"Liu Shishu, Han Shishu!" The four green-robed cultivators, upon catching sight of the two white-robed women, exchanged a look of surprise before bowing in unison with expressions of deep respect.
"There's no need for formalities. I and Junior Sister Liu caught snippets of your conversation just now. Tell us everything again — the more detail, the better!" One of the women spoke softly. She had large eyes and a pale, delicate face, her voice carrying a faint hint of the mundane world.
This woman was none other than Han Yunzhi, with whom Han Li had crossed paths several times in years past. Though her face remained unchanged from before, her figure had long since shed its former thinness, becoming full and curvaceous. She had blossomed into a stunningly beautiful female cultivator, and her cultivation had surged forward dramatically — she had already reached the early stage of Core Formation.
"Thank you, Han Shishu. This disciple will follow your orders without question." The eldest among them, a grey-haired man who appeared to be the leader of the four green-robed cultivators, spoke respectfully on behalf of the others.
Han Yunzhi smiled and nodded, then stepped forward a few paces, found a clean spot at random, and sat down cross-legged.
"The trouble you lot are in is no laughing matter. If you fail to recover that spirit infant, I doubt even your own master will be able to put in a good word for you!" The other woman — a young beauty with slender willow-leaf brows, phoenix eyes, and an air of languid ease — let out a light laugh.
She was the one who had spoken first and roused these Spirit Immortal Sect disciples from their stupor.
"This disciple knows the blame is hard to escape. However, we truly have been somewhat wronged in this matter. We humbly hope both Shishus might put in a kind word with Grandmaster on our behalf." The grey-haired man gave a bitter smile, his voice tinged with pleading.
"Oh? Then let's hear both matters together. The person who sealed the spirit infant is now tens of thousands of li away — we cannot catch up to him anytime soon, so there's no rush." The woman stretched her elegant, alluring body and spoke, her red lips gleaming.
"Of course. It all began when Senior Uncle Ning and the rest of us were transporting the spirit infant through Kunmu Mountain. At the time, Senior Uncle Ning used the excuse of..." The old man launched into a detailed account of the spirit infant's escape, its subsequent sealing, and the complete annihilation of the Fu family, speaking with painstaking courtesy.
Han Yunzhi listened in silence, her expression betraying nothing, as though she had already reached her own judgment.
The other woman, surnamed Liu, watched with flickering eyes, an occasional look of curiosity crossing her face, clearly quite interested in the old man's tale.
...
Two days later, Han Li appeared at the border between Yuanwu State and the Yue Kingdom. A streak of azure light flashed past and crossed into Yue territory.
According to the intelligence he had gathered, the entire Yue Kingdom was now under the Ghost Spirit Sect's dominion. The sect's main headquarters here stood where the Yanyue Sect had once been based.
And the Taiyue Mountain Range, where the Yellow Maple Valley had formerly made its home, had been reduced to nothing more than a minor branch hall of the Ghost Spirit Sect.
Upon entering the Yue Kingdom, Han Li immediately oriented himself and flew straight for the Taiyue Mountain Range.
...
"Nothing has changed at all..." Han Li stood before an enormous jumble of boulders, his expression tinged with quiet melancholy.
Back then, to prevent his cave dwelling from being discovered by demonic cultivators, he had deliberately demolished the entire mountain peak. Now, after so many years, the place had become a desolate wasteland. Naturally, no one would suspect that beneath this towering pile of rubble lay a concealed cultivator's cave dwelling.
Han Li murmured a few words to himself, then raised his hand. White light flickered before his eyes, and several giant ape puppets were released into the open.
Under his spiritual sense control, the apes set to work clearing the rubble at tremendous speed.
Though "clearing" was perhaps too generous a word — the puppets simply fired beams of multicolored light from their fingertips in rapid succession, blasting the obstructing boulders to dust in order to carve a path down to the buried cave dwelling below.
In mere moments, a perfectly straight passage had been bored through.
Han Li ordered the puppets to stand guard at the entrance and transformed into a streak of azure light that plunged inside.
The interior of the cave dwelling was exactly as he had left it in his hurried departure. Not a single sign of intrusion — and that fact eased some of the worry gnawing at him.
He had not come here for nostalgia's sake. He made straight for the sealed chamber where the Spirit Eye Spring lay.
His purpose this time was to take the spirit spring with him.
Though Han Li already possessed the Spirit Eye Stone that had transformed into spirit jade, and even the Spirit Eye Tree — the pinnacle of all Spirit Eye artifacts — no cultivator ever turned their nose up at having one more. This particular spirit spring was on the smaller side, but since he had returned to the Yue Kingdom, he intended to bring it along.
The spring sat perfectly intact within the chamber, wisps of white spiritual energy drifting upward from its surface.
Han Li gazed at the spring's source with a complicated expression, memories flooding unbidden into his mind — of the day he had first broken through to Foundation Establishment, of how he had discovered this very spring when carving out his very first cave dwelling.