"Wu Xing Zhang!"
The last book, also a supreme Daoist art, greatly surprised Wan Yunting. He looked at the corpse on the stone bed, unable to imagine how someone from the same sect as his master ended up in this cave behind the Wangjia Store Village in Anhui.
"Could this senior have been in seclusion here?"
Wan Yunting raised an eyebrow, pondering why this senior, likely a prominent figure in his time, died here.
Wan Yunting examined the corpse closely. There were no external injuries; it appeared to be a natural passing into ascension.
"Yunting, who was he to your master?"
Fang Yanxi, sitting by the campfire behind him, was toasting her trousers and asked, turning her head towards Wan Yunting who stood by the stone bed.
"Well, he wasn't related to my master."
Wan Yunting didn't dare to turn around, engrossed in reading the Wu Xing Zhang manual. "He was from the same sect as my master, likely someone from centuries ago."
"Achoo..."
Fang Yanxi sneezed, her delicate face pale and sweating. Her cold had clearly worsened.
"Do you have a fever?" Wan Yunting asked with concern.
Fang Yanxi placed the back of her hand on her forehead, forcing a smile. "It's nothing, just a slight fever..."
Wan Yunting placed the three books into a wooden box and asked, "Are your clothes dry yet?"
"Not yet..."
Fang Yanxi held her pants near the fire to dry.
This wouldn't do. Wan Yunting quickly took out his phone from his pocket, but it wouldn't turn on, having gotten wet.
"Yunting, you can turn around now."
Fang Yanxi, who had already put on her top, said in a voice as faint as a mosquito.
"It's fine. You dry your clothes first. I'll go out and see if Boss Wang is on the cliff." Wan Yunting naturally wouldn't turn around. He planned to go outside and check; they couldn't be stuck here.
"But I'm scared..."
Seeing the man about to leave, Fang Yanxi grew anxious. She was truly afraid and didn't want to be left alone with the corpse. It was too eerie.
"Then I'll go out later..."
"I'll go with you..."
Fang Yanxi stood up and quickly put on her still damp trousers. "I've put my clothes on. You can turn around now."
Hearing this, Wan Yunting turned his head. Seeing that she had indeed put on her clothes, he turned back and immediately touched her forehead. "You're burning up."
"It's fine. I can still manage."
Fang Yanxi's face was pale, looking very weak. This was all due to the fever from being drenched in the rain. Now her body was tired and limp.
"Let's go out and take a look first. If it's really bad, we can stay here for a while longer, and I'll figure out a way to get out."
"Okay..."
So, Wan Yunting supported the weak Fang Yanxi and they went outside to the cliff. The heavy rain had turned into a drizzle. Wan Yunting told Fang Yanxi not to come out and get wet. He walked to the protruding rock at the cave entrance, turned back, and looked up the cliff in the rain.
As the rain had subsided, a white mist enveloped the mountain. Coupled with their position halfway down the cliff, about seventy to eighty meters from the top, Wan Yunting couldn't see clearly as he looked up.
"Boss Wang..."
Wan Yunting shouted upwards with all his might.
"Yunting, is there anyone up there?"
Fang Yanxi, leaning against the cave wall, asked weakly.
Wan Yunting, who had already shouted several times without a response, shook his head. Seeing Fang Yanxi's poor condition, he went to support her. "It's okay, let's go back inside to rest. Boss Wang will definitely send people to rescue us. If all else fails, I'll find a way to climb up after the rain stops."
Wan Yunting had observed earlier that although the cliff was steep, it was climbable. However, the rain now made the cliff slippery, increasing the danger. Thus, he could only wait for the rain to stop.
"Okay..."
Fang Yanxi felt no fear. As long as she was with the man, she felt at peace.
"Here, sit..."
The two returned to the cave. Wan Yunting helped the tired and weak Fang Yanxi sit on a mat by the campfire. He added more firewood, then looked at Fang Yanxi, who was groggy. "Do you want to sleep?"
"Mmm..."
Fang Yanxi nodded weakly. Instantly, she slumped down powerlessly. Startled, Wan Yunting quickly caught her, holding her against his chest. "Yanxi, Yanxi, are you alright?"
"Yunting... let me sleep for a while. My head hurts..."
Drowsy Fang Yanxi fell asleep against Wan Yunting's chest. He felt that her top and trousers were still not dry, and her forehead was burning hot, making Wan Yunting very worried. Fortunately, he had silver needles tucked into his clothes. So, while holding Fang Yanxi against his chest, he drew a silver needle from his sleeve with his left hand, sterilized it with his qi, and then inserted it into Fang Yanxi's Yintang and Shen Ting acupoints.
Sensing something, Fang Yanxi furrowed her brows. In her daze, she seemed to feel the warmth of the man's chest. She tightly held Wan Yunting's waist with her left hand and rubbed his firm chest with her right.
Being touched like this by the woman made Wan Yunting slightly awkward, especially from his angle where he could clearly see the cleavage revealed by her collar.
"Yanxi, don't move..."
Unable to bear it, Wan Yunting quickly removed her small hand from his chest, pinched her Neiguan acupoint, and channeled his internal qi from his dantian into her, complementing the acupuncture treatment to help expel the cold evil qi from her body.
Thus, Wan Yunting held the sleepy Fang Yanxi, and they sat by the campfire. Time passed by, and it was already dark outside.
"Are you sure they fell from here?"
At this moment, on the cliff, Wang Meng, along with a group of villagers and the 119 rescue team, shone their lights down the dark, mist-shrouded cliff face, seeing nothing below. "How deep is it?"
"I've been down there before. It's over two hundred meters deep," Wang Meng said nervously.
After all, Wan Yunting and Fang Yanxi had met with misfortune. While it wasn't entirely his fault, Wang Meng felt guilty.
If his mother hadn't suddenly fallen ill, he wouldn't have rushed down the mountain, leaving Fang Yanxi with his nephew to escort her down. As a result, his nephew was injured in a landslide, Fang Yanxi was trapped up there, and Wan Yunting went up the mountain to rescue her. Now, seeing the cliff break and slide, everyone believed Wan Yunting and Fang Yanxi had definitely fallen off.
"After falling from this height, they're probably already..." a villager remarked.
Others sighed. After all, such an accident would affect the future of their Wangjia Store Village.
"Captain, the mountain is unstable now, and it's nighttime. It would be very dangerous for us to go down now," a rescue team member said to the captain.
"Yes, if people really fell from here, they're essentially dead," another team member said, believing that the people who fell were certainly dead.
Therefore, their intention was to wait until morning to search for the bodies. There was no need to descend in the dark with the risk of instability.
"I'll report the situation first."
The captain found it difficult to make a decision and first reported the situation to the bureau. Ultimately, however, he decided to wait until morning to descend and search for the bodies of Wan Yunting and Fang Yanxi.
Therefore, at this moment, in the cliffside cave, Wan Yunting held Fang Yanxi in his arms, carefully tending to her, completely unaware that up on the cliff, seeing that the rescue team would descend tomorrow, Wang Meng and the villagers could only sigh and head back down the mountain.