"If you kill him, you can't bring back your brother. What if you let him go? I am sure, that he will be punished more than enough and you will not kill him and become someone like him." Xia dropped her knife and started running away. Mei Lin picked up the knife and put it into storage space.

  She bends herself down to the bandit, so Xia will not hear, what she is saying. "You helped me greatly. You should be proud of yourself. You helped Xia to find someone to bme for the death of her brother and helped her escape this hell of self-pity. I should have paid you for your favor to us, but I don't think you will need spirit stones anymore."

  "What? But I didn't kill anyone. I was forced to go with them. I-I never-never."

  Mei Lin uncovered her veil so that she could see him without blood before her eyes. "Well, it doesn't matter anymore. Anyway, thank you for the help, Xui Kao. Enjoy the stay here."

  Mei Lin stood up and started chasing Xia, running as fast as possible for the first time she saw her. She ran in the right direction, so Mei Lin didn't run and only walked and followed her. Bandit started to scream at Mei Lin who was happy that she managed to close this incident and that no one except Xia, Xu Jie, and the caravan leader knew about her blood cultivation. Despite that, she was now completely free and ready to

  *****

  Mei Lin found Xia about half a kilometer away from the bandit. She was lying in the snow, crying. Mei Lin let her be and started to push away the snow from around her to prepare the tent for the night.

  Clearing the snow and building a wall around Xia was hard for Mei Lin and took quite a long time. It took over an hour until she was done with the wall. Mei Lin then set up the tent on top of it. It was a slow process, and she wasn't very skilled at it. It took as long as building the wall, but she eventually managed it. The tent looked quite good, so Mei Lin stopped.

  After finishing the setup, Mei Lin put out a mattress and her cultivation robe. Once Mei Lin had set the fire, she started preparing tea. It took Xia another hour before she was willing to lie on the mat. She was completely wet and frozen. When she saw Mei Lin without her bamboo hat for the second time, Xia saw an extremely beautiful girl with long white hair and snow-white skin. Mei Lin looked at Xia, and Xia immediately threw up.

  As soon as Xia saw Mei Lin, she imagined the gruesome deaths of her friends and the bandits. Xia also smelled the blood on Mei Lin, which was extremely disgusting. "You can take my robe and get rid of those clothes of yours. They look shabby and quite destroyed. You must be cold in them," Mei Lin said.

  Xia didn't say anything and put on Mei Lin's clothes. Mei Lin noticed that Xia's body was covered in bruises and she was not in a condition to stay outside in the snow for too long. After calming herself down, Xia sat next to Mei Lin. Xia was trembling, so Mei Lin helped her get closer to the fire.

  Xia looked simir to Mei Lin, and both of them looked like two dolls in red cultivation robes, sitting inside the tent in the middle of nowhere, watching the fire slowly burning. Xia stopped crying after a while and only stared into the fire. Mei Lin felt very peaceful, as the hectic hunt for the blood flowers had finally ended. Mei Lin was completely exhausted from everything that had happened. Her wounds on her neck had reopened, and despite not bleeding, her exposed flesh was extremely sensitive, and her robe wasn't very helpful.

  Mei Lin tried not to move much due to the pain and took out two spirit fruits, giving one to Xia. Xia started eating and soon stopped crying. "What will we do after we reach Peng City?" Xia asked.

  "First, we will find a merchant caravan and my master. Then we can stay with my master; she could help you. Maybe she can even help you start cultivating. You probably have an affinity for the wood path since you sensed something was wrong with the red flower, even if you didn't know what kind of flower it was."

  "And then we can find my parents. They were with the bandits but with a different group. They were recruited to help the bandits in exchange for letting us stay in our Flower Vilge. But then the bandits came again and forced us to help them."

  Mei Lin didn't know what to say, as Xia's parents were probably dead or would be soon. After a bit of silence, Mei Lin tried to break the tension and talk to Xia.

  "When we enter Peng City, we can buy whatever you want. You can become a cultivator if you want. Or do you know how to read?" Xia shook her head.

  "No? Ah, that will be a problem, but someone will surely help you with that. Master helped me and I suddenly knew how to read in no time. I think she could do the same for you as well." Mei Lin started talking about what she wanted to buy and eat and time started passing much more quickly. As Mei Lin continued, Xia quickly fell asleep and Mei Lin was once again the only one in the deep winter alone. After a bit more spacing out in the fme, Mei Lin remembered about Xia and quickly covered her with a bnket. After making sure that she was asleep, she carefully pulled out the blood flower and pced it right next to the fire, so it would not get frozen and she could see it better.

  She examined it to see if anything had changed since pcing it in the pot. The blood flower looked the same, so Mei Lin decided to give it a little bit of blood and observe what would happen. As she cut her hand and started dripping her blood on the petals of the flower, The blood flower absorbed the blood voraciously, its color becoming even more vibrant. Mei Lin was fascinated by the flower and decided she would feed it as much as possible in the future.

  *****

  Early next morning. Somewhere on the road into the Peng City.

  Both of them woke up under the frozen bnket. Xia trembled from the cold, and Mei Lin felt sore and irritated as Xia's movements harshly rubbed against Mei Lin's wounds on her neck and pulled her robe which ripped apart her now closed wounds quickly worsening them. Mei Lin couldn't heal properly in these conditions, so she must have suffered another painful morning solely focusing on.

  Mei Lin moved her hand from outside the bnket and conjured new wood and kindling to set up a fire next to her. "Xia, start the fire. I'm not up to doing much. I need to rest for a while longer."

  Mei Lin didn't attempt to get up, so Xia gathered the wood and prepared it in the firepit where the fire had been the previous night. Xia was much faster than Mei Lin, and soon the fire was burning brightly again. Xia was pleased that she could do something for them and crawled back under the bnket. Mei Lin remained displeased with Xia's rough handling of the still half-frozen bnket, but after a while, the tent grew warmer, and Xia began to feel hungry, thanks to the none caloric spirit fruit from yesterday.

  "Mei Lin, do you have more food with you? I'm hungry."