Chapter 13: The Thirteenth Pig

As dusk settled, the winter sun slipped through the wooden lattice of the window, casting a golden light upon his robe as white as snow.

Separated by several bars of shimmering light, their eyes met.

Li Zhenzhen felt as if she had narrowly escaped death.

She quickly composed herself and calmly asked, "When did you wake up?"

Deng Xizhi replied, "When you sold my sword."

Li Zhenzhen and the system were speechless.

"This is how it is," Li Zhenzhen calmly picked at her nails. "We have to pay rent for where we live now, and your medicine and food cost money too. You can’t expect me to cover everything."

Deng Xizhi asked simply, "How much did you sell it for?"

"One tael of silver."

Deng Xizhi paused, rubbing his thumb, thinking he had misheard, then repeated softly, "...How much?"

Indeed. The system maliciously thought in its heart, who would have guessed that the sword that once swayed the fate of the Three Realms would be sold for merely one tael of silver?

Even after all it had witnessed, it still couldn’t understand how Li Zhenzhen managed to connect the legendary Broken Dust Sword of the Supreme Immortal with Jiang Daqiao, a mere seaweed seller.

Recently terrified of poverty, Li Zhenzhen’s heart clenched seeing the male lead in such a dire, bloodied state.

"Don’t be angry. Getting angry will make you sick again, and being sick means more medicine, which costs more money... You have nothing left to sell. If you sell anything else, you’ll have to sell yourself."

Deng Xizhi was speechless.

A pain like maggots gnawing deep in his bones spread relentlessly, every muscle burning and tearing only to be reborn in agony.

Irritated, Deng Xizhi sat up and pressed his palm against his dantian.

Unlike that night when he could still muster some spiritual energy, his dantian was now utterly empty.

Meridians severed, immortal roots destroyed—these were the sources of spiritual power, like plants needing soil and water to be revived by the spring breeze.

He was like a towering building collapsing under its own weight, his body deteriorated to less than that of an ordinary mortal.

Every breath was laced with unbearable pain.

Leaning against the headboard, his voice cold and hoarse, Deng Xizhi asked, "How are you still alive?"

Li Zhenzhen replied, "I wish I knew."

Deng Xizhi: "I’ve been unconscious for several days."

Li Zhenzhen guessed, "Five or six days."

Five or six days.

---

Deng Xizhi lowered his gaze slightly. In the dim, dreamlike room, his black hair cascaded like a flowing river, both surreal and real.

Despite his grave injuries, his aura still spanned nearly three meters.

He resembled a coiled, dormant serpent. Had Li Zhenzhen not heard from the system about his internal decay, she would never doubt his ability to kill her with a single strike.

“It’s been five or six days and you still haven’t killed me. Are you so sure I will be under your control after I wake?”

His tone was icy as he leaned forward, cold strands of hair brushing against the back of Li Zhenzhen’s hand.

“Or maybe you want to imprison me here, fatten me up, and then devour me?”

Li Zhenzhen was at a loss for words.

“…You’re probably just hungry,” she said with a complex expression, standing up. “I’ll go get you two eggs.”

She left the room, taking with her the ash-gray charcoal from the fire to dispose of.

The room grew colder with her departure.

The snow had stopped, thickly piling beneath the window.

Deng Xizhi’s eyes shifted inward, observing the sparse room: a single table, a bed, a chair, and a cabinet.

A broken bow hung by the window; an old beast hide draped over the chair; some scattered clutter lay piled in a corner.

And someone like this dared to covet his immortal bones.

Li Zhenzhen was sneaking eggs from a new chicken coop when she suddenly heard a heavy thud indoors.

Clutching the eggs, she rushed in to find the male lead had fallen from the bed.

He seemed to try to stand but lost his balance, collapsing onto the floor. His long, silky black hair slipped from one shoulder, twisting along his snow-white robe.

Blood trickled from his lips like an incessant stream, yet he was completely unaware.

He only frowned, staring at the bloodstains scraped onto his arm by gravel.

Deng Xizhi, born with an immortal physique and entering the path of cultivation from birth, was impervious to water and fire, immune to blades and swords, and had never felt cold or heat.

This was the first time he realized that even stones could wound flesh.

Without immortal bones, he was no different from a mortal—just with sharper senses and slightly harder to kill.

It was a pity; even after he had torn out his own immortal bones with his own hands, he still hadn’t died.

Li Zhenzhen moved to help him up.

Deng Xizhi lifted a hand weakly, trying to push her away. “...Go away.”

---

But he was too badly hurt to even raise his hand properly.

The winter sunlight, dust-laden, scattered like fragments of gold through the air.

The normally untarnished immortal lord lay on the chaos of the floor, his wide sleeves flowing like water as he gazed at the drifting dust.

Li Zhenzhen half-dragged, half-supported him onto the bed, already sweating from the effort.

She grabbed a cloth and began brushing the dust from his jet-black hair.

Only after a moment did she realize she was holding a cleaning rag.

She looked up, meeting Deng Xizhi’s gaze.

She glanced between the rag and him, then nonchalantly put the rag away.

—

After the male lead woke up, it became inconvenient for her to continue living in the main room.

Fortunately, the chicken coop was on flat ground with decent drainage, making it suitable for immediate use.

She spent the entire morning cleaning the coop and went to the bamboo grove in the afternoon to chop some mature bamboo about ten centimeters in diameter.

Using vines to bind the bamboo poles formed the framework of the house. Bamboo slats, trimmed and arranged vertically, then fixed horizontally, made the walls.

Outside, the cold wind howled; inside the small wooden hut, silence prevailed except for the crackling of burning charcoal.

Li Zhenzhen calculated in her head the added expenses of keeping two rooms warm with charcoal during this time. Her hands didn’t stop as she stripped some fine bamboo fibers from the remaining bamboo.

These fibers served as kindling. The matchboxes supplied by the Time Management Department were the cheap roadside kind, long out of fuel.

She planned to make her own fire starter for backup.

As she worked, she occasionally glanced outside the window.

Taking the Broken Dust Sword of the Supreme Immortal from Jiang Daqiao—the pedophile—was surely a death sentence.

Li Zhenzhen had hoped that after the sword entered the market, it might attract a few cultivators.

But a day and a night had passed.

What were these immortals even doing?

Why hadn’t her practice materials come to find her yet?