"My understanding of this world is so limited," Su Min whispered, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. She felt a profound and unsettling ignorance. "What does a noble young lady even really know?"
She found the scene below deeply unsettling. There, standing among a cluster of officials whose fine silks glinted in the morning sun, was the Governor himself. In modern terms, he would be a high ranking official, equivalent to a provincial leader or the mayor of a major city, a man of immense secular power. And yet, he was speaking with a deference that felt completely wrong, his posture almost bowing to the old madam from Chunhong Brothel. This was a woman who, by any common logic of this world, should never hold that kind of sway over a man of his station.
Her expression darkened into a grimace, her delicate features hardening.
That madam had connections and power, enough to make the Governor himself lower his head. This was not just a brothel wanting to reclaim a runaway girl. This was something deeper, something coordinated and sinister. Su Min sifted through the inherited memories clinging to her soul, trying to find a clue. Though she had not lived those early years herself, they felt like old bruises on her spirit, tender and aching. The original Su Min had seen too much and understood too little, a gap in her knowledge that was only now becoming terrifyingly clear.
That girl, born into a noble family, knew almost nothing about life beyond the high walls of her mansion. Her days had been filled with poetry, embroidery, and tea lessons. She learned propriety, music, etiquette, and obedience. She was taught how to smile without speaking and how to speak without saying anything at all. That was the full extent of her formal education. She had learned nothing about power struggles, geography, or how an army moves and is supplied.
Her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides, the knuckles white. "Even with all her memories, I still know nothing about how this world truly works." The realization was a cold splash of water.
Her gaze lifted, drifting toward the mist shrouded mountains behind her. They were vast and wild, a ragged wall of green and gray that seemed to swallow the horizon. If she could not fight them, she could hide. The wilderness would not ask for her name or her past. It would not betray her. Right now, that was the best offer she was going to get.
After her clan was exterminated, even simple comforts had turned to poison, memories that only made survival harder. Despite it all, that other Su Min had endured the unendurable. Now, she would endure again. With no family, no allies, and treated like a plague by anyone she might approach, she had no other path. Hiding was the only option until her strength finally caught up with her anger.
The way that madam spoke to the Governor made it clear this was no simple pursuit. The whole situation reeked of conspiracy, of shadows moving behind the throne.
"I would love to chop off that emperor's damn head," she muttered under her breath, the bitterness sharp on her tongue like a poison. "But that is a fantasy for now." A daydream for when she was stronger.
She crouched lower in the underbrush, clutching her arms to still their faint trembling. Every breath scraped against her ribs. Her body was not just sore, it was wrecked. She had only started cultivating the Changchun Gong a few hours ago. Its healing properties were real, yes, but miracles did not happen overnight. It had not given her real strength, not yet.
Certainly not enough to face trained soldiers. Or even to outrun another night of determined pursuit.
At best, the cultivation had stopped her from collapsing entirely. At worst, it was just holding her together like glue on shattered porcelain. Her meridians had barely begun to glow with energy, her qi a thread thin and flickering stream, more a promise than a power. Right now, she was not even back to what most people would call a healthy state.
Her eyes flicked toward the misty ridges beyond the cliff path. She saw dark trees and cold stone, a landscape thick with unknown danger. But it was still better than what waited behind her.
It was better than being dragged back in chains to a fate worse than death.
"If I cannot fight them, I will just disappear."
The moment the cliff's edge was behind her, Su Min's body betrayed her completely. Every step into the dense treeline sent jagged fire up her legs. It was not the clean ache of exertion, but the deep, marrow deep throb of half healed wounds screaming in protest. Her lungs burned with each gasping breath, the crisp mountain air scraping like knives against tissue still raw from the smoke of interrogation chambers. The Changchun Gong hummed weakly in her meridians, its healing energy barely enough to knit flesh, let alone erase weeks of systematic breaking.
Her body remembered the price exacted upon it. The lash marks across her back pulled taut with every movement, a constant, searing reminder. The old fracture in her left wrist, a courtesy of Magistrate Wu's persuasion techniques, throbbed in time with her frantic heartbeat.
"Move. Just keep moving," she commanded herself, the words a mantra against the pain.
Her foot caught on a gnarled root hidden under the leaves. She fell hard, biting her tongue to stifle a cry as her knees slammed into the soft loam. For one terrifying second, her vision whited out. It was not from the pain, but from a sudden, visceral memory of cold stone floors and echoing bootsteps. The scent of pine needles transformed into the smell of blood soaked straw. The wind through the branches became whispered taunts: Traitor's spawn. Whore in training.
Su Min dug her nails into the cool earth, anchoring herself in the present. "I am not there. Not anymore."
Still, she pressed on, forcing her body to obey.
For anyone else, these mountains would be a death sentence. Wild beasts, poisonous plants, and unpredictable terrain waited around every bend. But for her, armed with even the faintest flicker of cultivation and a will of iron, it was survivable. She knew how to endure, because she had already endured the worst.
Eventually, she found a narrow ravine carved by a thin, chattering stream. Hidden beneath a thick curtain of tangled ivy that brushed the water, it was a space barely large enough to lie down in, but it would do for now. She slumped beside the water, exhaling a heavy breath that held all her exhaustion and fear. Opening her storage ring with a thought, Su Min took stock of her meager resources. She had Bigu Dan, enough to sustain her for about two months without needing other food. As for after that...
She unrolled the Alchemy and Artifact Manual, her eyes scanning the densely packed characters and simple diagrams. It recorded the methods for refining first grade spiritual treasures and pills, and it included an illustrated guide to medicinal herbs, their shapes and habitats clearly drawn.
"There are hundreds of Bigu Dan recipes here, and they all have the same effect," she mused, a spark of hope igniting. "This mountain is rich in spirit herbs. If I can learn to refine them, I could stay here indefinitely." She could become a ghost in these woods, forgotten by the world.
Flipping through the scroll and its accompanying herb guide, Su Min quickly found pictures of the ingredients she would need. Spirit herbs were plants that absorbed spiritual energy from the world, gathering it in their roots and leaves. They were invisible to ordinary people, but they would be obvious, glowing like little beacons, to someone who had even barely stepped onto the path of cultivation.
If she could start refining her own pills, she could remain hidden in these mountains for a very long time. The more remote the location, the purer the spiritual energy would be, and the easier it would be to practice here, to grow strong in solitude.
The Changchun Gong was supposed to heal.
And maybe it would, eventually. But right now, Su Min's body was barely holding together, a collection of aches and traumas.
The Early Body Refining stage was supposed to allow one's physique to surpass that of an ordinary mortal, to harden the skin and strengthen the bones. But that was the theory. That was for someone who had not been chained in darkness and fed just enough to keep breathing, whose body had not been a canvas for cruelty.
Her real condition was far from that ideal.
Her limbs were stiff from weeks of captivity and disuse. Her muscles had wasted away to almost nothing. She moved on sheer willpower, not on cultivated strength. Her steps were uneven, though she tried desperately to keep them steady and silent. Her skin still bore the faint, silvery marks of too many rough hands. Her breath came sharp and shallow, as if her lungs still remembered the smoke from burning incense and the suffocating perfume of the brothel.
If she had not been granted this new life, this second chance, she doubted the original Su Min would have lived long enough to escape. Even so, she could sense a new potential awakening within her, like coals waiting for a breath of wind to catch fire. It was small, but it was there.
"Once I reach the middle or late stages of Body Refining, maybe I really could carve a bloody path through an army," she thought, a quiet, grim fire igniting behind her tired eyes.
That time had not come yet. But it would. She would make sure of it.
For now, she moved with extreme care, conserving every shred of her meager stamina. Her path wound deeper into the mountains, a choice made not from boldness but from pure, cold necessity. The deeper she went, the fewer patrols she would encounter. She did not have the strength to fight. Not yet.
All she could rely on now was her caution, her will, and the time she needed to heal and grow.
She had to lay low for now and let fate do what it would. A few days ago, she would have laughed at the idea of being a fugitive in a cultivation world. Now, she was living it, every painful step a testament to that new reality.
"If I had known it would be this tough," she muttered under her breath, a wry, humorless thought, "I would have picked a better damn build from the start." Something with more immediate power.
Still, something about her body felt different. In a good way. A fundamental way.
It was her Innate Divine Ability, and her Talent.
Not something she had learned from a scroll. Not something she had stolen. And definitely not something native to this world.
She had chosen them herself, back when this was all just a game on a screen, back when she was still a programmer of twenty two, alive in a world that made a kind of logical sense.
*Immortality—a talent that granted having infinite lifespan and eternal youth, halting aging at the peak of one's physical prime.
*Heavenly Dao Insight—an Innate Divine Ability that allowed one to comprehend the laws of the universe over time, no matter how slow the progress.
It was a slow build. It was weak in the beginning, almost useless in a fight, but it was meant to be terrifying in the end, a power built on a scale of centuries, not seconds.
And now, in this unfamiliar and brutal world, in a body that was unmistakably her own, just younger and thinner and not yet hardened by adulthood, that talent and that innate divine ability were still with her.
They were hers. Truly and absolutely. Her one unshakable advantage.
Even in this fragile body, even while she was still stumbling through the lowest stage of cultivation. The fact that she had managed to step into the early stage of body refining in a single night showed that she definitely had great potential, that the seeds of power were there, waiting for the right conditions to grow.
As Su Min vanished deep into the mountains, becoming one with the shadows and the trees, the general who had left the periphery earlier was returning at the head of a large, dusty army. He looked at the mighty troops preparing to enter the mountains, his expression one of extreme dissatisfaction and unease.
"It is just a fifteen or sixteen year old girl," he grumbled to his lieutenant, his voice low. "She has not done anything truly heinous. If the brothel could not keep her locked up, that is their own problem." It was beneath the dignity of the imperial army to be used for this.
He had seen Niu Ma's wounds, cuts as smooth as polished jade. It made him wonder if the girl had been rescued by an old, loyal ally of her father, a hidden expert. The madam was just making trouble for nothing. By now, the girl could be anywhere, or dead in a ravine. This felt like a massive, pointless waste of time and resources.
"REPORT!"
A shout rang out from the distance, sharp and urgent. Two constables came rushing back, their faces flushed and streaked with sweat from running.
"We found this in a ruined temple up the mountain," one said, holding out a scrap of fabric, a piece of the fine silk robe she had discarded. "It looks like a piece of clothing."
Before the Governor could even react, the madam snatched the cloth fragment from the constable's hand, her fingers closing around it like talons. She snarled, her composure cracking, "It is hers, no doubt about it. That little brat planned this all along. She even stashed a change of clothes in the mountains. She is still in there. And no one dares to shelter her now." The last of the Su was truly alone.
"Just a little girl!" the general exclaimed, unable to hold his tongue any longer. "Why all this fuss? Can your lord not pick another one?" There were plenty of pretty girls in the world.
It was not just the general. The Governor, too, was growing tired of the whole mess, the disruption to his city, the strain on his forces. The mountains were vast and wild. If the girl died out there, all of this effort would have been for nothing. From his point of view, she simply was not worth mobilizing an entire army and inviting scrutiny from his superiors.
But the madam snapped coldly, her eyes glinting, "That is no ordinary girl. The Master said her innate spiritual potential is a once in a hundred years event. With her, she could fully restore her strength and finally satisfy His Majesty's demands." The unspoken words hung in the air: failure was not an option.
The Governor fell silent, the weight of that statement pressing down on him.
Faced with her unrelenting pressure, he kept his further thoughts to himself. He owed his position here to the need to assist in the master's recovery. Who would have thought that things would spiral so completely out of control over one noble girl?
"This Minshan range," the Governor said, changing the subject and gesturing toward the imposing peaks, "Even during times of war, it remains largely untouched. Sending a few thousand soldiers in is almost useless. We will need more troops. I have already sent word to nearby regions. If anyone finds her, they are to capture her immediately." He was committing more and more to this hunt.
He glanced over at the nearby bushes where dark bloodstains remained, a grim patch on the earth. The bodies had long been cleared away. He had not forgotten the sight of those smooth, unnatural wounds, the work of a power he did not understand.
"Will these soldiers even be able to stop her?" he muttered, more to himself than anyone, a rare moment of doubt.
"I told you before," the madam said, her voice dripping with contempt for his fear. "She has exceptional natural talent. She is good material. If my master did not need to continue replenishing her blood and essence, she would have taken her in as a disciple. Under life threatening pressure, awakening some hidden power is normal. But without proper training, she could only unleash one instinctive attack. Otherwise, do you think those useless thugs would have survived?" She made it sound so simple, so predictable.
As she spoke, she cast a venomous look at the hooligans standing obediently to the side, shuffling their feet. These bastards, if they had not been so scared that they dared not to take action, they could have rushed over and captured the person while she was disoriented. It was all because of these cowardly losers that things were in such trouble now.
"Hmph." The Governor frowned, staring grimly at the endless, treacherous stretch of mountains that had swallowed his quarry.
"If we cannot find her," the madam said, her voice low and final, like a judge passing a sentence, "then when autumn comes, and the woods are dry, we will set the mountains ablaze. We will burn them. We will burn her out."
The Governor had no response to that grim, desperate suggestion. He simply stood in silence, watching the shadows lengthen across the treacherous slopes, wondering if they were hunting a girl or a monster, and if they would ever truly find her.