Hei Loulan groggily opened her eyes.
"Where… where am I?" Her blurred vision quickly sharpened, and she soon found herself lying on a stone slab bed.
Surrounding the bed was a circle of large leather tents.
At the center of the tent stood an iron frame supporting a large cauldron.
The cauldron bubbled away, seemingly boiling some kind of broth. At the bottom of the pot, a fiery red mouse continuously breathed flames.
"You're awake?" The tent flap was suddenly pulled aside, and a woman walked in.
She was a beautiful middle-aged woman, dressed plainly in leather skirts and leather garments that left her arms, abdomen, and most of her chest exposed.
Across her chest and back was a tattoo of a blue phoenix, so vivid it seemed alive, and it emitted a faint blue glow.
Hei Loulan struggled to sit up.
During the process, she noticed that her own clothing had been completely changed to match the style of the woman before her — rough and wild.
"I am Huangji Zi Lu Tonglan. You have now arrived in the Myriad Beast Mixed Color Heaven," the middle-aged woman said, walking toward Hei Loulan with a smile.
Hei Loulan fully regained her senses.
Changsheng Heaven had Eight Ji Zi, numbered by the celestial sequence of Heaven, Earth, Profound, Yellow, Universe, Vastness, Chaos, and Wilderness. Xuanji Zi was Sun Minglu, a specialist in formation paths. The beautiful woman before her was Huangji Zi, who had been hiding within the Myriad Beast Mixed Color Heaven all along.
"What should I do, Lady Lu?" Hei Loulan asked. Juyang Immortal Zombie had only told her to follow Huangji Zi's arrangements upon arriving here.
Lu Tonglan smiled. "Here, you should call me Clan Leader Lan Feng. Your current identity is my illegitimate daughter — born of me in my younger years, lost to the outside world. During the recent tribal migration, I happened to discover you and brought you back."
"The Myriad Beast Mixed Color Heaven is home to countless tribes who live alongside beasts. The customs and culture are vastly different from the Five Domains. Every ten thousand years, all the tribes gather to hold the Myriad Tribe Festival. This is your opportunity!"
"Alright, now it's time for you to start drinking the broth."
Lu Tonglan ladled out a full large bowl of the hot broth from the cauldron and handed it to Hei Loulan.
Hei Loulan sat on the edge of the bed and lifted the scalding iron bowl. A rich, savory aroma assailed her nostrils.
She was hungry too, and immediately took a sip.
The broth hit her tongue with a bizarre and fiery taste — utterly unpalatable!
"Cough, cough, cough!" Caught off guard, Hei Loulan nearly vomited.
Lu Tonglan's expression turned stern. "Drink it. This broth is extremely important for you. You need to drink every last drop from that cauldron. Drink."
Hei Loulan knew this was Juyang Immortal Zombie's arrangement. Grimacing, she drained one bowl, then another.
By the third bowl, she could no longer hold back — her stomach was swollen and aching.
Lu Tonglan had been watching over her the entire time. Seeing this, she nodded slightly. "Pause for now. Your body has reached its limit."
Hei Loulan began to suffer from diarrhea — severe, debilitating diarrhea that nearly left her collapsed.
But Lu Tonglan did not let her off. Even as Hei Loulan lay weakly on the stone slab bed, Lu Tonglan held the bowl herself and forced every last bit of the hot broth from the great cauldron into her mouth, one ladle at a time.
Hei Loulan drank and diarrhea-ed simultaneously, suffering unbearably.
"What exactly is the purpose of drinking this broth?" Hei Loulan asked.
Lu Tonglan replied, "The Myriad Beast Mixed Color Heaven is nothing like the Five Domains. To survive here, you need to be able to eat what they eat. This broth of mine is a carefully prepared recipe, originally made to help me build my appetite. The diarrhea you're experiencing is your body adapting to this place. Don't be alarmed — though the diarrhea may seem severe at first, nearly life-threatening, the symptoms will soon grow milder and milder. Within three days at most, you'll recover completely and find yourself starving with hunger."
Hei Loulan lay on the stone slab bed for a full two days and two nights before she finally regained her strength and could barely get up and walk around.
By the third day, just as Lu Tonglan had said, her strength had fully returned, the diarrhea had vanished entirely, and her appetite had surged — her stomach had been growling with hunger since morning.
Lu Tonglan cooked another pot of broth for Hei Loulan.
"This is a meat broth, different from the last one," Lu Tonglan said as she pulled out five or six mice and tossed them into the pot.
The mice thrashed about inside, squeaking frantically.
Lu Tonglan's expression didn't change. She produced several multicolored venomous snakes and dropped them in as well.
The snakes and mice gradually melted into the hot broth, turning into a colorful sludge that spread across the surface.
Lu Tonglan then took out several pitch-black stones that looked like lumps of coal and tossed them all into the pot as well.