So she just stood there, awkwardly watching the white-haired girl, unsure what to say.
Fortunately, Tina, who had jumped down from Chu Chu and was lying somewhere warm while keeping watch, noticed Kurosaki Satsuki awakening. Concerned about Chu Lian and the others, she informed Chu Lian. After resting for a while, Chu Lian opened her door and came into Satsuki's room.
"How does your body feel?" Chu Lian sat down beside the white-haired girl, placing her hand gently on her shoulder. She let her spiritual power circulate through Satsuki's body for a few rounds as she asked.
"The pain is gone… I think I've already recovered. I'm not sure, but it must be related to the hypnosis you used on me before leaving earlier. Thank you…" Kurosaki Satsuki stared at Chu Lian's face for a moment, then voiced her thanks.
Her pale cheeks were icy cold at the touch of Chu Lian's fingertips. Her body temperature seemed lower than ordinary people's. Chu Lian didn't know why, but she could tell it wasn't a good sign. Still, it wasn't something she had the right to pry into. Nor could she ask her to explain.
She only furrowed her brows slightly and said: "It was nothing. I've only just started learning about cultivation, so my skills aren't refined yet. Otherwise, I could already heal both your internal and external injuries directly with spiritual power, instead of merely accelerating your recovery like now."
"So you're still a beginner? No wonder your movements always seemed a little clumsy. This time, I really lost. I've been training for twelve years to reach my current strength, and yet you've just started and already surpassed me. Losing to you… I can't say it's unfair." She didn't hold back this time, openly admitting her unwillingness to accept that Chu Lian was stronger. Though she had already acknowledged it before, the blow now struck harder.
She could tell Chu Lian wasn't just saying this to comfort her, but speaking the truth. The difference between truth and lies in a person's demeanor was clear—only someone who had lived through decades of deceit could truly hide it. Kurosaki Satsuki didn't believe Chu Lian was such a person. So she chose to trust her words. Or rather, she trusted her own intuition, believing her judgment couldn't be wrong.
"You're underestimating yourself too much." Chu Lian shook her head, then pointed to Li Xiu'er, to herself, and finally to Satsuki. "Both Xiu'er and I, like you, have very special constitutions. My rapid growth is entirely thanks to my special body and my true name's power. Honestly, when it comes to cultivation itself, the only thing I've truly trained is the use of spiritual power."
"Can you imagine it? Within my body exist multiple different powers, but usually they blend together, nourishing one another. None of these powers are ones I cultivated—they were innate from birth. Even most of my combat experience comes from inherited memories. Tell me, how could someone like me possibly compare to the strength you earned entirely through your own effort?"
Chu Lian gave a bitter smile, her voice growing fainter: "If not for Inori's Void allowing me to use it, how could I be so strong? If you and Xiu'er's special constitutions were fully awakened, your cultivation speed would grow at a geometric rate…"
"Can you tell me how to awaken a special constitution?" Though her voice was weak, Kurosaki Satsuki's ears still caught the key words. Bracing her hands on the bedboard, she used her waist to push herself up, urgently asking while struggling to sit.
Chu Lian pressed lightly on her shoulder. Even though she herself was injured, it was still easy for her to push Kurosaki Satsuki—whose wounds were heavier—back down. But after doing so, her face flushed slightly. She covered her lips with her left hand, as though afraid she might cough.
After a while, she lowered her hand, quietly resting her palm on the bed, hiding the faint red stain so Li Xiu'er wouldn't notice.
But what she didn't know was that Li Xiu'er had been watching her closely since she entered. When she saw Chu Lian cough, her worry deepened, and she also noticed the faint trace of blood on her palm.
Li Xiu'er had wanted to rush forward and ask about it, but after a moment's hesitation, she gave up. Knowing Chu Lian's nature, if she didn't want her to see, then she clearly didn't want her to know she had coughed blood. So the best thing she could do was pretend not to notice.
Yet within her heart, the girl's reluctance and feelings tangled together, forming a vow: In the future, if anyone wishes to harm Chu Lian before my eyes, they will first have to step over my corpse… For such a shy, timid girl to make such a vow showed just how much Chu Lian meant to her.
The black-haired girl's mind was sharp, and she quickly pieced together the cause and effect.
But the white-haired Kurosaki Satsuki only now realized—they must have gone out to deal with her pursuers, and now they had returned. If that was the case, then they had successfully repelled the enemy. And seeing Chu Lian wounded… could it be that man was really that powerful?
"You're hurt?" Kurosaki Satsuki shifted uneasily on the bed, as though wanting to sit up and ask what had happened.
"Mhm, but it's not serious. A few days' rest will be enough." Of course, Chu Lian wouldn't tell the truth. She put on a smile to reassure her.
"And those people?" Kurosaki Satsuki was silent for a moment, then asked again.
Hearing her question, Chu Lian parted her lips, already forming her answer in her mind. But just as she was about to speak, Inori entered, carrying two blades. She gently leaned them against the bedside where Kurosaki Satsuki lay, then stood quietly behind Chu Lian, her wine-red eyes gazing softly at her, lost in thought.
Glancing at Kurosaki Satsuki, Chu Lian picked up one of the blades and stroked its sharp edge. "They were all annihilated. All eighteen subordinates, and even the spear-wielding man who injured you, were slain by us. These two blades are stained with his and several of his men's blood—consider it vengeance on your behalf. As for the rest, Inori took care of them all with her gun—each with a single shot."
Before she could finish, Kurosaki Satsuki interrupted urgently: "No, the number's wrong. I remember at least thirty of them. With my strength, if there had truly been only eighteen, before that man even arrived I could have used the terrain to pick them off one by one. There's no way I would have been chased so miserably."
She paused, her white-haired head bowed in thought. Then she continued: "Six of them had strength equal to mine, and three were stronger. They were the only ones who, even when I used my full power and swung with 'Shun,' I couldn't kill instantly. It was precisely those nine who kept me on the run, fleeing all across Japan."
"So, that means nearly half of them are still unaccounted for?" After hearing her words, Chu Lian also realized the seriousness of the situation.
Perhaps that group hadn't been whole to begin with. After the burly man arrived, for some reason the group split into two factions. One joined him and became part of his squad, who were ultimately wiped out here by her and Inori.
The other faction, without doubt, was led by the three strongest ones who could rival the burly man, and they took nearly half of the group away.
No wonder she had felt something was off. If this was their true strength, how could they have pursued Kurosaki Satsuki, who was on par with them, for so long? Clearly, she had been mistaken…
"That must be it. Most likely the burly man's arrival caused dissatisfaction among some of them. But for certain reasons, they couldn't confront him directly, so they chose to leave."
Whether this was fortunate or not was hard to say. According to Kurosaki Satsuki, if they hadn't split up, then if she and Inori had gone up against all of them together, the outcome would have been grim.
Yet their splitting up only made things more troublesome. The people of the Otherside were infamous for fiercely protecting their own. They might quarrel among themselves, but they would never ignore one of their own being killed by outsiders—unless that person was a mortal enemy or a member of a race shunned for special reasons.
That being the case, once this faction learned of their strength, they would surely choose to hide, waiting in the shadows to deliver a fatal strike.
After all, she didn't believe for a moment that news of her killing those Otherside people would take long to reach them. To survive for thousands of years in such a harsh world, if they didn't have special methods of communication, they would have been wiped out long ago.
"Why think so much? Those are matters for later. Thinking about them now is useless. We don't know their height, weight, or appearance. To us, they're just passersby, strangers. At least, until they strike."
Her head aching from all her thoughts, Chu Lian finally realized she was overthinking it. These were problems for the future.
"In any case, thank you…" Even if not all her enemies were dead, and even though she hadn't killed them with her own hands, sending them to hell had always been her pursuit all these years. Now that someone had helped her, by both reason and feeling, she owed gratitude.
Chu Lian didn't respond, only gave a faint smile. But inwardly, unease stirred: Where did the Rift Guardian of this place go? How could so many powerful enemies have entered? What exactly has happened here?
All of this—she would have to seek the answers herself in this city…