Biyou Palace.
A female Daoist who looked to be around thirty, dressed in azure robes, sat alone beneath the flower trees in a cool, desolate courtyard, tea brewing as she drank by herself. Threads of melancholy solitude lingered between her brows.
"As an elder, I have become one of the sect's disappointed outcasts. It has been a long time since I attended the Dao Lord Hall to deliberate over affairs..."
Many years had passed, yet Wang Muyun remained stranded in the Life Gate Realm. She watched generation after generation of younger disciples, far more gifted than herself, surpass and overtake her, becoming Biyou Palace's new pillars.
The sect's power struggles had likewise risen and fallen in waves, growing ever more fiercely intense.
Once, she had been filled with passionate fervor and devoted her entire life to the sect. Yet after all these years, she had finally been worn out by such internal strife. She was weary, exhausted.
Out of sight, out of mind. She had secluded herself in her cave abode and had not stepped outside for several centuries.
Those rising pillar elders of the sect had likely forgotten that there was still an elder like Wang Muyun.
"Long ago, I heard that person was either in seclusion or brewing spring water and drinking alone beneath the flower trees in his courtyard. Back then, I simply could not understand why, as the strongest existence in the Shadowed Domain, he would still so often feel lonely..."
"Now, though, I seem to understand a little!"
"Sadly, things remain while people change; seas turn to mulberry fields. Everything is too late. Nothing can return..."
She raised the teacup in her hand toward the empty seat across the table, forcing a faint smile onto her face. "Please!"
It was as though that person had