Ancestral Temple Grounds

It was a horrible choice, really. But she wouldn't be the one to warn them, actually, now that she thought about it, it was better they distract him, then she wouldn't have to worry about encountering him somehow.

So after waiting a few more seconds for them to be far away enough, Lei Mingxing started crawling again, her pace still excruciatingly slow.

But finally! After hours and hours, while the sun was already starting to set, she reached the Ancestral Temple grounds! Or at least the wall surrounding it. And when she raised her head slightly to better hear whether there were any guards around, Lei Mingxing realized that she was alone.

Was her luck finally improving again? She had actually reached the Ancestral Temple just in time for the guard change!

Hastily jumping out of her bushes, Lei Minxging immediately began to run towards the wall and just like she had done earlier that day, used her inertia to hurriedly pull herself over the edge, ignoring the pain from agitating her already raw skin and trembling arms even further. Laying on top she just let herself slip over to the other side, not caring how she would land, only instinctually curling her body slightly to protect her stomach.

The instant she hit the ground, a piercing pain shot through her right arm, causing her to involuntarily lift her hand, lose her balance and fall heavily on her side, her temple landing directly on an exposed root.

For a brief moment, Lei Mingxing lay unmoving, stars dancing before her eyes, tasting iron after having bitten her tongue because of the sudden impact. However, it didn't take long for her to push through the dizziness and groggily lift her head.

The world was spinning around her as she tried to examine her pulsing right palm. She was only able to make out what had happened vaguely, the half-dark and softly glowing leaves, strewn about that were casting more shadows than illuminating them, made it even harder for her spinning vision to focus. Still, she continued to concentrate, waiting impatiently, her left hand periodically squeezing her right wrist so she wouldn't get distracted.

It took an unusually long time for her vision to recover. At least two minutes of motionlessly lying on the ground while staring intently. This was an almost outrageous amount of time compared to when she was in Dark Spirit Town, but after losing her cultivation and starving herself for the past week, unwilling to let her guard down and eat in front of Xie Beilian and his father, Lei Mingxing's unnaturally fast self-healing ability had returned to how it was before she started cultivating and met Chang Liuyun. But even considering that, her recovery felt slower than usual.

When her eyes at last regained their focus, it took barely a glance for her to assess the situation and ruthlessly grab the branch that had penetrated her palm. Resolutely, pulling it out with one powerful and frustrated yank. Pain shot through her entire arm, but Lei Mingxing only grit her teeth. Her yank, which had been more than devoid of any gentleness, hadn't only ripped out the branch, but also the flesh already starting to stick to it in an attempt to heal. Still, Lei Mingxing barely spared her mangled and bleeding palm a glance before shifting her gaze to the perpetrator in her left fist.

The bright red blood on the branch's silvery transparent, stone-hard exterior didn't impede its ability to glow in the slightest, instead, it only began to shine ever so brighter as the branch rapidly absorbed the blood, not wasting a single drop in the process. Lei Mingxing could even feel it greedily nipping at the skin of her uninjured hand.

An involuntary shiver went down her spine and she immediately let go of the branch. The moment it left her grip, Lei Mingxing brought her hand close to her face, unfolding her fingers to examine her skin. Her palm was smeared with dark blood that looked more like wet mud in the soft glow of the moon and leaves around her. The only exceptions were a few clean lines that stood in stark contrast with the rest of her dirt-caked and blood-stained skin.

She raised her other hand, ignoring the still bleeding and pulsing injury to carefully stroke the skin around the lines. But there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Deep in thought, she slowly moved her gaze from her palm to the branch, before ultimately looking up at the glowing tree with its mournfully hanging branches stretching out from behind the imposing marble temple that was starting to get buried in the sheer waterfall of cascading leaves, a strong feeling that she had just stumbled over a secret she shouldn't have, rose inside her heart. Despite her not being entirely sure, what exactly that secret was, it made her jump up from the ground regardless, ready to turn right around and climb back over the wall, but just before she could take her first step, Lei Mingxing forced herself to stop. Pushing down her panicked thoughts and banning them to the back of her mind as she tried to rationalize her situation.

Why was she freaking out so much, just because the branch had absorbed her blood? She had experienced much worse. If she thought back to the moment of her death, on that hill of bodies, where had her panic been then? She should focus on escaping now, her freedom was so close! Even if it meant scaling a tree that for the first time in both her lifetimes left an echo of fear in her heart by simply looking at it.

Still, she had no other choice, and after taking one more deep breath, Lei Mingxing lowered her body. She cautiously looked over the row of decorative bushes she was hiding behind and with no one in sight, Lei Mingxing quietly but swiftly made her way in the direction of the temple, as it was the only way to reach the base of the willow. Still, she avoided looking up as much as she could right until the moment the roof of the temple blocked her vision. Unfortunately, even with the tree hidden from view, knowing its presence alone was enough for her to continue feeling unnerved.

Regardless, now that she was inside the Ancestral Temple, she couldn't stay in the middle of the main hallway, in plain sight for anyone even glancing inside, so she quickly ducked behind the rows of marble memorial tablets of her honored ancestors. Some names she still recognized, like her great aunt who died contracting a rare disease that gradually rotted away your insides until every single pore oozed with your liquified flesh and organs, not even your bones would be spared, or her uncle that had fled into the Bottomless Depths Mountains after his failed coup etat and was soon brutally butchered by a particularly vicious sect of evil cultivators, drained of his blood and ripped to shreds, some limbs missing never to be found. She also caught a glimpse of her great-grandmother's tablet, who had hung herself after her husband's sudden death, out of shame of never having granted him an heir even after giving birth to five girls.

All of them had died young, barely reaching the age of 30. And they were not the only ones, most Lei Family Members lived sweet but brief lives, dying of unfortunate events and never of natural causes, in their extensive family history only a handful of relatives survived to the age of 60, still horribly short lives compared to the many cultivators aged between 150-250.

No wonder the members of the Lei Family were often referred to as silk moths or mayflies, although the latter was considered more of an insult.

Small Theater:

Lei Mingxing: Do I think that the gruesome ways most of my ancestors have died are a bad omen? Of course not! I will be the difference!

Author: But your entire family including you have died before?

Lei Mingxing:...

Lei Mingxing: Do you want to tell me something?