My eyes fluttered open, and I exhaled, my breath heavy with confusion. I found myself in an utterly unfamiliar room.

It was an old-style building, and the decoration was outdated, even for this world. The doors were not regular doors but sliding doors, and everything seemed to have been built without a nail in sight.

Where the hell was this?

The last thing I remembered was the doctors coming to help me after Song Song killed her cousin. I wasn't sure how smart that was on her part; everyone already saw her as an unstable monster with a shaky support base. Her killing of her own cousin could be the final nail in the coffin.

Poor guy died just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. But Song Song was like a natural disaster regarding these things—an unstable factor in any logical plan, which made her hard to predict.

I didn't bother thinking about the guy who died too much after that. To others, Song Song's actions might have seemed cruel and come out of nowhere, but she saved my life with that. While it wasn't something I necessarily liked or condoned, it kept me alive and I appreciated her willingness to go to such lengths for me.

The quietness of the whole place was a bit eerie, but I enjoyed it since I hadn't had the time to rest well in a while. Also, the place was relatively warm.

I shifted in the futon and took off the covers, noticing that I was just wearing shorts, which gave me a perfect view of all the new scars riddling my body. The one on my chest from the sword piercing through and the one on my abdomen from the light stab were the most noticeable among the endless cuts.

The most eye-catching scar was the one just above my left elbow. Calling it a scar might be a bit hasty since there were still stitches and some redness around the newly formed scar. It was the only wound that still seemed a bit raw.

Overall, though, the healers had done an excellent job. Even without modern medicine and surgeons, their healing techniques and artifacts were pretty effective, or whatever they used to achieve these results.

Judging by my thirst and hunger, it shouldn't have been more than two or three days since I was treated. But perhaps cultivators had a way to feed and hydrate me remotely while I was unconscious, so this assumption could be incorrect.

As I rose to my feet, a wave of soreness washed over my body, a stark reminder of the recent events. I flexed the fingers of my reattached arm, a strange sensation considering it had been severed not long ago. Yet, there was no pain, no discomfort. The reattachment had been done with precision, and I seemed to have lost none of my power.

Walking toward one of the sliding doors, I opened it. Behind the door were a wooden porch and a large backyard surrounded by walls in the distance.

My eyes stung as the sunlight flashed on my pupils. But once I got used to the light, I was surprised by the green grass in the large yard and the bushes, flowers, and other plants that made it clear this place no longer looked like winter. There was even an unfrozen large pond next to a thick green tree.

My heart skipped a beat, and I hurriedly looked around, wondering how long I had actually been unconscious. But I quickly calmed down when I noticed snow atop several distant towers outside this compound.

I breathed a sigh of relief; for a second, I thought I might have been asleep for months—or, in the worst-case scenario, even years.

But now that I knew the truth, I enjoyed the warm sun and the greenery. However, it seemed like I was not as alone as I thought because in the shadow of the tree next to the pond was a man with long green hair and a dark green glint in his eyes. He looked young, at most in his mid-twenties appearance-wise.

A small fishing pole was rooted in the ground next to him as he played with some paper.

Despite the strangeness of the whole situation, what stood out about him was that he had no Qi. I couldn't even sense him. Sure, he had none of the intimidating presence or overwhelming Qi a powerful cultivator had, but this still put me on edge. Also, he was suspicious as hell.

The green-haired guy finished playing with his paper and made a paper airplane. After that, he finally turned toward me, his cold face showing no emotion as he threw the paper plane at me.

However, his paper plane-making skills were lackluster, as the plane just barely did a circle and flopped a couple of feet away from him.

"My paper darts are not getting any better," the man sighed as his gaze turned toward the fallen paper.

Whatever he was playing at, I wanted no part in it. "Where am I?"

The man's gaze returned to me, his cold, emotionless eyes feeling like they were seeing straight through me.

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"This is the house I used to live in when I was young," the man finally said.

"Oh? And where is that exactly?" I inquired.

"It is on the northern edge of the Song Clan compound in the Blazing Sun Sect," he clarified, his raspy and robotic voice like nails on a chalkboard.

I nodded and was about to turn around but stopped as I realized something.

As I instinctively extended my senses to try to feel where I was, everything beyond these walls was blurry. I couldn't sense anything.

Perhaps I wasn't as free as I initially thought.

To learn more about the situation, I looked down at the wooden porch and then turned toward the green-haired man still looking at me. I wanted to ask him where Song Song was, but I decided against it for now. I had a feeling things were not as simple as they seemed.

"Who are you?" I asked the man.

"My name is Song San. I'm just another servant," the man shrugged.

I didn't believe that but decided not to call the man out. He likely knew I didn't believe him either, but we were both maintaining the facade of rationalism.

A servant wouldn't call themselves a servant with that much confidence. His demeanor was more like that of wealthy people who claimed to be poor; this was not the attitude of a humble servant.

Since the man clearly didn't want to discuss his identity further, I didn't press further. But that didn't mean I was polite enough to stop asking questions altogether.

"Where is Song Song?"

After what had happened, I doubted she would have left my side so nonchalantly. While Song Song might not be the type to stand by someone's bedside and cry, she knew she had put a giant target on my head with the stunt she pulled.

"She is being punished for killing one of her family members without provocation," the green-haired man stated, looking at the sky without a care in the world.

I narrowed my eyes at him and asked, "How long will she be punished for this?"

The guy shrugged. "While the Song Clan has some leeway regarding certain rules since we are integral to the Blazing Sun Sect and have many of our members in high positions..."

His gaze sharpened, and he continued with a strange intensity in his words, "But there is one rule every Song Clan member must follow: never kill a fellow family member. This time, Song Song did it so blatantly in the healer's place that there is no wiggle room to fabricate some story about how the victim was a traitor or something like that."

While Song San spoke a lot, he actually said very little. Despite his verbosity, I learned little about the situation, nothing I couldn't have deduced through logical assumptions. He revealed nothing more than the bare essentials.

"I see," I said, then stood up and stretched a bit. "I'm going to train a bit. I hope it's no bother to you."

"Go right ahead," the man said as he leaned against the tree and checked his fishing rod.

I stepped down from the porch, and my feet touched the grass. I took a deep breath and felt the comfortably cool air entering my lungs. But I zoned out all such sensations, and a buzzing sound entered my ears as I recalled the day my arm had been cut off.

I quite liked that string technique.

Wait, I just remembered that Speedy was left behind and alone in Whitewall Town! Holy shit! He was probably super sad now and crying.

Even though I wasn't too worried since the governor and clan leaders knew Speedy was my companion... Well, even if they wanted to harm him, it's not like any of them would even be able to hurt Speedy. But being so long away from me could cause emotional scars that would never heal!

Of course, I was being dramatic here. Speedy would probably sleep until I returned, and we would pick up from where we left off. He would sleep close by while I trained.

To distract myself from such thoughts, I decided to try some new ideas I had come up with during the fight against Song Sia. However, there was another reason I was willing to train in front of a stranger: I was too excited to wait until this whole thing blew over to try these new ideas.

I extended my hands forward, and thin strings of Qi formed from the tips of each finger. But as soon as they extended farther than three feet, they became floppy and hard to control.

However, I could fix this by no longer trying to control the strings and just shooting thin strings in a direction. Then, I attached the strings to some of the bushes and the grass around me.

While the technique was quite sharp, my strings were made of Qi and easy to sense. Also, the technique still had the same weakness it did when Song Sia used it: none of my allies would be able to help me since they would be cut indiscriminately. That was why Song Sia's friends couldn't gang up on me after she began using the strings; they would have all gotten caught in it together.

It wasn't that much of a useful technique if the opponent could put their guard up, as the cuts would be too shallow. The only reason it had been so lethal was because it had caught me off guard.

However, creating something to use in battle wasn't the main reason for using this technique. Instead, I glanced at the green-haired man, trying to get a read on him and what he thought about this.

It was hard to tell his thoughts, but he seemed calm and nonchalant. At least it didn't seem like he had any hateful intent. So, the assumption that this guy was someone from Song Sia's family and that I had been sent there to appease them was implausible. More likely, I was sent to the family of the guy Song Song had killed in the hospital.

I had no illusions that I was important enough to the Song Clan or the Sect itself to avoid being sent as a sacrifice to stop someone from growing angry.

"Are you hungry?" Song San suddenly asked out of nowhere, breaking me out of my thoughts and whatever assumptions I had.

Perhaps I was just acting on suspicion and assuming things needlessly.

"I could go for a good meal," I shrugged.

There wasn't much else I could do for now, and I had a feeling that my being here wasn't just to wait for me to heal.

I stopped my training, and the strings dissipated into nothingness.

"Do you want anything specific?" he offered. "Don't be shy. If any dish comes to mind, the chef here can make it. This guy is the same chef that cooked for Song Song, and she... was a very picky eater."

He was saying that but who knew if that was true?

I was already on full alert. After all, I hadn't seen Song Song, and he just mentioned that the chef who would cook my meal was the same one who had cooked for her. It was almost like he was trying to create a sense of familiarity for me that wasn't there.

It felt like I was being manipulated.

Oh well, I would let myself be manipulated to see what these guys wanted me to think or do.

One thing I knew for sure was that these guys couldn't give Song Song capital punishment and execute her. So it was only a matter of time before she came here and got me out of whatever this was.