Night deepened, and one by one, the lights on Guiyun Peak went out.
White funeral banners hung low, swaying in the darkness like Ghost Shadows.
Chen Qing still knelt beside the bier, dressed in coarse mourning hemp with a white mourning band around his head.
The second day of memorial rites had ended. There were seventy percent fewer mourners than on the first day; most had merely shown their faces on the first day and gone through the motions.
The warmth and coldness of human relations, the fickleness of the world—nowhere were they displayed more vividly than in matters of life and death.
Luo Zhixian had commanded such formidable prestige in life. At the pinnacle of the Spear Dao, his fourfold Spear Domain had shocked the world whenever it emerged.
But once he had died and his Dao faded away, aside from a handful of old friends with genuine ties to him, most people had come only out of courtesy or sect etiquette. They bowed, lit a stick of incense, and hurried away.
That was reality.
There was neither sorrow nor joy in Chen Qing's heart. He merely stood vigil through this final journey in silence.
His master had no need for that false posthumous glory. What he wanted, perhaps, was only this quiet place in which to sleep forever.
Shen Qinghong stood outside the mourning tent, clad in plain white, her hair silver. In the lamplight, her face appeared especially haggard.
She had sat silently before the coffin for an entire day. She had not spoken, nor shed a tear. She had merely watched like that.
Now, she finally rose.
Shen Qinghong stopped before Chen Qing.
"I'm leaving," she said hoarsely.
Chen Qing slowly rose and bowed respectfully. "Take care on your journey, Senior Shen."
Shen Qinghong looked at