It didn't take long for Chen Jinshu to arrive outside the courtyard where Zhou Wanning lived, the quiet edge of the market feeling even more desolate in the afternoon light. She raised her hand, a thread of gentle spiritual power gathering at her fingertips, and lightly knocked on the heavy wooden door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A faint shuffling sound came from inside, followed by the slide of a bolt. A few breaths later, the wooden door creaked open on its worn hinges.
Zhou Wanning's face appeared from behind the heavy wood, the skin lined with deep wrinkles and the shadows of heavy worry. She was still wearing that same washed out dark brown robe, its edges worn thin from years of repetitive use. Her graying hair was simply pinned up with a plain wooden hairpin, looking slightly disheveled.
When she saw her visitor, a trace of surprise flashed through her cloudy eyes, followed quickly by a gentle smile. It looked stiff on a face shaped by years of unrelenting hardship, yet it was unmistakably sincere.
"Chen Daoyou? Please, come in. My humble home is crude. I hope you don't mind."
Chen Jinshu smiled lightly and stepped inside the threshold. The familiar, bitter scent of tea rushed toward her at once, and the tension she had been carrying in her shoulders eased without her noticing.
The room looked no different from her last visit, cluttered and cramped. The stone table was piled high with dusty jade slips, half finished formation discs, scattered carving knives, and in the corner sat a rough clay teapot still letting off a plume of steam. Everything spoke of crushing poverty, and of a stubborn, quiet persistence.
"Zhou Daoyou." Chen Jinshu cupped her hands in a respectful greeting. Her gaze lingered on the older woman, and she immediately sensed that her physical condition looked even worse than a few days ago. A dull, lifeless air clung to her brow, signaling a deepening exhaustion.
Her Dao foundation was already severely damaged, her lifespan nearly exhausted by the passage of time. Staying in this polluted place and burning herself out maintaining complex formations only made the internal decay worse.
"I came without notice today because there is something I want to give you." Chen Jinshu didn't waste time on idle small talk.
She flipped her wrist, and a small jade box barely an inch tall appeared in her palm. It was smooth and lustrous, glowing with a faint green light that seemed to pulse from within.
The moment she opened the lid, a rich and pure medicinal fragrance filled the small room, overflowing with dense vitality and the essence of creation energy.
Two pills the size of longan fruit rested quietly on the soft silk lining inside the box. They were a warm jade green, flawless and perfectly round. A point of concentrated spiritual light pulsed endlessly at their cores, while natural cloud patterns drifted slowly across their surface as if they were alive, releasing a powerful life force that made the mind feel clear and refreshed.
Just the faint medicinal aura leaking from them made Zhou Wanning's cloudy eyes light up with sudden intensity. A hint of color returned to her withered face as she leaned in.
"Life Creation Pills? And third tier, upper grade, with naturally formed pill patterns?" Her voice trembled in pure disbelief. She stared at the pills, her thin fingers lifting unconsciously toward them, then stopping short at the very edge of the jade box as if she feared even touching the wood would sully such a precious gift.
"This… this is far too valuable. How could I deserve this?"
"Zhou Daoyou."
Chen Jinshu gently pushed the jade box toward her, her voice steady and warm.
"If you hadn't spoken frankly that day and exposed Lin Xiao's wolfish ambitions, even if I wouldn't have feared him, I would have run into significant trouble. I might have even delayed something as important as the Hundred Herbs Token.
I won't forget that kindness. These two Life Creation Pills have some effect in healing internal injuries, stabilizing the foundation, and warming the Dao base. They might ease your condition a little. I refined them myself, so please, don't refuse."
She paused, watching the storm of conflicting emotions in the other woman's eyes, then continued.
"Besides, you have held onto a pocket of purity in this polluted place with your formations, protecting yourself and indirectly protecting those who come after. That resolve alone deserves these pills."
"Protecting those who come after?" Zhou Wanning murmured the words to herself. Her expression twisted, and a mix of pain, resentment, and a grief suppressed for countless years surged together in her gaze.
She reached out with a shaking hand and carefully took the jade box into her own.
Instead of putting it away, she slowly raised her head and looked at Chen Jinshu with a strange sense of sudden release.
"Chen Daoyou, do you know why I was willing to guard the edge of this waste slag ground, a place even the corpse vultures refuse to land? Why I know Lin Xiao's filthy dealings so well?"
Chen Jinshu's heart stirred at the question. She had a vague guess based on what she had seen, but she stayed silent to let the woman speak.
Xiao Yin on her shoulder also went quiet, tilting its small head as its dark eyes fixed intently on Zhou Wanning.
The older woman tugged at her lips, forming a smile that was uglier than crying. She lifted her other hand and gently pointed to a jagged scar beneath her left cheekbone. It was almost hidden among the deep wrinkles, yet its vicious outline was still visible under the light.
The scar was dark and raised, like an ugly centipede crawling across her face, completely ruining what must have once been a passable beauty. "Because I was the first woman Lin Xiao tricked into that 'Cold Dwelling Room' two hundred years ago in Medicine King Valley, using the excuse of 'exchanging ancient formation diagrams.'"
Chen Jinshu sucked in a sharp breath, her pupils shrinking in shock. She had suspected as much, but hearing the woman say it herself, in a tone so calm and so hopeless, still pierced her heart.
How long had it taken her to crawl out of that unbearable memory, and to finally be able to speak of it with such bleak acceptance?
Chen Jinshu stared at the scar on her face and saw, as if reflected in the damaged skin, a night two hundred years ago, and a young woman struggling in despair inside a filthy stone room. Her throat tightened. She choked for a moment, forcing down the spiritual tea she had just sipped.
Zhou Wanning's gaze drifted, becoming distant and hollow, as she continued her story.
"At the time, I was about your age, maybe a little older. I came from a small family in the southern region that relied on formation arts for their livelihood. I was proud of my skills, and my talent wasn't bad. I heard that Medicine King Valley excelled in both alchemy and formations, so I came seeking fragments of ancient formation diagrams to improve myself.
Lin Xiao was already a disciple of the valley then. He wasn't a true successor, but thanks to his ancestors' lingering influence, he still had some standing. He disguised himself perfectly back then. Gentle, refined, and well spoken. His views on formations were 'unique,' and he was 'generous,' often giving me rare fragments or old formation discs in the name of 'discussion.'
I was young and naive. I thought I had met a like minded Senior and felt grateful, completely unguarded in his presence."
Her voice began to tremble with the memory. The knuckles of the hand holding the jade box turned white with the strain of her grip.
"Until that night, when he invited me to his residence to 'appreciate together' a scroll he claimed to have 'accidentally obtained,' the Ancient Xuanji Formation Fragmentary Explanation. That room was probably no different from what you saw today. There just weren't so many women's belongings back then. The moment I stepped into the inner chamber, I was caught.
The air was filled with colorless, odorless Drunken Immortal Lure. Then he used his corpse binding technique on me. That art immobilizes the body entirely. My foundation was unstable, and my divine sense was fully occupied analyzing those 'difficult formation points' he had thrown at me. The instant my focus slipped, I fell into his trap.
My spiritual power stagnated. The entire world spun.
He tore off that gentle mask and showed his beastly face. I struggled with everything I had and triggered a defensive formation talisman, barely managing to injure him in the scuffle.
This scar on my face was carved by his poisoned dagger in a fit of rage. If not for… if not for a life saving secret talisman my clan had, the Blood Escape Substitution, which forcibly tore space apart and sent me away at the last moment…
I would have ended up like those women after me. Bones gone, or turned into material for his evil techniques."
Two clear lines of tears slid soundlessly down her wrinkled cheeks, tracing the deep lines before dripping onto her dark brown sleeves and spreading into deep, damp stains.
Her thin body trembled uncontrollably. It wasn't simple grief anymore, but the release of centuries of buried injustice, finally spoken aloud before another person.
At last, it eased.