A few seconds later, an old man without a right hand and eye walked through the waterfall. He stood on the water and looked at her. The water in the pond slowly started turning red. The current in the pond sucked Mei Lin to the floor, and she lay there like a doll. She looked like a lifeless person, her skin as white as snow, and little currents of blood slowly rising from her legs and arms.
She was slowly rising back to the surface. When Mei Lin emerged from the water, water started flowing from her mouth and nose. Then, she regained consciousness. When she opened her eyes, she saw an old-looking man with only a left eye and a left hand in a tattered green cultivation robe.
As soon as she saw him, she immediately started panicking and screaming for help. The old man in the green cultivation robe instantly knocked Mei Lin out and wrapped her in a sleeping blanket. Then he placed her near the fire and added more wood so she would not catch a cold after bathing in the pond and due to all her other injuries.
It took Li Wei nearly all day before he came back. During that time, he traveled in a different direction in the forest than any other day, trying to find the best way to descend from the mountains. He remembered that before arriving at the village, they traveled through this forest. He was very small and didn't pay attention to the route. Also, a big snail traveled by the sun, so it was very hard for him to understand the road. When the sun was rising, he turned around and started chasing. At noon, he again turned around and started chasing again. It was a miracle that they arrived somewhere. This kind of travel was extremely ineffective, and if someone wanted to track them, they would be lost just like a snail. It took them a year to cross probably one region. Normally, for a horse, traveling this distance would take a month, maybe two. Snail was moving not as fast as a horse but he wasn't slower than human.
He is also searching for herbs and mushrooms. It is the perfect season for mushrooms, and in this part of the forest, no people are wandering, so mushrooms are here in very big numbers. Hunting fast animals with only an axe and knife is extremely hard, even for a demon like him.
After half a day, he went back to the tent. When he arrived, he saw Mei Lin sleeping inside a tent and an old man by the fire. He was scared because he saw that the man was probably a cultivator. He looked like an old man, but how could someone like him be in the middle of the forest? His hair was tied up and looked very refined. Also, a green robe like that. None of the villagers could afford to wear one, not even the village chief.
"What are you doing here lord cultivator?" At this moment, the old man's head slowly turned Li Wei's way. The side closer to him was extremely dignified, but all the right parts of the body were burned. He is missing his right hand and the right side of his face. Clothes are burned into his skin and can't be taken down. He looks even worse than Li Wei after the fight with the wolves. The only difference is that this is a cultivator, so his life force is much more powerful than Li Wei's, and his recovery speed is much better.
"I saved this girl after she fell into the pond. If I didn't save her, she would already be dead." Li Wei slowly closed the distance between them with a long knife in his right hand. "You don't need to worry. If I wanted to kill you, you would be already dead. You stayed here for nearly a month, so I had a lot of chances. Unfortunately, she will not survive through winter without my help, so you should be begging me for help, not instantly trying to kill me."
"You owe me for saving her life. What do you want? We don't have nearly any food or money. Haha… Fool, do you think I need money? I am a very powerful cultivator; I can take whatever I want. I don't believe you, old man; you are very badly hurt, so you probably lost a fight and have nothing," Li Wei started laughing and went by the fire to check if Mei Lin was okay. "We are only villagers from a mountain village, Li Wei and Mei Lin. What is your name, old man?" Li Wei asked with an arrogant tone. "You are not worthy to ask my name boy." Cultivators start getting angry. "What did you do to Mei Lin? She doesn't look like she sleeps.
"Yes, I put her into a coma so she can heal faster than only by sleeping. I know a special cultivation technique for better healing. This is the only way for mortals to withstand cultivation techniques without consequences. Her soul is unstable, and her injuries are bad even after all this time. When the winter arrives, she will not be strong enough to survive."
"What do you want from us? We can't pay you anything, we only have some herbs and mushrooms." Li Wei went to the tent and pulled out thin logs with dry grass on top of them, serving as a soft layer for sleeping. Under this log bed is not a deep hole, probably 15 centimeters under every part of the sleeping area. Then Li Wei started picking up hot stones near the fire, which served as protection against the cold and as heating under their bed. After putting half of the stones on one side of the tent and covering them back with the bed, he picked up Mei Lin and put her into the tent.
"You are a very clever kid, but your potential for cultivation is not good. On the other hand, that girl has potential. With my help, she can become a cultivator. After she becomes a cultivator, you and her will protect me while I heal my injuries. What do you say about it? First, help Mei Lin, and after she gets better, she can tell you her opinion. Do you want some tea?"
"Tea from the wok? Are you making fun of me? I am Fang Yue, a cultivator of the Green Jade sect. I belong to one of the few cultivation families in the Green Jade sect. If you help me, I can let you enter the inner part of the sect and become respected cultivators. Really? A long time ago, a cultivator from Green Jade visited our village and helped Mei Lin recover from a long illness. They told her that she has cultivation potential."
When Fang Yue heard that, he immediately panicked. Are they here on the order of the Green Jade sect to find me? The girl's soul is badly damaged, so I can't soul-search her memories, and the boy's soul isn't even to be seen. Something is not right with these two. He immediately started thinking about what to do with them. After all, everything he said to them was nonsense. He is hunted by the Green Jade sect for stealing a secret cultivation technique. He is nearly at the end of his lifespan, so he desperately starts searching for a way to prolong his life. He put to sleep Mei Lin because he was afraid that someone would hear her and come here.
His cultivation dropped from the second stage of Qi Cultivation to the first. His recovery will be very hard and expensive for cultivation materials and pills. His problem is that he doesn't have alchemy skills for making pills. His only hope is that Li Wei can become a true cultivator. He will give both of them the basic cultivation technique of the Green Jade sect and wait to see if they can unlock their potential. After Li Wei enters the cultivation and creates her dantians, he will refine himself into pills and absorb their life force to heal his injuries.