Soon, the children arrived at the dock on a small yacht. When the townspeople saw the rescuers carrying the survivor, they finally believed the children’s story. As for the survivor’s identity and the cause of the incident, the police would naturally investigate.
After a medical examination, the survivor appeared to have suffered severe internal injuries, though no other illnesses were detected at the time. He seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep. Despite frequent visits from the townspeople and the children who had rescued him, there was no sign of him waking up. However, he showed no symptoms of infection or fever, so the doctors continued to administer nutrient solutions intravenously to maintain his strength.
After a week, the townspeople gradually lost interest in the survivor’s story, and even the doctors no longer held out hope for a quick recovery. They believed that since his internal organs had suffered serious damage, his brain must have also been affected, resulting in neurological damage.
Without any identification documents and no reports of missing persons from nearby towns, the small town’s public hospital, despite its good intentions, faced financial limitations. It was impossible to spend large sums of money treating someone whose identity could not be confirmed. Therefore, until the patient regained consciousness, they could only maintain his life with basic care, hoping he would awaken on his own, rather than transferring him to a better-equipped hospital.
The survivor was actually Mu Lin. Although he had crushed his water-escaping talisman just seconds before the submarine’s self-destruction, water-escaping techniques were not teleportation. The distance he managed to travel underwater was still insufficient to completely escape the submarine’s self-destruct radius, which was equivalent to the blast of a small atomic bomb. Despite channeling his full spiritual energy, he was still knocked unconscious by the shockwave of the explosion.
Fortunately, while losing consciousness, he still remembered to take a lifebuoy from his ring and instinctively held onto it tightly. Otherwise, simply drifting unconscious in the open sea would have been enough to cost him his life.
Mu Lin’s luck lay in the direction he chose during his water escape. At that moment, the distance between his yacht and the Y country’s mainland was far greater than the distance to the French coast. Mu Lin was aware of this, but he instinctively felt that his identity had already been exposed in Y country, so fleeing there would be tantamount to suicide. Moreover, the enemy still had an undamaged submarine. If he had fled in that direction, he would surely have fallen into their hands.
Therefore, he chose to escape in the opposite direction, away from the French mainland. Whether it was luck or misfortune, the explosion’s shockwave slightly altered his trajectory, causing him to wash up on the western coast of France. This inadvertently helped him escape the search efforts of Y country’s intelligence agents.
However, if it hadn’t been for the group of teenagers preparing to go on a sailing picnic who discovered him, Mu Lin would have died from prolonged unconsciousness in the icy seawater.
The human body’s most instinctive way of protecting itself is to fall into a coma—not only to conserve energy but also as a natural process of fighting off illness or injury. Due to the severity of his injuries, Mu Lin’s body automatically entered this protective state, regardless of the fact that he was a cultivator.
During this time, the townspeople gradually forgot about the survivor. Even the police only filed a routine report and submitted it to their superiors, accepting the doctors’ assessment that the patient had likely become a vegetative case.
However, the group of teenagers never stopped visiting Mu Lin. While visiting him, they also took on the responsibility of caring for him. After all, this was the first person they had rescued on their own, and a sense of youthful passion and responsibility kept them from giving up on him.
Because of the children’s persistence, the town government did not transfer Mu Lin to a charitable institution, continuing instead to sustain his life through nutrient infusions.
Mu Lin himself was unaware of any of this. When his body had mostly recovered, his damaged meridians caused his spiritual energy, stored in his dantian, to slowly repair the damaged pathways. This process consumed most of the nutrients being supplied to him. If he had been given a larger dose of nutrients at that time, he might have woken up much earlier. However, the slower, more thorough healing process during his coma ensured a more complete recovery of his meridians. If he had woken up too soon, his cultivation power would have suffered a significant decline, and he might never reach the stage of physical immortality, let alone attain the Dao.
Time had now reached early summer. The children had all completed high school—some were preparing for college, while others planned to leave the town and head to bustling cities to pursue modern lives.
As time passed, fewer and fewer of the original rescuers continued to care for Mu Lin, until only five remained. Yet these remaining young people firmly believed that Mu Lin would awaken. Finally, three months after the children had rescued him, on an early summer evening, Mu Lin slowly opened his eyes.
When Mu Lin opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a pure white ceiling. He knew he had been saved and was now in a hospital. He tried to move his body, but after such a long period of inactivity, his muscles had become weak and powerless. He could only slightly turn his body.
Moreover, only the major meridians in his body had been repaired, while the rest remained damaged. Therefore, Mu Lin was temporarily unable to muster the strength to stand up.
Since it was already evening, the children had left the hospital, and the nurses were not paying him much attention, so the ward was empty. At that moment, Mu Lin had no other thoughts—only the desire to quickly restore his spiritual energy and regain his self-defense abilities. The current quiet environment was actually more convenient for him to take action and heal himself.
Mu Lin closed his eyes and slowly began to circulate the little spiritual energy he had managed to gather. After a long time, he finally managed to collect a small amount of spiritual energy. He couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh of relief. With even a little spiritual energy, he could now use his spiritual awareness. With that, he could retrieve items from his ring.
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage