Yun Lei had already left the centre street before he remembered that he hadn't done what he had gone there to do in the first place.
The reason he had even come to the commercial district was to have the pill he had made appraised. The jade box was still in his pocket.
He looked down at his clothes as he walked, only to see that there was more blood there than before. He could still smell fresh blood and his vision was getting a little blurry.
He felt blood dripping out of his nose, his face was wet with the blood streaming out of his eyes. He was bleeding out of every orifice.
His legs felt extremely heavy and his body wanted to fall over but he clenched his teeth and kept walking. He ducked into a small alleyway and leaned his entire body against the wall. He was barely standing.
"Call me a carriage." His voice was weak but it neither trembled nor showed any signs of distress.
Yun Lei was a cripple, not only a cripple but a cripple with a severely damaged soul. Just moving his body around required his soul to be in constant strain. On top of that, he had also fought against a full-fledged cultivator.
The fact that he was still alive was somewhat of a miracle. After all, he could dominate Ren Feng's profound energy with his superior soul strength but if the Ren Patriarch had used just his physical strength, there was nothing he could do.
There was also the fact that Yun Lei had an easier time controlling Ren Feng's profound energy because he had been completely enraged at the time and wasn't thinking clearly.
Many factors had worked in his favour to make such a feat possible but how could it have come at no cost? Using soul strength to control hostile profound energy aimed at him was far more difficult than controlling passive energy. His already exhausted soul had been pushed to the brink after prolonged use of his soul strength.
Although Yun Lei wanted to do nothing more than just let his body go slack and fall to his knees, he didn't. In fact, he went so far as to bite down on his own tongue to make sure his body wouldn't relax. It was a matter of pride. He would not bow his head.
The carriage arrived at the end of the alleyway rather swiftly. He walked with much difficulty but his eyes were still cold and emotionless as always. Although it was severely restrained, that cold and sharp aura could still be felt on him.
The experts 'secretly' following behind him had witnessed everything. One of them couldn't help but have a look of admiration on her face as she watched the Young Master slowly walk towards the carriage. He was bloody, he was tired, he was weak but, even with trembling legs, he walked with his head held high. This is the aura of a ruler; her instincts were telling her.
If Yun Lei had seen that expert, he would have immediately recognised her. She was one of his personal maids, after all. The fact that some of his maids were cultivators wasn't hidden to him but his sensitivity to aura hadn't reached the point where he could use aura alone to determine someone's identity.
"Take me to Yun Estate." Yun Lei commanded the carriage driver, who shuddered involuntarily. One of the maids who had been following him entered the carriage with him, just in case.
The carriage ride was very smooth, even smoother than it usually was. The driver had already been informed that the Young Master was injured so he drove it as carefully as he could.
Yun Lei casually wiped the blood on his face with his sleeves but more blood soon took its place. He wiped it again and the same thing happened. Frustrated, he thought about consuming the pill he had made but ultimately decided against it.
"Blood Clotting Pill." He said to the maid, who quickly took out a brown pill from the pouch at her hips before putting it in his mouth. She then pulled out a piece of cloth and started wiping the blood from his face.
She hadn't even thought about what she was doing before she was already doing it. She had been one of the maids who had spent almost 8 months wiping drool off his face. It was almost second nature to her.
Her hands were exceptionally soft, almost caressing. Her eyes were filled with tenderness and warmth. Seeing her weak and feeble Young Master in such a state pained her. It would have pained any of his personal maids just as much.
Young Master Yun Lei was someone most servants feared. Both because of his aura and also because he had a bit of a reputation of being cold towards the servants. The maids who were closest to him knew such rumours were simply false. Sure, the Young Master tended to be cold and scary at times but he wasn't like that all the time.
His personal maids, who were with him at all times, saw how gentle and kind he could be. Both in how well he treated his wife and Madam Su but also how he was always considerate towards the maids.
It was mostly subtle things. Like how he remembered the name of every single maid, how he would ask about their families sometimes and he would also order the maids to rest if he saw them working too hard. He had even told Senior Mo to increase the salary of a maid whose mother was seriously ill.
They even received special treatment from other servants because they were the Young Master's personal maids. The fact that they served the kind and capable Yun Lei was a matter of great honour to them. The maids who had served other noble young masters before were especially vocal about how great their Young Master was.
The gates of the Yun Estate opened upon seeing the carriage approach. Normally, carriages weren't allowed past the gate however, an exception had to be made on account of how injured the Young Master was.
The carriage finally came to a stop outside Yun Meili's courtyard as Yun Lei slowly stepped off it. The maid was about to help him but he simply raised a hand, telling her to stop.
"Oh, you made a mess of yourself! What were you even doing?" Granny Chu said as she saw the staggering Yun Lei. She had already been informed about the Young Master's condition so she had made her way to Yun Meili's courtyard. After seeing him with her own eyes, she noticed that things were worse than the reports had led her to believe.
Granny Chu wasn't the only one there. Yun Meili was standing at the door with a deep frown on her face as she supported Su Ning who had gotten even more worried than she already was after smelling blood.
"Oh, it was just a cultivator in the 9th stage of Energy Sensing Realm. Nothing much." Yun Lei said with a laugh which quickly turned into a coughing fit. When he removed the hand covering his mouth, it was full of blood.
Yun Meili's eyes turned murderous as a scary aura exploded from her body.
"Meili!" The sheer shock from the fact that her husband, who never even raised his voice, had shouted at her made Yun Meili recover her senses. It was only then did she notice how much Su Ning, who was standing next to her, had suffered because of her aura.
"Sister Ning, forgive me, Iā"
"It's fine, Sister Meili. I know it was because he got hurt." Su Ning's voice was feeble and barely audible, her entire body was shaking and trembling.
It wasn't just Su Ning, even the maids were severely affected. All of them looked extremely pale and a few had already dropped to their knees as their feet could no longer carry them.
Yun Lei walked slowly towards Yun Meili before nearly collapsing in her arms.
"I'm sorry I shouted at you." He spoke. "It is fine for you to feel anger. However, it is not appropriate for you to harm the innocent. Such actions do not match your station.
"This matter is finished. You will not pursue this anymore. Give me your word, Meili."
Feeling Yun Lei's body against hers, she couldn't help but frown further but, she controlled herself and spoke, "I promise." His entire body felt far colder than it should have.
"Aiyoo, this kid. Dump him on a bed already." Granny Chu's said. The maids rushed forward to help Su Ning as Yun Meili picked up her husband and laid him down on the bed.
He was still bleeding. Even after taking the Blood Clotting Pill, blood had continued to seep out from his orifices. Granny Chu placed one of her hands atop his forehead and another on his heart as she spoke.
"His body is fine. It's his soul. First the Soul Shredding Poison, now this. Do you really enjoy pain or something, kid?"
Yun Lei's lips curved up in a smile upon hearing the old lady. He wouldn't call what he was experiencing 'pain'. It was more like an annoying sting. Compared to the poison, what he was feeling right now was child's play.
Maybe the poison messed up my pain tolerance, Yun Lei had the amusing thought. After all, having your soul slowly torn apart was an experience that couldn't even be described with words. Such a thing happening was not only plausible, it was likely.
"There's nothing much we can do for him, other than let him rest." Granny Chu concluded her diagnosis in a serious tone. "Alright kid, try not to move around too much."
Yun Lei could barely even move his fingers anymore, he didn't think he would be doing any moving around at all.
Granny Chu wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to Yun Meili before taking her leave.
The maids began removing Yun Lei's blood-soaked robes and replaced them with a clean white one as soon as Granny Chu was done with his treatment. He was also fed some sort of medical concoction that was supposed to boost his energy.
"Could you tell me who it was?" He heard Yun Meili ask. He was too tired to even keep his eyes open anymore.
"Ren Feng." She was bound to find out anyway so he felt no reason not to tell her himself.
The room got a lot quieter as most of the maids left. Yun Lei too got comfortable in the bed and finally let himself relax. He knew the reason behind his predicament was due to the fact that he had overused his soul strength.
A muscle that was continuously used needed rest in order to not be damaged. In the same way, soul energy needed to recover after being used as well. The problem was that with him, such a thing was impossible. Just controlling his body required him to put a strain on his soul.
There was a way but he wanted to avoid it if he could. He could relock his body and pull out the key, in other words, he could enter the same soul form he had accidentally ended up in after consuming the poison.
However, he was reluctant to try that since he didn't even know what would happen. What if he was unable to enter his body again? What if he simply ended up dead?
"I'm going to enter a coma again." He said out loud in resignation. He had no other choice.
Without waiting for a reply, he slowly started locking his body. The more he turned the barrel, the easier it got. He felt the burden upon his soul being slowly lifted. Pin after pin began falling into place, which stopped the barrel from moving. Finally, he removed the lockpick from the lock entirely before opening his eyes.
Yun Lei found himself lying on what seemed to be soil, the entire sky was covered with green leaves. Upon picking himself up from the ground, he saw that he was in a forest of some kind, trees as far as his eyes could see.
He wasn't in the same half-transparent soul state as before, neither was he in Yun Meili's room. And unlike before, he could feel every physical sensation as he normally did. His bare feet could feel the soil beneath them, he could feel the gentle forest breeze on his face and he could even smell the greenery surrounding him.
"Where in the world am I?"