Chapter 2: Seeking Immortality and The White-Clothed Wanderer
Once she regained her strength, Yuan Zhao struggled to get up from the ground and turned to look at the unconscious old wolf beside her.
After a moment of thought, she drew the dagger at her waist, intending to finish off the creature that had wanted to eat her.
She slowly bent down, grabbed the fur on the wolf’s neck with one hand, and raised the dagger with the other, ready to strike.
But just as she was about to stab, she felt the wolf’s body was still warm through its messy fur, and her hand paused.
That tiny bit of warmth—in this cold, dark night—was the only trace of heat she could feel. For a moment, Yuan Zhao hesitated about whether or not to kill the old wolf.
After a brief silence, she decided to spare it, at least for now. What she needed most right now was warmth, and the wolf’s body provided just that.
She tore off the headscarf with a special pattern she wore, and used it to bind the wolf’s mouth shut. Then, she cut two strips of fabric from her clothing and tied up the wolf’s four limbs.
This way, it couldn’t hurt her anymore.
After finishing, she dragged the old wolf to a withered tree and hugged it tightly. The moment she embraced the wolf, Yuan Zhao felt a wave of warmth that pierced through to her soul.
Exhausted and weak, she drifted off into a hazy sleep.
***
By early the next morning, the old wolf woke up first.
Realizing that it was being tightly held by a human girl, it looked terrified and tried to scream. But with its mouth bound, only a low whimper came out.
It struggled hard to escape the girl’s grip, but her arms held it tightly. Aged and weakened, with limbs bound, it could do nothing.
Its thrashing woke Yuan Zhao. She slowly opened her eyes. After a night’s rest, her complexion had improved slightly.
“I’m still alive?”
She murmured, seeing the red sun rising in the sky. A hint of joy and hope flickered in her heart.
She had nearly thought she would die last night.
The bitter cold of the night had passed, replaced by the warm morning sun.
She looked at the terrified old wolf and silently released her arms. But as she tried to get up, sharp pain flared from her back.
Her wounds seemed to have worsened. Now, her biggest fear wasn’t freezing or dying of thirst, but that her injuries would kill her before anything else.
Alone in the desert, she had no means to heal herself.
Struggling to sit up, she ate a bit of dry food, drank a sip of water, and tried to recover some strength before deciding to continue on. Wandering blindly was her only option.
Her gaze fell on the old wolf still tightly bound on the ground. Sensing her stare, the wolf looked terrified.
Was she going to eat it now?
The old wolf, showing remarkable intelligence, looked at her with tears glimmering in its cloudy eyes, pleading silently. It didn’t want to die.
Yuan Zhao was stunned. She hadn’t expected the wolf to display such rich emotion.
Could it be a spirit beast?
The wolf’s desire to live reminded Yuan Zhao of her past self—struggling to survive.
How alike we are…
Thinking of this, a faint smile appeared on Yuan Zhao’s face. She knew the wolf couldn’t understand her, but still muttered in a weak voice.
“I won’t kill you for now. But you better behave.”
It was the first time she had spoken since arriving in this world. Her voice was hoarse, almost grating.
What shocked her even more was that the old wolf actually nodded. Was it really a spirit beast? She was even more surprised.
She untied the wolf’s limbs, then tied the fabric strips together into a rope and looped it around its neck to prevent it from running off.
She didn’t know how long it would take to get out of this desert, but she still needed the wolf’s warmth at night.
The old wolf shakily got to its feet, surprisingly obedient, clearly understanding the wisdom of yielding to power.
Wolves respected strength, this girl had defeated it, and it was natural to submit.
And so, a girl and an old wolf—one young, one aged, one wounded, one weak—set off together.
.
.
A day and a night passed in a flash.
By noon of the third day since Yuan Zhao’s arrival, all her food and water were gone.
She looked exhausted, her lips pale and cracked from extreme dehydration.
The old wolf fared even worse.
At least she had eaten some dry food and drunk a little water—the wolf had nothing.
Now too weak to move, the wolf had to be dragged along by Yuan Zhao. Yuan Zhao was seriously considering whether she should kill the wolf and drink its blood to survive.
If this went on, neither of them would make it out alive.
After a while, Yuan Zhao collapsed, powerless, onto the ground. She looked at the wolf beside her, killing intent flashing in her eyes.
The old wolf seemed to sense her thoughts, but it was too weak to resist. It lay with ears flat, eyes pleading.
But Yuan Zhao valued her own life more.
“Sorry,” she whispered, drawing her dagger and slowly crawling toward the old wolf.
The wolf’s eyes filled with despair.
It didn’t want to die.
It closed its eyes, waiting silently for death to come.
“Better one of us survive than both die,” Yuan Zhao muttered, raising the dagger…
Just then, a desert scorpion crawled out from the nearby sand.
Seeing it, Yuan Zhao’s face lit up with joy. Without hesitation, she lunged and grabbed it.
Fortunately, she succeeded. Raising her dagger, she slit the scorpion’s neck and began drinking its blood, not even stopping to wonder whether it was venomous.
The hot liquid flowed down her throat, there wasn’t much of it, but it brought much-needed relief to her parched insides.
Yuan Zhao had never imagined she would one day drink a scorpion blood raw.
After draining it, she hesitated for a moment, then crawled back to the wolf and untied the cloth over its mouth.
Stuffing the cloth into her clothes, she placed the scorpion’s corpse into the old wolf’s mouth.
The wolf stared wide-eyed in disbelief. It never thought Yuan Zhao would share food with it.
But she did—not out of sympathy or warmth, but because she was unbearably lonely.
In this vast, lifeless desert, her only companion was this intelligent old wolf. If it died too, she feared she’d go mad from the isolation, even if she didn’t die.
Besides, it didn’t hurt to keep the wolf around as emergency rations.
She believed that if she could find one scorpion, she could find a second, a third…
She was determined to survive.
After eating the scorpion, the old wolf regained some strength. It looked at Yuan Zhao with eyes full of unexpected gratitude.
After resting, the girl and the wolf continued their journey.
Along the way, Yuan Zhao started deliberately searching for scorpions. Luckily, she did manage to find more as well as other desert creatures like snakes and smaller scorpions.
Whether poisonous or not, she shared all of them with the wolf.
Since they had no tools or fire, they ate everything raw. Of course, she didn’t eat them completely unprocessed. She removed the guts with her dagger first.
Thankfully, she didn’t get poisoned.
Thanks to the scorpions, snakes, and other desert creatures, the pair survived another grueling day and night.
On the fifth day, Yuan Zhao’s worst fear came true.
Her back injury worsened to the point where she could no longer move. She could feel the wound festering and oozing, even smell the rot coming from it.
When she collapsed in the sand, she thought the wolf would pounce on her, tear her apart, and eat her.
To her surprise—it didn’t.
Instead, the old wolf grabbed her collar and started dragging her forward. It was its way of repaying her for the food.
Though it was just a beast, it knew how to show gratitude.
Even with some strength restored from eating, the old wolf was still aged and frail, dragging her took all its effort.
Eventually, they tumbled down a steep dune together. Rolling, tumbling, the girl and wolf fell into a pit of quicksand.
Instantly, they started sinking, and in the blink of an eye, they were buried over half their bodies.
The wolf let out desperate howls, regretting ever helping the human. Why did I even bother? Now I’m going to die too!
‘Is there really no escaping death?’ Yuan Zhao thought bitterly.
Her body was buried up to her neck. The wolf was still struggling, but the more it moved, the faster it sank.
Escape? Impossible.
Yuan Zhao turned her head toward the wolf, gave a wry smile, and said,
“Looks like we’ll be buried together. At least I won’t be alone in the underworld.”
“Awwoooo…!” the wolf howled miserably.
Who wants to be your underworld companion!?
As the sand fully engulfed them, Yuan Zhao lost consciousness.
She didn’t know how much time had passed when Yuan Zhao, groggy and disoriented, felt something warm licking her cheek.
‘I’m… not dead yet?’
Struggling to open her eyes, she saw that the one licking her was none other than the old wolf, its slobber already covering her face.
But Yuan Zhao didn’t care. After wandering the desert for days, her face was already darker than the bottom of a pot. A couple licks from the wolf actually made her feel a bit cleaner.
Pushing the wolf’s head away, she muttered helplessly,
“Are you a dog or what?”
As soon as she spoke, a burning pain flared in her throat. The old wolf stepped aside with a whimper, a hint of grievance in its eyes.
After surviving death together, it felt like the bond between the girl and wolf had grown much closer.
Propping herself up on her elbows, Yuan Zhao finally began to examine her surroundings.
She was inside a dimly lit cave. In the middle of the floor, there was a small pool of water. Its rippling surface reflected light onto the ceiling.
No wonder the old wolf was so energetic. It had already woken up and drunk its fill.
Upon spotting the pool, Yuan Zhao didn’t hesitate for a second. She crawled quickly to the edge and plunged her face into the water, gulping it down greedily without caring if it was clean or not.
Gulp—gulp—
To someone parched from days in the desert, the water tasted sweeter than anything she had ever drunk in her life.
Only when her belly was completely full did she finally lift her head from the pool.
Rehydrated, Yuan Zhao felt a surge of life return to her body. She continued to survey the cave and was startled to realize… there was an entire space hidden beneath the quicksand.
Soon, something deeper in the shadows caught her eye.
Squinting, she realized it was a white skeleton clad in a long robe. Taking a closer look, she noticed there were carvings on the wall behind the skeleton.
Curious, Yuan Zhao carefully crawled forward to examine it more closely.
She hadn’t been mistaken. Below the wall was a stone platform, on which sat the skeletal figure in a meditative pose, still clad in flowing robes.
The wall behind the skeleton was indeed engraved with writing—a biography, it seemed, carved by the skeleton’s former self.
Reading the inscriptions, Yuan Zhao learned to her surprise that she had been transported into a wuxia world.
According to the text, the skeleton had once been known as Bai Yi Ke (“White-Clad Wanderer”), a top martial artist. Despite being a master of martial arts, his lifelong dream had been to seek immortality, to become a celestial being.
Sadly, he searched for decades but never found a trace of anything truly “immortal.” In his twilight years, aging and nearing death, he reluctantly gave up the search.
But then a new thought struck him: If there are no immortals in this world… why not become the first?
In the final years of his life, he poured all his energy into developing a cultivation method for achieving immortality.
It wasn’t purely imaginary. He based it on his own advanced martial techniques. After all, the techniques he practiced were already among the most powerful in the world.
Perhaps due to his unique cultivation, Bai Yi Ke lived a long life, reaching the age of 150.
And at last, in his final year, he succeeded in creating the cultivation method he had always envisioned.
But fate was cruel. Though the technique was finally complete, he no longer had time to practice it. Death was at his doorstep.
So, Bai Yi Ke left behind his self-created path to immortality in his hidden retreat, waiting for a fated successor. Then he passed away, his soul returning to the heavens.
And now, by sheer accident, Yuan Zhao had stumbled into this underground cave beneath the desert sands—the secluded retreat of Bai Yi Ke.
