That night, the group rested in their newly built stone houses, conserving their strength. Meng Zhao, meanwhile, wore a suit of black soft armor and sat cross-legged atop a mountain peak, overlooking the valley below and the profound, unfathomable ritual altar.
The mountain wind swept past, cold frost sharp as blades. Though it was merely a difference in elevation, it felt like the distance between two worlds.
Meng Zhao watched for a long time, his gaze exceptionally focused. One hour, then two—he neither rose to stir his blood and qi nor shifted his eyes elsewhere, as though utterly fascinated by the valley's many mysteries.
At that moment, a figure shot up from the valley below, streaking all the way across the slick, perilous cliff face and leaping onto the mountaintop, arriving near Meng Zhao.
His crimson robe was red as blood. Beneath his handsome features lay a powerful, blazing aura, intensely aggressive. It was Fire Envoy Si Peng, Meng Zhao's superior under his current hidden identity.
"Lu Yang, why did you come out alone in the dead of night, climbing to this mountaintop to catch the cold wind? Could it be that you have something on your mind?"
Si Peng clasped his hands behind his back, a dense killing intent concealed without leaking a trace. His attitude toward Meng Zhao was no longer quite normal.
Where he had once held three parts wariness and seven parts trust, it had now become three parts trust and seven parts wariness.
It could not be helped. In the deep night, with heavy dew, Meng Zhao had gone out alone and stood upon this cliff in a posture of overlooking the valley. It was far too suspicious. It would have been abnormal not to suspect him.
Fortunately, Meng Zhao had merely been observing the