When I woke up, the smell of blood filled my throat.
The stone wall in front of me was wet, and moss crawled along the cracks. I was lying on the altar in the cave, with the three bloody wounds on my back still oozing blood. The medicinal smell is very strong, it feels like the hemostatic grass has been crushed and applied on, and the rag strips are wrapped around the body, causing pain in the ribs.
"Are you awake?"
An old voice came from above. I raised my neck with difficulty and saw Uncle Feng Po sitting at the entrance of the cave, twisting a string of black beads in her hand. She didn't look at me, her eyes were fixed on the gray sky outside the mountain.
"I..."
"You have a hard life." Feng Po interrupted me, her tone as calm as if she was talking about today's weather, "Those thirty-seven lashes that gave you would have killed someone else long ago. Fortunately for you, you can open your eyes in three days."
I pushed myself to get up, and the pain from the wound on my back almost made me scream. But I gritted my teeth and held on, straightened my back, and knelt in front of the altar with my back to her.
"Uncle Master, I want to go down the mountain."
Feng Po's hand twisting the beads paused.
"You grew up in a sect, what is the third rule of the sect?"
"Those who go down the mountain without authorization will be expelled from the school, their cultivation will be discarded, and they will never be used again."
"Then you still want to do it?"
I turned around and stared into her eyes: "Master and the others are gone, and only you and me are left in our sect. I want to find out who destroyed our sect. I can't hide in the mountains and be a tortoise all my life."
Feng Po was silent for a long time. After a long time, the daylight at the entrance of the cave changed from white to dim, and then she slowly stood up and walked to me. She took out a jade pendant from her arms. The jade pendant was completely dark green, with strands of black mist swimming inside. She put the jade pendant into my palm.
