Chapter 206: Awakening

"Sss~"

He didn't know whether it was in his mouth or his heart, but Xisi couldn't help clenching his teeth and inhaling.

After the Battle of Zhaitailun, another 30K long temporal‑spatial repulsion injuries arrived, spreading across every inch of his skin like knife cuts.

Especially now, in his daze, a large hand and a small hand each grasped his body, pulling him laboriously across the coarse ground, one tug after another.

Each step forward sent a piercing pain through his overloaded body, as if rubbing against stones and rubble.

Then, amid the repeated daze of confusion and excruciating pain, Xisi managed to pry open a sliver of vision; the scenery shifted from the dim wasteland outside Nest City to a settlement built of iron sheets and scrap.

In the final moment of daze before entering a house, he could still see, on the horizon of the village, the towering Nest City that rose into the clouds.

The dragging finally ceased, and as a tattered rag covered his body, giving it a pitifully little warmth, this time Xisi's dazed eyes fell completely into darkness.

In his daze, Xisi could no longer feel the passage of time; it might have been a blink, or perhaps a long stretch.

During that period, aside from occasional spoonfuls of a pitifully small amount of soaked starch, Xisi spent the vast majority of the time in deep hibernation.

Only when the insufficient and irregular starch entered his mouth did his body activate, Hundredfold fully exploiting the starch to the limit, exerting all effort to repair Xisi's bodily damage.

Until, after an indeterminate amount of time in this haze, a male voice, constantly echoed by a sweet female voice, finally roused the dazed Xisi.

"What a miracle; normally with such injuries, he couldn't have held on until you dragged him home."

"But now he's not only alive, and his wounds have actually improved considerably compared to before."

The man was full of shock, while the woman beside him wore barely concealed delight.

But before he could thank them, the man's voice turned casual:

"However, it's basically at its limit; he now needs a lot of food to recover, and that pitiful amount of starch that you sisters can't even finish can't possibly sustain his awakening."

The sudden joy that had just risen in the room was instantly crushed; the woman hesitated for a moment, then timidly spoke:

"I… my business has been good lately; I can give him a bit more."

"I can also skip meals! I'm already strong enough to go three or four days without eating~"

A large voice and a small voice hurriedly spoke, while the man, after a pause, let out a sigh.

The sound of a body standing up and gathering things came, and the man's voice, accompanied by his footsteps, faded away:

"Even if your parents were lucky back then to meet good people like you sisters, they still ended up dead."

"No matter how hard you try, you can't change anything."

"The State Church Priest's words that if you do good deeds your parents can return to the Divine Emperor's side might not be lies, but…"

"Even if you go to the Divine Emperor's side, the Governor and the Nobility are ahead of you."

The voice completely left the Xisi Room, and as the curtain dropped, a faint final farewell drifted:

"Today I'll only take half a sack of starch from you; I have nothing else to offer you."

"If you don't give up, it'd be best to give him some protein; perhaps the effect will be better."

After speaking, a harsh metallic clatter of doors opening and closing rang out.

Even in his daze, Xisi could feel the instant spread of fear and panic in the outer room once the words "protein" were spoken.

Then, after a long silence, Xisi fell asleep again.

This time, for an unknown duration, when familiar soaked starch, a pitiful little amount, and a few smelly pieces of protein entered his mouth,

Xisi's body, bearing the toxin of spoiled protein, greedily absorbed the nutrients.

At the same time, with protein supplied, Xisi's senses finally cleared enough to hear, two meters away on the thin iron sheet opposite, the man's heavy breathing and the sweet woman's suppressed panting, and even the sharp cries of pain from a whip being cracked.

Between Xisi's breaths, the air was laced with droplets of blood.

Each subconscious struggle from the painful cries eventually settled again under the man's anxious assurances.

"Don't hide; you wanted protein, right? I'll give you protein in a moment."

Xisi, whose body was rapidly recovering, suddenly opened his eyes after that sentence.

What met his gaze was a plain‑faced girl beaming with surprise.

The earlier panting and cries of pain vanished instantly.

The sweet female voice came from the girl before him.

"Divine Emperor bless you, you're awake?!"

The girl was delighted, and only then did Xisi realize that another indeterminate span had slipped by in his consciousness.

The excited girl clasped her hands, closed her eyes, muttered her parents' names and the Divine Emperor's name several times, then refocused, eagerly bringing the dirty iron bowl in her hands—filled with soaked starch and foul protein—to Xisi's lips.

Xisi did not refuse; he kept absorbing the nutrients, simultaneously clutching his recovery and surveying his surroundings.

This place wasn't even Nest City; the cold, sunless wind of the endless wilderness kept pouring in through the iron sheet gaps.

The only tattered rag in the house was carefully draped over Xisi's entire body as best as possible.

Even as Xisi absorbed the nutrients and his body shifted slightly, a small pair of hands hurriedly reached out from the side, trying to secure the rag to keep the cold wind out.

Xisi turned his head with effort and finally saw a tiny figure curled beside him.

At that moment, its pale, gaunt face, hollow from hunger, stared hungrily at the soaked starch and foul protein at Xisi's mouth.

Xisi's swallowing paused briefly; after a moment of silence, he still turned away from the food.

"Not eating?"

The girl was nervous, but her eyes still showed the surprise that food could actually remain, looking at Xisi expectantly.

Xisi wanted to speak, but his throat, dried and cracked from unknown thirst, only hurt.

He couldn't speak, so Xisi could only nod.

And then the imagined scene of the girl and a child taking the food and eating never materialized.

The girl eagerly put the food away, then glanced at her younger sister; after hesitating, she still chose to hide the food carefully in the safest spot of the thin iron sheet.

That was the dirt pit they had dug by hand under their bed.

Calling it a bed would be inaccurate; looking at the iron sheet and soft earth beneath, Xisi could hardly call it a "bed".

And as the girl bent over to hide the food, Xisi could see inside through her loose shirt, down her neck.

But there was nothing beautiful there, only scattered wounds and a shriveled, ugly body.

Xisi was silent for a moment, then reached out and placed his hand on the kneeling, bent girl's body.

The girl's body instinctively froze, and she lifted her head to look at Xisi, but the subsequent sight made the girl, the young girl, and even Xisi himself, suddenly stare in shock.

Holy light radiated from Xisi's hand, and gentle divine power flowed into the girl, repairing her wounds.

The girl and the young girl were shocked, staring dumbly at the miraculous Xisi.

Xisi was equally shocked, staring dumbly at the divine power he habitually wielded, feeling a natural smoothness far beyond any god's Blessing, his face blank.

"Isn't all my divine power used for traversing?"

"Then the divine power inside me now..."

"Where did it come from?!"