Cihang Zhai.
Yun Yuan watched from afar as Luo Bei and Ming Ruo stood side by side atop the ruins of Heart Hut.
Ming Ruo's face had grown even more flushed. Even Yun Yuan could now tell that her injuries had become so grave they were beyond salvaging. No matter how unwilling she was to think of it, Ming Ruo—the mistress of Cihang Zhai, that peerless woman with a radiant face—was about to die.
Yet there was not the slightest sign of life rapidly draining from her body. On the contrary, it seemed as if an immense vitality was endlessly pouring forth from within her, as though her life were burning in full, blazing vigor.
Because there were still things she had not finished.
At the foot of the mountain, the slope before Luo Bei and Ming Ruo, carpeted in golden grass, was as tranquil as ever. A gentle breeze swept across it, raising wave upon wave of golden ripples. Pink petals drifted down in profusion from more than a dozen enormous flowering trees.
But far beyond Great East Mountain, the sky seemed to be tinged with faint threads of red light.
Before long, those threads of red light grew denser and drew nearer. Countless animals, insects, and birds within Great East Mountain seemed to sense some immense danger and fled madly out of the mountain.
Outside Great East Mountain, across a radius of several hundred li, strange dark-red clouds gradually filled the sky. Like a gigantic lid, these dark-red clouds dimmed the entire heavens and covered Great East Mountain beneath them.
Ming Ruo calmly watched the slope before her. All of her true essence was held in a state of utter concentration, ready to erupt at any moment. She knew that if she let it disperse through her