...
...
As night fell, the carriage stopped on a high hill prairie, where various wildflowers and grasses flourished, some even as tall as one’s knees. Strange insects buzzed around, causing the horses to snort occasionally.
Ling Xiaoxiao set up a simple hidden array and climbed into the carriage, only to see her senior brother sitting by the window with clear eyes, gazing far into the meandering stream through the distant canyon.
Those eyes were pure and clean, making Ling Xiaoxiao momentarily lost in thought.
"Senior brother, you..."
"I’ve recovered a bit."
"Why don’t we go back and report to the Sword Elder?"
"Forget it, the world is a place for cultivation anywhere."
Ling Xiaoxiao wanted to persuade further but recalled the varied gazes of her senior brothers and sisters in front of the Zen Sword Studio hall yesterday, and the imposing presence of the female cultivator wearing a golden bell.
She couldn’t help but shiver, feeling she could never belong in the same world as that female cultivator.
Too strong, too terrifying.
That female cultivator might crush her and her senior brother with just a finger.
Thus, Ling Xiaoxiao dismissed the idea of persuading her senior brother to return, thinking to herself: ’I’m a person without talent or disposition, but being able to bring a Purple Mansion Realm senior brother back to my race, isn’t that like finding a guardian deity.
Father hopes I become a guardian; I can’t achieve that, but senior brother surely can. When we return to the race, I’ll live sweetly with him for a hundred years, and what’s wrong with having children together?’
For a moment, various visions appeared before Ling Xiaoxiao’s eyes.
Children surrounded from everywhere, while she and her senior brother sat in the middle hall, listening to those children call them father and mother; in a flash, there were more children, calling them "grandfather, grandmother"; in another flash, even more, calling "great ancestor".
Regardless of what experiences the children have, she would always be with her senior brother, through life and death, never leaving nor giving up.
Sweetness sprouted in Ling Xiaoxiao’s heart, and she loved her senior brother even more, slyly moving to sit beside him, asking this and that to see if he had truly recovered.
But, as they kept talking, they suddenly stopped speaking, only breathing heavily, breaths quickening, fingers intertwining, slowly... skin coming into more contact, until they embraced in joy on this spring night in the wilderness.
...
...
The next day, morning.
The carriage continued down the winding mountain path.
Song Yan visualized the "Heart Demon Sword Prison Gate", his soul thought leaving the body and again arriving before the reflected pitch-black door.
After waiting a moment, today not a single wisp of gray aura flowed outward and no Sea of Suffering swordsman appeared before him.
Song Yan pondered slightly, stepped forward, reached the door, and lightly tapped the inverted pitch-black ancient door. With the tap, he felt a peculiar "buzz" in his divine soul.

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