Sea of Sand, Wu Mountain Town in the frontier Black Pine Oasis.
The dim setting sun dyed all of Black Mountain red.
Four wicker chairs and a pavilion, though two of the chairs already stood empty.
Two old men sat in the wicker chairs, both watching the setting sun, now halfway below the horizon. One of them had his eyelids hanging especially low, as if he might ride a crane westward the next moment.
The other old man was reclining as well, but aside from his face, his eyes remained strikingly bright.
"Old man, let's play another game of chess." The even more aged old man struggled to push himself up from his wicker chair, pointing toward a well-worn chess set in the nearby pavilion.
Yet he seemed to have exhausted his last scrap of strength. After struggling for a long while, he still could not rise. In the end, he merely shifted his head and looked to the side.
"Old Man Chen, you're an immortal master, aren't you?"
Though his words were faint, they startled the old man beside him. It was as if he had remembered something, and a flood of memories came rushing in like the tide.
Only after a long while did he ask curiously, "Old Man Qi, why do you think so?"
This man was naturally Ye Jingcheng, who had secluded himself here to forge and temper his heart.
Over these past seventy-odd years, for the first twenty-some years, he had taken on various duties within the Ye Family, just as the elders in his memories had done—guarding the Treasure Pavilion, growing medicinal herbs, and teaching spells.
Then, for the next fifty years, he entered the Ye Family's mortal world.
To make his insights even deeper, he had even sealed away his memories and cultivation.