Leaving Maple Forest City through the west gate, follow the official road for about seven or eight miles, then turn left onto a small path. In less than half an incense stick’s time, you’ll see the Green Willow River, its banks lined with weeping willows.

At this moment, a gentle evening breeze caresses the face, and the bright moon is reflected in the shimmering waves.

As Jiang Wang emerged from the small path, he saw Ling He’s slender figure standing by the river, like a silent tree.

“Let me see, let me see.” Zhao Rucheng darted in front of him, craning his neck, “I bet you were hiding and crying, weren’t you?”

Ling He was somewhat helpless, “Why did you guys come?”

“Your voice is a bit hoarse. You definitely cried!”

At this moment, a rough voice emerged from the riverside bushes, “Zhao, you know you’re asking for a beating sometimes, right?”

“Tiger, you’re here too?” Zhao Rucheng shrank his neck. This brute, Du Yehu, would really start a fight at the slightest disagreement, and he wouldn’t care about his handsome face.

“I was just here drinking.” Du Yehu said sullenly, the smell of alcohol wafting in the evening breeze, “I didn’t expect him to carry that guy over here too, what a nuisance.”

“Exactly! Why even bury him?” Zhao Rucheng continued, “That kind of heartless bastard should just be thrown into the river and let him float downstream, feeding the fish and shrimp.”

Jiang Wang glanced in the direction Du Yehu had come from, “He’s buried there?”

“Third Brother.” Considering Jiang Wang’s feelings, Ling He explained, “I haven’t forgotten Pengju’s bad deeds, but I still remember his good deeds. My family wasn’t well-off, and I often didn’t have enough to eat. Pengju would always make excuses for me to teach him martial arts, pulling me along and not letting me leave until it was time for dinner. He deserved to die, but I couldn’t bear to see his corpse exposed in the wilderness… Of course, you were also very good to me. That year when we were exterminating the Qingniu stronghold, you saved me…”

“What’s the point of saying all this?” Jiang Wang interrupted, “When my father was alive, he told me that adults are different from children. The first thing adults need to learn is to seek common ground while reserving differences. The attitude of ‘I don’t play with him, so you can’t play with him either’ is childish. You and Fang Pengju and me, we all have our own relationships. I won’t influence your deep affection for him, and you won’t influence my complete break with him.”

“That makes sense,” Ling He said.

He looked around at the Green Willow River under the night, “I always have a feeling like it was just yesterday. This place hasn’t changed much, but we’re all different now.”

“Nothing ever stays the same, the only constant is change.” Zhao Rucheng said meaningfully, then shamelessly approached Ling He, “Burying someone shouldn’t take this long, were you two hugging and crying?”

As soon as he finished speaking, he leaped up and deftly dodged Du Yehu’s flying leg.

“Tsk, tsk, embarrassed into anger…” He only got halfway through his taunting words before quickly cupping his hands and bowing, “I was wrong, I was wrong, Tiger.”

Du Yehu was already cracking his knuckles and chasing after him, “You’re not wrong, I just want to hug you and cry for a while.”

Watching the two of them brawling, Ling He said leisurely, “But I believe there are always some things that will never change.”

“I agree with half of what you said,” Jiang Wang said.

The “sparring” between Du Yehu and Zhao Rucheng somehow turned into a four-person free-for-all. Fists and feet flew, and everyone tripped each other. By the end, everyone was panting for breath, then they all burst out laughing and hugged each other, crying.

If anyone had passed by the Green Willow River that night, they would probably have spread tales of water ghosts or something similar.

The four brothers finally left the Green Willow River side by side, leaving behind this place that recorded their youth and friendship.

No one spoke anymore.

Only Zhao Rucheng muttered one last sentence as he turned back:

“When you get there, don’t harm your friends anymore. You dead bastard.”

Moonlight flowed into the shimmering Green Willow River, and also poured down from the dilapidated roof of the Huanzhen Temple.

Perhaps it was because of the moonlight, but the faces of the two people speaking in this broken-down temple looked extremely pale.

One of them was a captivating woman, dressed in bright red clothes, with an exquisite figure, full of curves. Especially the dazzling white skin revealed at the slightly open collar, making it hard to look away.

Her face was a little too pale, which should have made her appear somewhat weak and sickly, but she gave off an astonishingly beautiful feeling. Perhaps it was because of her overly vivid red lips?

She sat on the dusty incense table without a care in the world, so beautiful yet so at ease.

She lightly wiped her red lips with her little finger and said, “The beggar children in this temple are all dead, which is really troubling. What are we going to use to invite the divine decree?”

Her voice seemed to circle the cobwebs on the eaves before reaching its destination, sounding somewhat hollow.

“The life soul of a cultivator is enough.”

The person speaking stood at the doorway. Unlike the red-clothed woman, he seemed unwilling to even set half a foot into this filthy temple, and covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief embroidered with plum blossoms.

“Oh my, that’s easier said than done.” The red-clothed woman said, “We have to be secretive even when killing a few ordinary people. Kill a cultivator? Aren’t you afraid the Zhuang Kingdom Dao Academy will come knocking?”

“Everyone in this city, one by one, is going to die sooner or later.” The man frowned as he spoke, “Do we really have to talk in a place like this?”

The red-clothed woman chuckled, “The world-renowned Zuo Guanglie fell here. The people of Zhuang Kingdom have searched this place inside and out countless times. There’s no place cleaner than this nearby.”

Speaking of Zuo Guanglie, she even closed her eyes slightly, revealing an intoxicated expression. Even her pale face quickly flushed red, “I can almost smell his majestic aura~”

“Back to the point.” The man interrupted her reverie without batting an eye, “Wei Quji is not to be trifled with, and now Dong A is here. We must find the Taoist Child as soon as possible. Those Qin and Chu barbarians are fighting each other here, disrupting the Huanzhen Temple’s sacrificial ceremony. If you ask me, instead of secretly grabbing some ordinary people one by one, it would be simpler and more direct to sacrifice a cultivator.”

“There’s more than one way to seek death, why do you have to stick to this one? Isn’t it better to draw your sword and slit your throat? Or to attract lightning to devour your body?”

Perhaps displeased by the interruption of her reverie, the red-clothed woman opened her beautiful eyes and restrained her laughter, “Before the Taoist Child appears, you better know what it means to be low-key!”

The man also seemed somewhat annoyed, covering his nose and saying, “Miaoyu! It’s not like attacking the Maple Forest Dao Academy wasn’t your idea! Now it’s causing a storm in the city. If something goes wrong, our grand plan will fall short!”

“What do you know? The world is too big, and there are too many accidents! Who would have thought that Zuo Guanglie would die like that? And it just happened to ruin our sacrificial plan. The bones at the bottom of the Wangchuan River have been silent for too long! There can’t be any more accidents! Now, Dong A is crucial to Maple Forest City. We must clearly understand his strength and bottom line! Some sacrifices are inevitable. Besides…”

The red-clothed woman named Miaoyu licked her lips, “Do you know that the beggars in this broken temple are not all dead? I smelled a familiar scent in the Maple Forest City Dao Academy…”

The dirty environment made the man even more impatient, “Is the life and death of a mere beggar worth my concern?”

This time, Miaoyu only stretched languidly, her beautiful figure fully revealed, “Idiot.”

The man narrowed his eyes, also concealing the fleeting desire in his eyes, “Don’t think that just because you’re nominally the Taoist Child’s woman, you can be so presumptuous. There have been many holy maidens in the sect over the millennia. When the Taoist Child appears, whether he wants you or acknowledges you remains to be seen.”

“Red bones, empty and illusory. Can’t you see through it?”

“Hehe hehe.” The man turned and walked out of the temple, “What does it matter whether I see through it or not? That’s just the way it is.”

After a long time, a tempting murmur gently echoed in this quiet and dilapidated old temple, rippling out like moonlight.

“How could he not love me? How could he not want me? I’ve guarded him for so many years, waited for him for so many years…”