Chapter 141: Current Body - Han Renyi
The first order of business after winning a fight to the death? Cleanup. It's not the glamorous part they write about in cultivation novels, but it's arguably one of the most important. Leave evidence lying around, and suddenly you're dealing with revenge plots and angry sect elders rather than focusing on your cultivation.
I looked down at the three bodies sprawled in various positions around me. Their blood was already starting to pool on the stone, dark and accusatory. If I was going to do something about this mess, it needed to be now, before anyone stumbled across the scene.
Even in this seemingly run-down part of the city, three dead cultivators – sorry, Rouqin – wouldn't go unnoticed for long. Especially not when they worked for someone important enough to send assassins after the young master whose body I now inhabited.
"The ground here is mostly packed earth," I observed, kneeling to press my palm against the soil. Despite years of foot traffic and neglect, I could sense the dormant potential in it. Life always found a way, even in the most unlikely places. "That should make this easier."
Reaching out with my awareness, I contacted the scattered weeds and stubborn grass that had pushed through cracks in the stone pathway. They were hardy things, adapted to surviving with minimal resources in this qi-starved world. Or rouqi-starved, I supposed I should say. The terminology here would take some getting used to.
The plants responded sluggishly to my call, nothing like the eager symphony of growth I was used to commanding. But they responded nonetheless, roots beginning to shift and expand beneath the surface.
"Interesting," Azure commented. "The local flora seems to retain some basic compatibility with your techniques, despite the difference in energy systems."
I nodded, continuing to direct the underground network of roots. "It's like... speaking the same language but with a heavy accent. They understand what I want, but the execution is slower, less precise."
Still, slow progress was better than no progress. I guided the roots to wrap around each corpse, weaving them into natural cocoons that would help mask any residual spiritual traces, then I began sinking them deeper into the earth.