Volume 1, Chapter 72 – Burial

After running a few steps, Shi Lan’s mind stirred. The Innate true qi in her body surged to the soles of her feet, and her figure shot into the sky, walking on thin air.

Looking at the ground dozens of zhang below her feet, Shi Lan felt a moment of dazed unreality. When she came back to herself, she glanced down at the Flying Cloud Boots on her feet, then headed straight for the city wall.

Most of the entire western wall had already collapsed. Rubble had completely buried the city gate, and only bare bones remained, half-visible amid the broken bricks and shattered tiles.

Shi Lan searched through the ruins for a long time before she managed to find fewer than ten sets of bones still wrapped in black armor. The rest of the armor had shattered into scattered fragments, and the bones were strewn everywhere, impossible to piece together.

As for Demon-Suppressing Medallions, she found twelve.

“Zhang Ding…”

“Liu Yunsheng…”

“Yan Shan…”

“Yuan An…”

“Jiang Li…”

As she sensed each Demon-Suppressing Medallion and watched the names flash across her mind one by one, Shi Lan’s fingers clenched involuntarily. She sank down onto the broken bricks and rubble, her heart a complete blank.

Those comrades she had known well or barely at all were now nothing but white bones lying there. Some didn’t even have bones left to be found…

She had already expected something like this back when she’d made up her mind to run if the city fell. But when the scene was actually laid bare before her eyes, she couldn’t help the guilt that welled up inside.

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Whatever the reason, desertion before a battle was still desertion—even if she’d only planned to do it and never actually had the chance to carry it out.

Calming her emotions, Shi Lan left Twin Moon City and flew to the battlefield where the Demon-Suppressing Army had fought the demonic beasts.

The beasts’ corpses had long since turned into piles of bones, the flesh gnawed clean. Before the city wall, the bones were stacked several zhang high.

Hovering in the air, Shi Lan swept her gaze around and quickly spotted that figure still standing in the desolation.

Huangfu Yun, after all, had been a martial artist at the ninth stage of the Innate Realm. His body had been nourished by Innate true qi for years and was incredibly tough. With the Demon-Slaying Platform’s killing aura protecting him, the beasts had not dared approach, so his corpse remained intact, no different from when he had died.

Seeing Huangfu Yun’s half-opened eyes, Shi Lan felt a sting behind her own. She stepped forward and gently closed his lids.

After carrying Huangfu Yun’s body back to Twin Moon City to lay it in a proper place, Shi Lan began searching for scattered bones, armor pieces, and Demon-Suppressing Medallions.

Most of the bones were incomplete, and the armor was scattered in pieces here and there. In the end, she recovered just over two hundred twenty Demon-Suppressing Medallions. The rest had likely been trampled into the earth along with blood and bone.

By the time she finished, it was already midnight.

Shi Lan dug a steel saber out of the rubble and used whatever she could find to quickly fashion a simple coffin for Huangfu Yun, then set him to rest within. After that, she came to the front of Twin Moon City’s gates and activated Heaven’s Eye Qi-Sight.

Circling Twin Moon City with Heaven’s Eye active, Shi Lan finally stopped at the north gate and began to dig.

As she dug, bitterness rose in her chest. She had never once used Heaven’s Eye Qi-Sight’s ability to read geomancy and feng shui layouts. The first time she put it to use was to find a burial place for her comrades.

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Just thinking about it made her throat tighten, words sticking unsaid.

By the time she finished digging, the sun was overhead.

The pit was about one and a half zhang deep and five zhang long and wide.

Other than Huangfu Yun, there was no way to tell whose remains were whose. After setting Huangfu Yun’s coffin in place, Shi Lan put all the other bones and armor together in the pit.

She placed all the Demon-Suppressing Medallions into the grave as well, then filled it in and leveled the earth. From the city wall she took a slab of bluestone nearly a zhang tall and began carving a tombstone.

Once she had carved the names of everyone in the grave one by one, Shi Lan set the Demon-Slaying Platform in front of the grave, pressing it in place with the tombstone.

With this Demon-Slaying Platform here, all the heroic spirits in this grave could sleep in peace, unbothered by hyenas or creeping vermin. Shi Lan naturally wouldn’t be taking it away.

“Hopefully the feng shui here will bring a bit of good fortune to your families. We shared a soldier’s bond—this is all I can do for you now…”

Shi Lan lightly stroked the tombstone. After a long moment, she bowed deeply to it, then turned and left.

From beginning to end, she never spoke of avenging them or anything of the sort. With her current strength, she had no right to make that kind of promise.

What had killed the people in this grave was the boundless beast tide, the demon race out in the endless demon domain, the supreme overlord that occupied a full third of the Lingyang Realm.

Right now, she was still far too weak. There were things she would naturally do if her strength was enough—no need to keep them on her lips.

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Shi Lan had barely taken a few steps when she remembered the Purple Star Seven-Section Halberd she’d left forgotten in the back of her mind. She leapt up onto the city wall and rummaged through the ruins before finally finding it.

She gripped the halberd tight, Innate true qi pouring into it. Soon, the nearly zhang-long weapon began to shrink, finally turning into a point of spiritual light that Shi Lan tucked into her sleeve.

After stepping into the Innate Realm, just the ability to store an artifact like this made her far stronger than in the Body Tempering Realm.

Standing there in thought for a moment, Shi Lan then flew up to hover above the City Lord’s residence.

There were especially many bones around the City Lord’s residence. Most likely, when the city fell, the people had all surged toward it, hoping to seek shelter.

In front of the residence lay a glazed mirror over five chi tall, its surface shattered and scattered across the ground.

The buildings inside the residence were particularly devastated, almost razed to the ground. Shi Lan searched for a long time before she managed to find her own quarters.

After rummaging for quite a while, she dug a tattered bundle out of the ruins.

She tore the bundle open and took out the White Crane Skirt inside, then left the City Lord’s residence.

After wandering around a bit, Shi Lan found a small building that wasn’t too badly damaged. There was even a deep well in the backyard.

She drew up two buckets of well water, washed away the scabbed blood on her body, and in just a single day the wound on her lower abdomen, despite having never been treated with medicine, had already healed by nearly half. This rate of recovery was downright monstrous.

Once she rebandaged the wound, Shi Lan used true qi to steam her long hair dry, took out the White Crane Skirt, and put it on.

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The White Crane Skirt and the Flying Cloud Boots were both two-star items and naturally also artifacts.

She had always felt resistant to wearing skirts, but after waking up this time, she had figured it out.

What she wore wasn’t important; what mattered was staying alive. If she had been wearing the White Crane Skirt that day, the shattered armor would never have been able to hurt her, and she wouldn’t have been beaten to the brink of death by that giant tiger’s single strike.

This wasn’t Tenglong City—there was no one here she needed to hide anything from.

Besides, she was a woman in this life to begin with. Wearing male clothes all the time wouldn’t magically turn her back, would it?

It was all just trivial nonsense.

That said, this was still her first time wearing a skirt, and Shi Lan couldn’t help being a little nervous, her fingers trembling slightly.

Fortunately, the White Crane Skirt’s design was very simple and easy to put on.

The ice-silk-like feel of the fabric against her skin was unbelievably comfortable.

And this was also the first time Shi Lan had gone without binding her chest. The lightness at her chest made her feel like she could finally breathe properly.