Time's waves were quick to fade; even an inch of summer could not be held.
Time flowed on, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
Twenty years had passed since Zhou Fuyou joined the Southern Heaven Dao Palace and became Fairy Qing Lan's disciple in Houtu Hall.
Over those twenty years, Zhou Fuyou rarely stepped outside and seldom interacted with others.
Nor did he need to interact with too many people.
Though he had taken a master, Master Qing Lan did not often personally instruct the many cultivators of Houtu Hall. Her guidance was limited to Golden Core Disciples who had formally entered the sect. Those Golden Core Disciples would then teach the registered disciples at the Foundation Establishment Stage below them in her stead.
By rights, Zhou Fuyou should have received similar guidance.
But Old Ancestor Zhou Yunshen had personally instructed him for more than half a year, and he had long since sorted through the cultivation process from the Foundation Establishment Stage to the Golden Core Stage with exceptional clarity. Thus, he had little need for the ordinary teachings of his eight Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters.
Over the past twenty years, Foundation Establishment True Cultivators of the same rank from Houtu Hall occasionally came to visit him.
Unlike the provocative visits from before, these visits were mostly friendly, as they wished to form ties with him and become friends.
Yet Zhou Fuyou refused most of them. He accepted only one gathering invitation delivered by Zhou Yuwei.
That gathering had been somewhat special!
The host was his "cousin," the female cultivator Lin Qingtong of the Qingtong Lin Family.
Her family territory bore her name, which showed just how highly the Lin Family valued and favored her.
She had not disappointed the Lin Family's expectations either. After cultivating at