Zhan Yue walked over to Yoriichi. She looked at the fractured Sun-Steel blade, then walked several yards away to inspect the headless corpse of the One-Star Dou Ling.
Crouching down, her eyes widened. The cut was an incredibly clean strike. More terrifyingly, the residual sword energy clinging to the charred flesh belonged undeniably to that broken katana, yet it possessed a completely paradoxical signature—a volatile, impossible mix of extreme fire and high-pressure water.
'Fire and water fused perfectly into a single strike?' Zhan Yue thought, her mind struggling to process the contradiction. It was so unbelievable that she momentarily dismissed it as a sensory illusion caused by the humid mist, but the reality remained impossibly shocking: Xiao Ning had legitimately killed a Dou Ling.
She stood up and glanced back at Yoriichi's exhausted, leaning posture.
"You absolute monster," Zhan Yue whispered to the unconscious boy, genuine awe coloring her voice.
A sudden, protective thought crossed her mind. 'If those old geezers in the Inner Academy get wind of this exact incident, they will get entirely too excited. They'll pluck him away, burying him in closed-door training.'
She knew their overbearing behavior all too well. She had studied under them and had even been an elder there herself. She had specifically chosen to step down and remain in the Outer Academy just to teach more students and discover hidden talents like this.
'I should probably omit a few of the more terrifying details from my official report,' Zhan Yue decided, a fond, proud smile touching her lips. 'It will maintain his organic growth... and spare him enough free time to keep sparring with me.'
With practiced efficiency, she gathered the unconscious Enforcers and the two siblings, gently loading them onto the backs of the recovering Cinder Crested Falcons. Instead of riding with them, Zhan Yue stepped back. With a brilliant flash of silver light, a pair of massive, metallic Dou Qi wings erupted from her back.
"Let's go home," Zhan Yue commanded the beasts. As the falcons took off into the night sky, she launched herself into the air, silently trailing close behind them as an absolute, untouchable security escort flying toward the sanctuary of the Jia Nan Academy.
Time lost its meaning.
For Yoriichi, the transition from the bamboo forest to the academy was a complete blank. His consciousness was submerged in an ocean of profound, restorative darkness. His body, completely drained and fractured by the intense cultivation and life-or-death battles, required an extensive period of suspended animation to organically rebuild his torn meridians.
But as the days passed in the physical world, his mind drifted through the void.
In the deepest depths of his slumber, Yoriichi found himself standing in an endless expanse of twilight. There was no ground beneath his feet, no sky above his head. Just a heavy, absolute silence.
Then, a single, ethereal whisper pierced the void. It was an ancient, glitching voice, carrying a profound and deeply mysterious aura.
"Every action... has a reason behind it..." the voice echoed, wrapping around his soul like a cold mist. "Find the reason... behind your reincarnation... Sun Breather..."
Before he could even question the emptiness, the voice abruptly cut out, swallowed by a sudden, blinding flash of white light.
Gasp!
Yoriichi's crimson eyes violently snapped open.
His lungs instinctively expanded, pulling in a deep, sharp breath of air. The twilight void vanished, instantly replaced by the physical sensations of the waking world.
He was staring up at a wooden ceiling. The intricate, carved beams were intimately familiar. He was lying on a soft, clean mattress, wrapped in fresh, white bandages that covered his chest, arms, and ribs.
'My courtyard,' Yoriichi realized instantly, his tactical mind booting up. 'I am back in the Academy.'
He didn't move immediately. He lay perfectly still, analyzing his internal state. His meridians were fully healed, thicker and vastly more resilient than before. In his Dantian, the single liquid drop had become significantly larger and more voluminous, forming a serene, calm pool of highly compressed, milky-white liquid Dou Qi. Sparks of crimson and azure floated peacefully within the liquid.
He had officially stabilized as a 2-Star Dou Shi. His foundation was perfectly, flawlessly solidified.
But his mind immediately drifted back to the broken voice in the void.
'That was not a simple dream and so sudden,' Yoriichi thought, his eyes narrowing slightly at the ceiling. ' Such mystery. A woman's voice maybe? "Find the reason behind your reincarnation." What does it want to say?'
Before he could delve deeper into the philosophical mystery of his existence, his senses picked up a distinct presence approaching his door.
The footfalls were light, perfectly balanced, and carried absolutely zero hostile intent, but the sheer density of the aura was unmistakable.
Yoriichi's muscles instinctively tensed. He shifted slightly under the blankets, his hand reaching toward the bedside table, ready to defend himself if necessary.
Slide.
The wooden door to his room slid open smoothly.
Yoriichi's crimson eyes darted to the doorway, and then, the tension instantly bled out of his shoulders. He relaxed, resting his head back against the pillow.
Standing in the doorway, dressed not in the luxurious, intimidating robes of a Dou Huang guardian, but in her familiar, practical academy tutor uniform, was Zhan Yue.
She looked at him, her sharp eyes noticing his immediate shift from lethal caution to complete relaxation. A genuine, warm smile broke across her usually strict face.
"I see the sleeping beauty has finally decided to join the land of the living," Zhan Yue teased softly, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her with a soft click.
She walked over to his bedside table, carrying a small, lacquered wooden tray. Upon the tray rested a steaming porcelain cup of tea, radiating a rich, medicinal aroma that immediately soothed Yoriichi's lingering headache.
She gently set the tea down near his bed.
"You've been unconscious for four days, Xiao Ning," Zhan Yue said, pulling up a wooden chair and sitting beside him. She crossed her legs, looking at him with a mixture of profound relief and deep, martial respect. "You and your sister gave the entire Elder council a collective heart attack."
Yoriichi slowly pushed himself up, wincing slightly as his stiff muscles stretched against the bandages. He sat up against the headboard, his stoic gaze meeting hers.
"You were the one in the bamboo sea," Yoriichi stated, his voice slightly raspy from disuse, piecing the final moments of his memory together. "The Guardian."
Zhan Yue smirked, leaning back in her chair. "Surprised? Did you really think your favorite sparring partner was just a standard, run-of-the-mill academy tutor?"