(Twenty-thousand-character chapter. The update is a little late.)
The unbidden snowstorm came in great goose feathers, as though an Immortal had crushed a white jade platter and scattered countless Snowflake Coins.
Snow soon lay thick across the city wall. Chen Ping'an crouched there, deliberately drawing in his fist intent and Sword Qi, letting the flakes settle on his head, shoulders, and green robe.
Dao Cultivators were untouched by heat and cold. But heat and cold meant more than the turning seasons; they also meant the joys and sorrows, meetings and partings, of mortal hearts.
The Sword Qi Great Wall ruins now resembled a deserted frontier fortress with no one left to guard it. Snow suddenly fell thick over the lonely city beyond the pass, flecks drifting like blossoms, flakes broad as copper coins. A thousand mountains stood bitter and sheer, birds were nowhere to be found, and all trace of humanity had vanished from the wilderness. Faintly, there came the sound of shattered jade, as sky and snow sang back and forth.
Lu Chen had already risen and put away the drinking set he had scrounged from who knew where. He had meant to leave and return to the Azure Sky World, where he had plenty of friends and amusements. Besides, his Venerable Master had recently graced White Jade Capital with a visit and issued his favored disciple a considerate decree: he no longer needed to go Beyond Heaven on that futile errand. Back in the Azure Sky World, he would be free of burdens, and even his stickler of a senior brother would have nothing to say. But visits to the Sword Qi Great Wall were rare, and Lu Chen could not bear to leave so soon. He had gone to the trouble of exercising a Sage's power, Mouth