The essence of the Thuong Lan Forest was a sensory tapestry Lam Tich had never truly unraveled in his past life. It was more than just the scent of damp earth or decaying leaves; it was a vivid, pungent miasma of ten thousand exotic species locked in a cycle of predatory survival. The cloying sweetness of purple, bell-shaped blossoms—pulsing with a faint bioluminescence in the twilight—mingled with the acrid, metallic tang of silver-toothed ferns.
Occasionally, a stray breeze from the valley wafted up, carrying the glacial, pristine fragrance of "Snow Orchids"—a rare flower that bloomed only on cliffs saturated with spiritual essence. It momentarily cleared Lam Tich's dazed mind, only to be replaced by the briny stench of a hidden swamp, a grim reminder of the many ways the forest could kill.
The darkness beneath the ancient canopy was nothing like an ordinary night. The dying rays of the Violet Sun (one of the twin suns of the Thuong Lan Realm) pierced the foliage, casting a cold, lavender hue that turned tree trunks into towering stone pillars. Luminous green moss crept across the bark in cryptic patterns, forming a celestial map for the denizens of the night.
The forest's orchestra was equally alien. Beyond the calls of birds, there was the crystalline chiming of "Crystal Vines" swaying in the wind, the low hum of air passing through hexagonal rock fissures, and from the far distance, the long, haunting howl of a creature his "trash" memories recognized with a primal shiver: the "Cold Cloud Beast."
Lam Tich leaned against an ancient tree with bark as gnarled as dragon scales. His breathing was shallow and frantic; each inhale felt as if an invisible hand were crushing his ribcage. The fever had finally claimed him. This was no common ailment; it was his body's violent protest against the collision of two souls and the sheer mental exhaustion of wielding the System.
Cold sweat drenched him even as he felt bone-chillingly frigid. His shattered right arm was now a bloated, throbbing mass of purple heat. A faint, sickeningly sweet odor reached his nose, causing his clinical instincts to recoil: infection.
"Great One! Great One, wake up!"
Dai Hung's gruff, panicked voice echoed as if from the bottom of a deep well. Lam Tich forced his eyes open—the milky-white film of his blindness seemed even cloudier now, devoid of the spark of life. He could only sense Dai Hung through the massive heat radiating from his frame and the metallic scent of dried blood and sweat.
"I am... fine," Lam Tich rasped, his throat feeling as though it had been scraped with sandpaper. "Where is... Van Khue?"
"That rat led two men to scout Van Trach as you ordered," Dai Hung gritted his teeth. "But I don't trust him. His eyes are always wandering, always measuring."
"Good... mistrust is a virtue..." Lam Tich gasped as a convulsion rippled down his spine. "It will keep him... vigilant. I need water."
Dai Hung hurriedly pressed a dried gourd to Lam Tich's parched lips. The water was cool and carried the faint sweetness of sap, sliding down his throat like a life-saving elixir.
[ Void Energy: 3/100 ]
[ Status: High Fever, Severe Septic Infection, Mental Collapse. ]
[ Warning: Fatality rate > 40% within the next 48 hours without intervention. ]
The crimson text flared in his mind, as cold and clinical as a coroner's report. Lam Tich's lips twitched into a ghostly smirk. 40%. That meant a 60% chance to thrive. On his old battlefields, those were odds he would take any day.
Suddenly, a migraine struck with the force of a sledgehammer. Fragments of two lives collided and surged. He saw blood-stained hands of his former colleagues strapping him to an operating table... then the sneer of his cousin in the Lam Clan as he ordered Lam Tich's meridians to be severed... the cries of children... the curses... and the mocking laughter of the Evil God echoing from the dungeon's void...
"No... that's not it..." Lam Tich muttered, his left hand clawing at the dirt, leaving deep furrows in the loam. "I am no longer a doctor... I am... I am..."
"Great One! Great One!" Dai Hung panicked, his massive, clumsy hands trembling on Lam Tich's shoulders. "What is it? Is it 'That Thing'? Does it want to break free again?"
Dai Hung's terror acted as a lightning rod for Lam Tich's scattered thoughts. "That Thing." That name, that fiction—it was his anchor.
Lam Tich raised his head, staring into nothingness. His face was a deathly pallor, yet through the passive trait [The False Survivor], an eerie, unnatural serenity took hold. His voice was weak, but every syllable was razor-sharp:
"Yes... it is stirring... feeding on my weakness..." He let out a ragged breath. "But fear not... the chains still hold... For now... I just need medicine. The real kind."
"Medicine? Where?" Dai Hung asked, desperate.
"Van Trach... But first..." Lam Tich paused to marshal his strength. "We have company... Three men... from the Northwest. It's not Van Khue... I smell fresh blood and... cheap wine."
Dai Hung bolted upright, his massive frame shielding Lam Tich. He squinted into the thicket. Sure enough, minutes later, the sound of drunken, boisterous laughter and heavy footsteps drifted through the trees.
"...Talk about a windfall! This boar will feed us for a week!"
"Aye! Wine and meat, boys! Haha!"
"Pity we didn't find any two-legged prey. Selling slaves to the markets would've fetched us some real coin..."
Three hunters, armed with bows and machetes, their faces flushed with alcohol, emerged from the brush carrying a massive boar. They skidded to a halt at the sight of Dai Hung and Lam Tich.
"Dammit, we've got company!" the leader—a man with a jagged scar across his cheek—sobered instantly, his eyes glinting with a bandit's greed. He sized up the ragged, hulking Dai Hung and the gaunt, sickly man leaning against the tree. He sneered, "You two... where did you crawl out from? You look like runaway scum!"
Dai Hung growled, his fists tightening into boulders. But he held back, remembering Lam Tich's command: Do not act without my word.
Lam Tich, motionless as a corpse, spoke in a fragile whisper: "We are... refugees. Our clan was slaughtered... We fled here. Please... let us pass."
"Refugees?" The scarred leader laughed harshly, stepping closer and sniffing the air. "The stench of blood and prison sweat... you're from the Eternal Dark Prison, aren't you? The Lam Clan has a bounty of a hundred silver taels on the head of every stray rat."
The air turned glacial. The other two hunters drew their knives, their eyes wide with avarice.
Just as Dai Hung prepared to lunge, Lam Tich spoke again, his voice horrifyingly nonchalant:
"Correct... we escaped that hell. But are you certain... you want that coin?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" the leader frowned.
"In that prison... there are more than just men," Lam Tich said slowly, his head tilting as if listening to an invisible whisper. "There are things... that were sealed. And when the seals break, they crave... new souls to anchor themselves to this world." He "stared" directly at the hunters, his blind eyes hollow pits. "I can hear it... whispering. It says... these three drunken souls... smell so very sweet."
Lam Tich's words, combined with his ghoulish appearance and the haunting backdrop of the twilight forest, struck a nerve. A younger hunter began to shake, his eyes darting around in terror.
"Captain... is he... is he a vessel for a demon?"
"Shut up!" the leader barked, but his confidence had evaporated. He looked at Lam Tich, then at Dai Hung, who was prowling toward them like a predatory beast. A dying man and a titan—the combination was too bizarre, too omen-like.
[ Reliability (Scarred Hunter): 35% - Suspicion laced with Dread ]
Lam Tich knew it was time for the killing blow. He exhaled a long, soft breath, and a plume of white mist drifted into the cold air—a byproduct of his raging fever, but in the eyes of the superstitious, it was the chilling "Yin Qi."
"Very well... if it is coin you crave, take my head," Lam Tich said, his voice suddenly sounding hollow and defeated. "But remember: do not open my eyes. For when I die... the final seal will shatter. And 'That Thing'... will be free. It will follow the ones who slew me... corroding your souls bit by bit... until you are nothing but hollow husks, wandering the deep woods for eternity."
A heavy silence fell, broken only by the wind and the crystalline chiming of the vines.
The younger hunter suddenly dropped his knife, his face ashen. "Captain! I... I don't want the money! I'm leaving!"
Without waiting, he turned and bolted into the dark.
The second hunter hesitated for a heartbeat, then backed away.
The scarred leader's face contorted as he looked at Lam Tich, then at Dai Hung, who took a menacing step forward with a murderous glint in his eyes. Finally, greed was strangled by terror.
"Madmen! You're all cursed madmen!" he screamed. He and the remaining man hoisted the boar and scrambled into the dense foliage, leaving a trail of broken branches behind.
Dai Hung let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, looking at Lam Tich with even deeper awe. "Great One... can you truly... hear it?"
Lam Tich didn't answer. He was channeling every scrap of willpower to keep from losing consciousness. Cold sweat soaked his rags.
[ Reliability (Dai Hung): 90% - Absolute Veneration ]
[ Collected Void Energy from hunters' fear: 8/100 ]
"No... I only heard their footsteps and smelled their wine," Lam Tich told the truth, but in Dai Hung's ears, this only proved his master was truly humble. "Dai Hung... when Van Khue returns, no matter the news... report to me first. Do not... act on your own."
"Yes! Understood!" Dai Hung bowed low.
The sky turned to ink. The Argent Moon—the smaller of the two moons—rose in the east, painting the forest floor in streaks of cold silver. The bioluminescent flowers shone even brighter, transforming the woods into a macabre fairyland.
Van Khue and the other two prisoners returned late in the night. His face bore the marks of fatigue, but his eyes were bright with opportunity.
"Great One," Van Khue knelt, keeping his voice low. "Van Trach is a cauldron of chaos. Refugees, merchants, patrols, and the dregs of minor cults all dwell together. Most importantly, there is an old apothecary at the end of the East Street. The previous owner died two weeks ago. His kin are desperate to sell and flee. The price is a pittance."
Lam Tich nodded slightly, forcing himself into a sitting position. "Good... that will be our nest. Anything else?"
"Yes," Van Khue hesitated. "The town patrols have received word from the Lam Clan. They are intensifying checks on outsiders. And..." He glanced at Dai Hung. "There are whispers of a dangerous group of convicts escaped from the dungeon, including one who is... blind."
The tension spiked. Dai Hung clenched his fists until they cracked.
Lam Tich, however, smiled—a thin, relieved smile, as if he had just received good news. "Perfect. They know I am blind, but they do not know my face, nor the faces of those with me. This is our shield." He turned his "gaze" toward Van Khue. "You did well. Tomorrow at dawn, we enter the town. Dai Hung and the others will split up and slip in as porters and hunters. Van Khue, you will accompany me, acting as... a filial grandson escorting his blind grandfather to find a place for his final rest."
Van Khue started. "You intend to... walk in through the front gates?"
"Precisely," Lam Tich said. "The shadow is always deepest at the base of the lamp. They are searching for a band of desperate fugitives, not a sick old man and his dutiful grandson. We will buy that apothecary. And from there..." He paused as a violent coughing fit took him, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth. When it passed, his voice was a whisper-thin blade: "...from there, I will show them the 'truth' they want to see: a harmless, blind physician, merely hoping to survive his final days."
That night, under the cold argent moonlight and the ghostly glow of the Thuong Lan Forest, Lam Tich lay curled in his fever, yet his mind was a battlefield, mapping out his first moves in Van Trach. The old apothecary would be his cocoon—the place where the pupa begins to weave its first threads of deception. And the hungry wolves following him were now ready to be his most loyal tools, his willing puppets, in the grand play of his life.
The wind sighed through the canopy, and the Thương Lan Orchids—rare blooms with long, silver-blue petals that smelled of smoke—swayed gently, as if whispering a prophecy of the storm about to break from this false peace.