Li Yan's divine sense spread out, and soon he located a hundred-zhang mountain peak where stones were scattered and thickets grew all over the slope.

He quickened his pace and charged towards the mountain peak. After about half a cup of tea, Li Yan, holding Gong Chenying, stood at the foot of the mountain in a place overgrown with dense thickets.

Along the way, Li Yan continuously poured spiritual power into Gong Chenying's body, which slightly reduced the grayish pallor on her face.

Li Yan looked at the piles of rocks overgrown with weeds in front of him. There was a tiny black hole whose entrance was blocked by dense thorns. He couldn't find a better place in a short amount of time.

Holding Gong Chenying, he walked to the thorn bushes with their skyward branches. His divine sense was quickly released. In his divine sense, the black hole was the entrance to a cave that was only a few zhang in size, and the ground inside was not damp.

After a quick sweep of his divine sense around the area, Li Yan hurried forward with Gong Chenying in his arms. With a few kicks, he enlarged the entrance, which could originally only accommodate half a person. Feeling that one person could now enter by crouching, he flashed inside with Gong Chenying.

Inside the cave, a thick layer of crushed stones and dust covered the ground. With a single wave of his hand, a wind column instantly appeared. It quickly spun once inside the cave, then, carrying the crushed stones and dust, it disappeared outside the entrance. The inside of the cave immediately became much cleaner, at least no longer making one feel stuffy.

Li Yan quickly placed the jade-like person he held on the ground. Then, with a flash of his body, he left the cave. He used his divine sense to communicate with the "Earth Patch" on his left wrist, and several array flags flew into the air, shining with light.

Li Yan pointed his finger, and in a flash, the array flags landed on the ground near the cave entrance and disappeared without a trace.

In his divine sense, besides large patches of grass and thorns, the cave entrance had vanished. This set of array tools was a gift from Lin Daqiao before entering the secret realm.

Li Yan wasn't sure if this concealment array could fool Wang Lang, but it was better than nothing. For now, the effect seemed quite good; he couldn't detect it himself.

"I wonder if it can fool Wang Lang. After getting out of here, I'll need to find a better concealment array. This is a must-have for survival."

Before entering the secret realm, he had thought about getting all sorts of good things, but they all cost hundreds of spiritual stones, which he simply couldn't afford. The array that Lin Daqiao gave him was extremely valuable to him, especially since his Seventh Senior Brother had only just formed his Foundation.

Li Yan quickly disregarded his surroundings. On the hillside in the breeze, apart from the swaying branches and leaves of the low thickets, there was no sign of the cave entrance. He took a step into the thicket, and in an instant, he disappeared without a trace. The hillside was left with only the gentle breeze, returning to a state of quiet seclusion.

A blur appeared before Li Yan's eyes, and he was back inside the cave. Looking at Gong Chenying on the ground, he quickly calculated in his mind.

"The black shadow behind will take about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn to reach this place. It will take Wang Lang about a cup of tea's time to recover his ability to move and find this place.

Everything must be done within a cup of tea's time. If I consider other unexpected factors, the best time would be around half a cup of tea."(2 to 5 mins)

While Li Yan was thinking, his actions didn't stop. He had already flashed to Gong Chenying's side. At this moment, Gong Chenying's eyes were tightly shut, her lips were blue, her face was pale and bloodless, and her breath was weak.

In the sect's Foundation Establishment stage cultivator competition, Li Yan had the utmost admiration for this Sixth Senior Sister and Zhao Min. The two of them cultivated in very similar ways, both walking the path of dual cultivation of qi and body, with a focus on body cultivation.

With this kind of injury, plus the previous forceful clash with Wang Lang while already wounded, if it had been him, it would be hard to say whether he'd even be breathing now. Her physical body was truly formidable.

Gong Chenying had already been laid flat on the ground. A large patch of black bloodstains on her waist and abdomen made her dark green robe a much deeper color than the surrounding areas.

Looking at Gong Chenying lying on the ground, Li Yan frowned after examining her injuries.

Li Yan was in a difficult position. Gong Chenying's main injuries were on her torso, below her chest and above her abdomen. To treat her, he would inevitably have to remove her clothes, but since he could remember, Li Yan had never had any skin-to-skin contact with a woman.

For a moment, he was in a quandary, but this hesitation disappeared after just a breath or two.

Li Yan took a deep breath. First, he slowly pulled out the two halves of the long halberd that Gong Chenying was gripping in each hand. He didn't want to be killed by an unconscious strike from Gong Chenying while treating her; that would be a tragedy.

Gong Chenying's hands were gripping so tightly that it took Li Yan a lot of effort to pry open her slender jade fingers. During this time, Gong Chenying's tightly closed eyes trembled slightly, and there was a subtle ripple in her body.

Her arm actually moved, which scared Li Yan so much that he broke out in a cold sweat. He hurriedly tapped several points with one hand to put Gong Chenying into a deep unconsciousness, and only then did he raise his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

After removing the two halves of the long halberd, he placed them at the farthest point inside the cave. Li Yan returned and, without any hesitation, directly unfastened her dark green robe. But the moment he unfastened it, his breathing became heavier, and his fingers trembled slightly.

Li Yan closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and began to remove Gong Chenying's personal undergarments. The moment he unfastened the undergarments, Li Yan felt a wave of dizziness, and his heavy breathing echoed in the small cave.

This was an absolutely perfect figure. Her skin was a healthy, wheat color, exuding a youthful vitality that inspired a desire to conquer. The two peaks on her chest stood tall and firm.

Even though a short bra was tightly binding them, they still stood proud and high, as if they wanted to break free and show off their stunning form.

Below the short bra was a flat abdomen, now a bloody, pulpy mess. However, at the edges of the wound, a few strong, feminine, and rounded abdominal muscles could still be seen, with lines running diagonally towards her ribs.

The wound on her abdomen was horrifying, but it gave Gong Chenying a sense of untamed, violent beauty, like a wounded female leopard.

Li Yan only felt blood rushing to his head, and a hot stream in his nose was on the verge of gushing out. He was at the prime of his youth, a time of utter naivety and curiosity about relations between men and women.

Feeling the hot stream about to burst from his nasal cavity, Li Yan cursed himself for being shameless. He quickly closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and when he opened his eyes again, they were clear.

The wound on Gong Chenying's lower abdomen was extremely deep, but she had already treated it herself. A red, fabric-like band was tightly tied around her waist and abdomen, firmly binding the wound.

But because the wound had reopened, the color of the red material was even deeper, and there was a gash torn into it by a sharp weapon.

Li Yan looked at the location of the wound, which was above the Dantian, and this put his mind at ease. If the injury had been lower on her abdomen, he truly didn't know how he would have treated it, and he wouldn't have been able to explain it to Gong Chenying afterward.

Even in this state, Li Yan didn't know how this Sixth Senior Sister would react when she woke up. Fortunately, there was still a bra on her upper body, so he had only seen her abdomen.

However, when he tried to remove the red band tightly tied around her abdomen, he had a great deal of trouble. He couldn't untie it. The red band was made of some unknown material that she had used to wrap her wound.

But it was clearly not wide enough, only two fingers in width, so it must have been an emergency measure.

Finally, Li Yan had no other choice. He took out a sharp sword magic tool he had obtained from Miao Zhengyi's robe. After infusing it with spiritual power, he finally managed to cut the red band tightly wrapped around her abdomen. This single action had already made Li Yan break out in a sweat.

After removing the red band, Li Yan was startled when he saw the location of the wound. Because below the wound, there was a silver ring, a silver ring on her navel. It was extremely small and exquisite, as if it had been made of silver from the mortal realm.

It lay on Gong Chenying's slightly bloodstained flat abdomen, adding a touch of exotic charm to her.

But Li Yan quickly snapped out of it. He obviously had no mind to pay attention to such things. His divine sense instantly probed Gong Chenying's wound. A moment later, Li Yan raised his head, his face solemn.

Gong Chenying was gravely injured. After she was critically wounded, she had forcefully used her spiritual power several times to fight. Especially after her spiritual power was exhausted, she even used pure physical strength to clash with a Pseudo-Core stage cultivator. He truly didn't know how she managed to do it.

At this moment, many of her internal organs were completely shattered, and there were signs of instability in her Dantian. This was a precursor to her cultivation realm falling. If it went wrong, it was not impossible for her to fall directly from the Foundation Establishment stage to the Qi Condensation stage.

In that case, it would be more than ten or a hundred times harder for Gong Chenying to form her Foundation again than before.

If this injury had occurred outside, with a Core Formation stage cultivator from the sect intervening, her injury would immediately stabilize, and she could recover as before after a few months of recuperation. But here, Li Yan did not possess such ability, nor did he have much time for Gong Chenying to rest.

The first thing Li Yan thought of was the "True Essence Pill" given by Pingtu. This was also the reason he had asked for the pill before, knowing that his own strength was insufficient.

But after Pingtu explained that it was an eighth-rank pill, Li Yan was now a little hesitant. One had to know that the highest rank of pill the Wraith Sect could refine was a seventh-rank low-grade, and even that was a legendary pill, not something they could actually refine.

When he asked Pingtu for the pill, he thought it would be at most a fifth- or sixth-rank pill, which would have been sufficient for saving someone.

And now that he actually had two "True Essence Pills," an eighth-rank pill, which was something from the Immortal Spirit Realm, was like having two extra lives on him. To use it on Gong Chenying like this still pained Li Yan's heart.

Thinking about how Pingtu had a pained expression on its face, it was no wonder that a small cultivator like Li Yan felt the same way.

However, this hesitation only lasted for a few breaths in Li Yan's eyes. He sighed inwardly.

"In the end, I am not a heartless person, and I do not cultivate the Path of Ruthlessness!"

His divine sense swept over the blotch on his wrist. The next moment, a small, clean white jade bottle appeared in his hand. Since he had taken it out, Li Yan no longer had any hesitation. After pulling out the stopper, a refreshing fragrance filled the entire cave.

With a blank expression, Li Yan poured out a pill, quickly capped the bottle, and put the porcelain bottle back into the "Earth Patch."

The pill was the size of a soybean, and it emitted a gentle purple light. Its body was perfectly round, and mystical runes that Li Yan couldn't comprehend continuously flowed on its surface, giving it a mysterious aura.

And the moment the pill landed in Li Yan's palm, it had a tendency to fly away, but Li Yan forcefully enveloped it in his spiritual power. However, he felt a sense of losing control.

Li Yan knew from reading ancient texts that pills were divided into ten ranks. When a pill reached the seventh rank, it would develop a hint of sentience. Pills with sentience would have their medicinal properties enhanced many times over. This was the most valuable aspect of pills above the seventh rank.

And the "True Essence Pill" in Li Yan's hand was an eighth-rank mid-grade. Its sentience was already equivalent to that of a five- or six-year-old child. Thus, it naturally harbored a fear of the person who was about to take its life and desperately wanted to escape.

Spiritual power surged within Li Yan, and a streak of spiritual light swept towards the pill!

...