Chapter 3 - Beast Blood

Chapter 3 — Beast Blood

Following her collapse, the memories she hadn’t yet digested once again bombarded her.

She was foreign to this world and dynasty.

Shenzhou Continent; a land where martial arts was revered.

The continent was divided up into three major powers: Zhou Dynasty, Long Xu Kingdom, and the Kingdom of Ann. The three countries were spread in a triangular layout with Beast Forest occupying the middle.1 Beast Forest was, naturally, infested with magical beasts, to the point where even a martial practitioner would find it a dangerous place.

It appeared that she, Yun Wu, was the youngest daughter of a concubine from Zhou Dynasty’s General Manor, known to the population as the ‘sickly good-for-nothing Ninth Miss.’

In Shenzhou Continent, every child would take an innate test on the first full moon subsequent to their birth. Yun Wu’s result had been a zero; a congenital good-for-nothing.

Moreover, her body was weaker than the average person’s. This was especially true when she was one year old, during the time her birth mother wordlessly vanished, leaving the young Yun Wu to be abandoned in a hut within the manor’s back mountain and forced to fend for herself.

Even under the mistreatment of the other concubines, her sisters, and the servants, she had managed to stay alive for 15 years.

Yun Wu might not know why she acquired all of the memories dating back to the original body owner’s birth, but she did make sure to remember every single instance of humiliation the former Yun Wu had ever suffered.

Right.

Since she, Wu Feng, became Yun Wu, she would help the former Yun Wu pay back each and every episode of injustice.

…..

Three days later.

Yun Wu gulped down the last mouthful of beast blood before rising from the body of a red-striped tiger. The inside of her mouth was stained with the nauseating taste of blood, but the warmth that began to permeate her body evoked from her a bloodthirsty smirk.

Magical beast blood, as it turned out, actually had great nourishing effects. After spending the past three days in the forest, she had encountered a vast variety of magical beasts. She was already very calm when faced with the oddly colored animals because this life gave her no time to be astonished or to slowly adapt.

For three days, she killed off every magical beast that neared the bottom of the cliff, and she would then drink their blood. Her battered body was healing little by little, albeit very slowly. As for that elderly voice, it came from the necklace she had been wearing since birth.

The necklace turned out to be a sacred relic left behind by the ‘Sorcerous Clan,’ and she had awakened the spirit inside of the necklace. However, the spirit told her that because her current body was technically dead, there was no way for him to establish a spiritual contract with her.

He told her about drinking magical beast blood and digesting Sage Grass to prevent her body from decomposing, and afterward, the necklace never moved again.

Beast blood.

She drank three days of beast blood, and her slit tendons had then mysteriously grown back.

Sage Grass.

As the “godly doctor” of a 21st-century assassin’s organization, although she hadn’t tasted every single herb on the planet, she was nonetheless very well-versed in pharmacology and herbal medicine.

Alas, she’d searched the nearby vicinity for days without producing any results. That meant she would have to browse deeper into the forest.

…..

It was a full moon. On this night, the forest’s beasts seemed restless and eager to stir trouble.

Yun Wu concealed her breathing. As she lurked through the forest, her speed stayed consistent until a rank two Striped Leopard blocked her way. Her silhouette flashed. Once her back was pressed up against a large tree, she released a handmade feldspar weapon smeared with poisonous herb extract.

Coated with moonlight, the feldspar flew in the direction of the resting leopard and sunk into its head. Sneak attacks were an assassin’s specialty.

The leopard’s roar cut through the forest sky, finally shattering the forest’s eerie silence before swiping at its head, dislodging the feldspar and causing blood to gush out.

By then, Yun Wu’s petite body had already stealthily slipped away. Underneath the cover of the night, she noiselessly eluded the areas ridden by beasts and sped straight into the depths of the forest. Deep inside the forest was a remote lake. Its surface sparkled and shone with the reflection of a round moon—beautiful, and uncanny.

An assortment of plants encircled the lake. Seeing all the plants, Yun Wu’s pursed lips slowly curved into a predatory smile. She picked out a few high-quality medical herbs to chew on and simultaneously gathered some herbs that would reduce inflammation and help with suppuration2.

Beast blood could nourish and repair one’s meridians, but it did nothing for external wounds. The gashes on her mangled body were starting to suppurate and become inflamed, giving off the foul smell of festering flesh.

Yun Wu took off her tattered, barely-adequate clothes and stepped bare into the deep lake. When the ice-cold lake water came into contact with her wounds, it brought her a succession of sharp, spasmodic pain, but she showed no hesitation.

With her pale hands, she washed away the crushed rock fragments that were stuck in her open flesh and patiently cleared away the decayed flesh on her body.

Cold sweat slid down her forehead, but she didn’t utter a sound, and nor did her eyebrows furrow. Only her breathing became heavier. The lake water around her was eventually dyed blood-red. When Yun Wu got out of the water, the wounds on her body were dripping with fresh blood, yet she turned a blind eye, sat down by the lakeside, and took the readied anti-inflammatory herbs into her mouth.

She chewed on them and applied the saliva-covered herbs onto her wounds.