Feng Jiu slowly opened her eyes, the corners of her mouth curled up slightly, revealing a satisfied smile.
Her attempt at drawing energies into her body could be considered to have been successful and it took a little less time than she would have thought. When she recalled that she had the Cosmos Sack, she immediately took it out from her inside her clothes and injected her mystical powers into it before opening it.
"Woohoo! That's quite a load in there!"
The Cosmos Sack's capacity wasn't that voluminous but they had stored quite a load of things in it. She gave the things a quick glance over and subsequently removed the herbs and the gold ingots from her makeshift bundle to stuff them into the Cosmos Sack before tying the sack securely to her hip.
She saw that she had some of the roast meat leftover and she proceeded to stuff it in as well before going further into the woods to look for a water source to clean the wound on her face.
The mud on her face was not just something she had carelessly smeared on but she had carefully mixed ground's core water and ground's core earth together as a mud pack to apply it onto the wound. One of its advantages was that the cooling ground's core water would reduce any inflammation and secondly, the mud would cover up the wound on her face so as to not let her be so easily recognizable.
The mud had been on her face for days and she needed to wash it off, so the most important thing to do at that moment was to locate a water source.
The most direct way to determine the location of a source of water was to do it through studying the density of the trees and vegetation in the woods.
She did not immediately proceed straight deeper into the inner reaches but followed a path based on the density of leaves in the trees and thickness of the vegetation on the ground. It was around four hours later before she found a water source.
It was a flowing stream, located on the lower parts of a sloping hill, and the leaves on the trees on both sides of the bank were seen to be denser.
"Whew! It sure was tough trying to find water in these woods."
She let out a big breath of relief and her steps were light as she came to the side of the stream. She squatted down and scooped up a handful of water by cupping her hands together to drink before opening up the Cosmos Sack to take out a tube of bamboo. She filled up the bamboo tube and kept it away for future use.
She then removed her shoes to soak her feet and she soon felt her weariness flow out of her with the running water down the stream. Resting a little while after soaking her feet hearing the tinkle of the water running over little rocks, she then started to carefully wash off the mud from her face, slowly cleaning out the wound bit by bit, to free it from any residue of the mud.
Until, the water reflected the image of a horrible looking face, badly disfigured by multiple slashes from a sharp blade.
Staring at that face in the water, she eyes filled up with a chill. This body she was in now was supposed to be exactly the same as the body she possessed in the twenty first century and her face had not changed as well. But the very face that she had been so used to seeing for over twenty years had been disfigured to its current terrifying state and as that thought came into her mind, the bloodthirstiness lying dormant in her heart began to stir.
"Su Rou Yun, Su Rou Yun, you better keep yourself alive and well….."
She mumbled to herself in a low voice, the smile that blossomed, lifting up the corners of her lips, was tinged with a spine tingling chill.
Taking out the herbs she had picked along the way from the Cosmos Sack, she mixed them in together with a couple of stems of magical herbs by mashing them before applying the juice from the mixture onto her face. The thick scabs that had formed on the wounds inflicted upon her face had come off together with the mud she had washed out earlier, but the ghastly streaks left behind from the knife wounds would not disappear.
Every single scar left behind by the knife wounds were shown up by their dark pinkish streaks criss crossing her face after the scabs came off. Compared to when they were still scabbing, she did not look as horrifying….. or at least, she would just be considered to be hideous now.
After applying the juice from the herbal mix, she waited for it to dry up a little before bending over the water to look. The crystal clear water showed her a face that had unidentifiable features, and as the reflection showed up a little greenish, she found it to look a little strange.
She continued to stare and her brow suddenly lifted. The crystal clear running water was suddenly clouded with a bloody shade of red.
She lifted her eyes and looked upstream. She paused a moment in thought before she got up and lifted her foot to follow the stream upwards.
It was roughly about half a stick of incense time before her steps stopped, and her gaze fell upon a clump of weeds by the stream…..