In a daze, Tang Jian felt as if he was suspend in mid-air, his entire body aching as if it were about to split apart. The pain was intense everywhere, especially in his lower abdomen, where it felt as if a ball of flame was burning, seemingly intent on piercing through his internal organs.
Even in his unconscious state, he could still feel this agony clearly, nearly pushing his remaining consciousness to the brink of collapse.
Yet, a stubborn resilience within his subconscious compelled him to grit his teeth and persevere.
After an unknown duration, just when Tang Jian felt he could barely endure it anymore, the sensation of being scorched by intense flames gradually subsided.
With a deep sigh of relief, his consciousness gradually returned. In the next moment, he felt his body jolting.
Tang Jian's eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened.
The first thing that came into view was a thick cloth stretched over a frame to form a long arch. Accompanied by the sound of horse's hoofbeats around him, he immediately realized that he was currently in a carriage no more than a few meters in size, surrounded by some clutter.
But as he attempted to turn and rise, a wave of intense pain swept through his body, causing him to grit his teeth and tense up.
Because he suddenly discovered that his hands and feet were all bound with thick ropes as wide as his wrists, and even his body was secured to a wooden frame.
"What's going on? Did I end up getting caught?"
Tang Jian forced himself to calm down and tried to recall the situation before he lost consciousness. He only remembered that he had fought desperately, seemingly killing the horse-faced giant who was pursuing him. However, he had no memory of what happened after that.
"Wait..."
He swept his gaze around and felt a slight relief in his heart.
Because he noticed that although the decorations inside the carriage were ordinary, they were definitely not of the style of the Great Jin Country. Especially the patterns embroidered on the curtains, they seemed to be of the neighboring country, Yue.
Moreover, his originally ragged clothes had been replaced with a gray cloth robe that seemed to be worn by people of Yue.
And judging from the resounding hoofbeats, he was currently not in the Desert of the Fallen Immortals but on a relatively flat official road.
It seemed that he had been saved by someone.
Tang Jian exhaled lightly and, without hesitation, tried to move his body to find a way to untie the ropes binding him.
However, in the next moment, his brows furrowed as he realized a rather troublesome problem.
Not only were his bodily injuries not healed, but his dantian had also suffered significant damage, seemingly affecting his foundation. His original cultivation level of Qi Condensation Layer Five had now directly dropped to Qi Condensation Layer Three.
If it were just that, it would still be manageable, as he could still regain his cultivation with some time. But when he prepared to mobilize the internal magical power, he found that his dantian was empty, with almost no magical power.
This was somewhat unusual.
Even if his magical power was depleted before he lost consciousness, now that he had left the desert and at least several days had passed, during this period, shouldn't he have naturally absorbed the ambient spiritual energy and converted it into magical power?
Thinking of this, Tang Jian immediately closed his eyes, recited the incantation in his heart, inhaled the ambient spiritual energy that filled the surrounding void into his body, and guided this energy to slowly return to his dantian.
However, he only completed one major cycle and stopped with a frown.
He found that he was not unable to breathe in the ambient spiritual energy, but the magical power converted from it within his dantian, perhaps due to the damage to his dantian, would dissipate a large part on its own. The residual magical power would also flow and disperse throughout his body's meridians, unable to gather in his dantian.
In such a situation, if other Qi Condensation stage cultivators used their mental awareness to investigate, they would probably only see him as an ordinary person.
Of course, in the presence of higher-level cultivators with far superior mental awareness, they would still be able to detect that he possessed magical power and was a Qi Condensation stage cultivator.
Tang Jian shook his head, closed his eyes, and began to carefully inspect his internal state.
"Huh, what's this?"
He suddenly had a change of expression.
Just now, he had discovered something unusual deep within his semi-disabled dantian.
There was a faint golden flame there, appearing to be only about the size of a small finger, very weak, faintly trembling, as if it were about to extinguish at any moment.
Tang Jian only pondered for a moment and couldn't help but associate it with the mysterious, anomalous flame that had emerged from his fingertips before he lost consciousness.
Just then, as the sounds of horse neighing, both near and far, came, the carriage suddenly stopped.
Then, a bustling and noisy sound began to come from around, as if there were quite a few people.
Tang Jian's brows raised as he was contemplating whether to try to see the outside situation when suddenly, the curtain was lifted, and a head with two ponytails poked in.
It was a girl of about twelve or thirteen years old, with a delicate appearance and a pair of round eyes looking at him.
"Oh, you're awake?"
Before Tang Jian could clearly see her face, the girl had already exclaimed in a crisp voice and quickly withdrew her head like a rabbit.
Looking at the still slightly swaying curtain, Tang Jian was slightly stunned.
Not long after, the curtain was lifted again.
This time, two fully armored knights entered one after another and, without saying a word, lifted the wooden frame binding Tang Jian and exited the carriage.
The carriage was parked in a forest clearing, surrounded by more than ten carriages of varying sizes, forming a large circle implicitly. All the carriages were covered tightly with thick canvas, and next to each carriage, there were more than ten knights similarly dressed, sitting on the ground, surrounding a large iron pot set up with firewood.
Each carriage had a flag flying in the wind, with a large "Yan" character written on it.
"Where are we going, gentlemen?" Tang Jian took everything around him in at a glance and asked with a slight turn of his eyes.
"What are you shouting for? Can we eat you? Come on, the young lady is waiting. Carry him steadily," a girl dressed as a servant girl standing beside the carriage scolded with one hand on her hip and then said to the two knights.
It was the same girl who had poked her head into the carriage earlier, with a small, bulging cloth bag on her back.
Upon hearing this, Tang Jian obediently shut his mouth.
"Yes!" The two knights responded and quickly carried Tang Jian, following the servant girl through the surrounding crowd and walking towards a tent more than ten zhang away.
This scene, although it attracted the attention of many people around, they only glanced at it and then immediately shifted their gaze back to their own tasks.
"Alright, all of you, leave."
After entering the tent, the two knights placed Tang Jian's wooden frame at the entrance and, upon the servant girl's instruction, saluted and withdrew.
"Young lady, the person has been brought."
"Understood."
With a crisp and melodious voice of a young girl, Tang Jian looked up and saw a gracefully built young girl in white standing up from her central seat and walking towards him.
This girl had cascading black hair over her shoulders, skin as smooth as condensed fat, and beneath her distant mountain-like eyebrows, a pair of bright, lively eyes, resembling two crescent-shaped moon springs. Although only about fifteen or sixteen years old, she was already exceptionally beautiful.
Tang Jian's gaze collided with the girl's eyes, and he couldn't help but momentarily stunned.
The little servant girl, who had been following behind the young girl, seeing this situation, suddenly jumped forward a few steps between the bright-eyed girl and Tang Jian, pouted her mouth, and glared at him somewhat dissatisfied.
"Little Ding Dang!"
"Miss, I saw this guy..."
"You're blocking my way!"
The bright-eyed girl lightly scolded, and with two slender fingers like jade onions, she tugged at the ears of the little servant girl named Little Ding Dang, pulling her aside.
"What, haven't you seen enough? Is this how you show respect to your savior?" Seeing Tang Jian still staring at her somewhat dazed, the bright-eyed girl raised the corner of her lips with a hint of ridicule in her voice.
"Savior?"
Tang Jian regained his composure, slightly startled, then glanced down at the hemp ropes that bound him tightly.
"Ungrateful. When we found you, you were covered in blood. If it weren't for Miss, you would have been a skeleton in the Buried Immortal Desert long ago! And even when you were unconscious, you were restless, reopening your wounds several times..." Little Ding Dang puffed out her cheeks, unable to restrain herself from saying.
"Little Ding Dang, untie him," the bright-eyed girl calmly interrupted Little Ding Dang's chatter.
"Yes!"
The little servant girl obviously feared her mistress. Although reluctant, she responded, stepped forward, squatted down, and skillfully untied all the hemp ropes from Tang Jian's body.
"Thank you, Miss, for saving my life!" Seeing this, Tang Jian struggled to sit up and wanted to perform a grand gesture of gratitude.
"No need. If you move around again, it will just waste my medicinal pills," the bright-eyed girl waved her hand and said dismissively.
"Alright, I'll skip the grand gesture, but thanks are still necessary. May I ask for the lady's name?" Tang Jian grinned and bowed again to the girl.
"My name is Yan Zi. You're not from the Yue Kingdom, what's the story with these sword wounds all over your body?" The bright-eyed girl suddenly turned serious, her gaze fixed on Tang Jian's eyes as she asked, while one hand unconsciously rested on the sword sheath hanging from her waist, emitting a quite astonishing aura.
"Since Miss Yan has saved my life, I won't keep anything hidden. My name is Tang Jian, from the Great Jin Kingdom. I was being chased by enemies and fled into the desert, but then encountered a sandstorm..." Tang Jian's expression slightly changed and then returned to normal as he smiled and replied.
Although his current cultivation was impaired, his eyesight as a fifth-level Qi Refinement practitioner remained. Judging from the spiritual pressure emanating from the girl, she was also a mid-level Qi Refinement practitioner with cultivation comparable to his own in his prime.
"Oh, what are your plans next?" Yan Zi's expression didn't change, as if she had already guessed.
"May I ask, Miss Yan, where are you heading?" Tang Jian hesitated for a moment before asking.
"Our Yan family is merchants, and our entire merchant group is currently returning to Yuejing, where our family is located. What doubts do you have, Mr. Tang?" Yan Zi's beautiful eyes shifted, staring at the young man as she slowly asked.
"To be honest, my enemies have considerable influence in the Great Jin Kingdom and might not hesitate to pursue me to the Yue Kingdom. I am deeply grateful to Miss for saving me. To avoid implicating your merchant association, I will leave immediately once I regain some mobility," Tang Jian replied with a bitter smile.