Yan Wei was out scavenging in the forest when she heard the loud roar of a raging beast. She'd lived in the forest for a long time and had heard this sound many times before.
But it was a rare sound that would usually be accompanied by the sound of another beast screaming or screeching. Yet she didn't hear such a thing at all.
Something was up. She could tell.
Never before had she seen, or rather heard of a situation like this. It couldn't be that someone was fighting a dangerous beast, she would've received word of such a thing from the court about such an event.
As for cultivators from the sects, they would only ever deal with these things if they were paid or they happened to chance upon it.
When it came to Rogue Cultivators, like Yan Wei, there were very few such people out there in this world. Mostly because they had nothing to off of to actually cultivate.
Everything depended on what kind of talent you had at birth, which Dao you had an affinity for and if you were born with a special constitution.
Even then, if you didn't have any knowledge or someone to teach you how to cultivate, it would all be worthless.
Fortunately for Yan Wei, she had been blessed into having an innate understanding of how to cultivate. She didn't need a manual or some old geezer to tell her how to do it, she could just feel it out.
It was slow, but ever since she was around six years old, she began secretly cultivating, and by the time she was ten years old, she had unlocked half of her meridians. In the following year, it became easier to do so, and by the time she was eleven, she had unlocked them all.
Then, Yan Wei began the next step, which was opening her Dantian's, specifically her lower one. She managed to open that in six months, moving onto the next natural step of her cultivation.
Qi Gathering.
She wanted to continue opening her Dantian's, but something told her that that was a bad idea, so she decided to put it off for now and focus more on the next natural step.
It took her another year and a half for Yan Wei to reach the fourth level in the Qi gathering stage. When she was halfway through getting to the fifth level is when she heard this roar.
Normally, Yan Wei would just avoid this and go back home. But something about this situation wasn't normal to her. Something within her was telling her that this situation didn't make sense.
And to make matters worse, the normal dreadful aura that a beast usually unleashes when it goes berserk like this, had faded too soon.
This meant two things. The first of which, was that Yan Wei was close enough to feel it. And the second was that it had either been killed or managed to win and run away. Which, as far as Yan Wei could tell, it did not feel like or sounded it ran away.
Normally, Yan Wei would just ignore this kind of thing, as it was none of her business. But something about this situation just didn't feel right to her. Something about it felt off.
Yan Wei wasn't one to follow her intuition for anything but her cultivation. And yet, something drew her to investigate this mysterious occurrence further.
She began heading in the direction she believes she heard the roar originate from, and soon enough, she could smell blood.
And there was a lot of it.
Yan Wei ran for a couple more minutes, and the stench of blood only got stronger. But eventually, she found the source as she ran out into a clearing.
In the middle of which was a huge boar that seemed to be dead. And laying not too far from it, was a small girl, younger that Yan Wei, who seemed to have fainted.
Quickly, Yan Wei ran over to the girl to make sure that she was alright. And to her relief, she was fine. A little bruised here and there, but otherwise fine. There was also a weird looking sword? Katana? That was lying in her hand, which she seemed to refuse to let go.
As Yan Wei crouched over the little girl, wondering what she should do, she heard a screeching coming from the direction opposite from where she came from.
"Shit!" Without thinking, Yan Wei suddenly grabbed the girl and hoisted her on her back, being careful not to cut herself on the blade.
Once she got hold of the girl properly, she began to hurriedly carry her out of here and back towards her cabin.
Not even a few minutes later, she heard the screeching cry of a bird of some kind coming from the direction that she was just at.
'Sweet Heavens! That was close one! Thank goodness I managed to grab this little one out of there before that thing showed up. Better hurry up though. Don't want it to find us.'
Yan Wei quickened her pace back to her lone home within the woods before the bird could locate her. Or any other beast for that matter, as this was bound to attract the attention of some of the other beasts residing in this forest.
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Some hours later…
Yin Lian slowly came to, feeling herself on top of a soft surface. Opening her eyes and turning her head to the side, she could vaguely see her Satanre out the corner of her eye. But that wasn't the thing that caught her attention the most.
What she noticed first and foremost, was the fact that she was indoors. And most definitely not inside of her inheritance temple.
Instantly, she was alert and wanted to get up, but the moment she tried, she found that her body was aching in all her joints. She winced and tried to look around to garner where exactly she was right now.
A clattering noise echoed from nearby, and then footsteps. Yin Lian readied herself to activate her last card, [Blood Burst], out of fear of whatever brought her here and what their intentions might be. She was weak right now, and could be abused, used and exploited easily.
But thankfully for her, it was just a weirdly dressed girl, wearing thigh high boots, a pair of trousers, a white blouse and braided black hair. Overall, quite a simple set of clothes, yet different to what Yin Lian had ever seen before.
"Oh! You're awake now! Good, I was beginning to get worried for ya there." The way she spoke was a little off compared to everyone she'd ever spoken to, and her tone was caring yet unformal and extremely positive.
"Oh, hang on a minute. I was just cooking something up. I'll bring you a plate when it's done." With that, the girl walked away and round the corner of the wall to get her meal.
As for Yin Lian, she tried once more to move, but found that her body still wouldn't respond the way she wanted it to. In fact, she was still tired and her breathing was somewhat unsteady.
All she could do now was lay down until she had recovered. And whilst she was here, she might as well accept the weird woman's offer. Not like she could refuse it anyways.
Time went by and soon enough the woman returned with a bowl of stew and a spoon, presenting said spoon to Yin Lian.
Yin Lian stared at the spoon, which had a little bit of stew and a piece of meat on it. She hesitated, unsure if she could trust another human ever again after what happened at her village.
But, she had no other choice. There wasn't much she could do. She was still a child after all, and the woman before her was clearly older and likely stronger than her because of it.
Reluctantly, Yin Lian opened her mouth so that the stranger could feed her.
Once the head of the spoon entered her mouth, Yin Lian closed her lips around it and the strange woman pulled it out, letting her chew the piece of meat and swallow.
Still smiling, the woman asked, "You like it?"
Looking at the bowl in her hands and then back at her face, Yin Lian blushed slightly before affirming, "Mhm…"
It was the first decent meal she'd eaten in years. All she was ever fed was cooked meat. Very well-cooked meat, but still, just meat. The mere presence of liquid soothed Yin Lian's heart and soul, and although the meat wasn't as tender, it was still flavourful.
The woman presented another spoonful once Yin Lian was done with the first one, which she accepted without resistance this time.
That didn't mean that Yin Lian was happy with being treated like this, and pouted as she ate and was fed more stew until the bowl had been emptied and her stomach filled.