"Pitter-patter..."
They struck the leaves, splashed into the mud, and spread into ring after ring of ripples across the lake.
Several months after Hua Changdeng had hunted ghosts with his lantern, the Sorrowful Emperor Realm finally welcomed its first rain.
This meant the weather had returned to normal, the Emperor Realm had recovered its usual state, and everything was back on track.
The rain pattered harder and harder.
More and more fish blew bubbles in the mountain lake, as though they had all been suffocating for far too long and were scrambling to swim out for a breath of fresh air.
"Wah!"
The lake surface burst open, revealing one Bei Huai after another.
There were mermaids with human heads and fish bodies, and beautiful fish Bei Huai with fish heads and human bodies...
As the fish breathed in the fresh air, one Bei Huai swam from nearby to the shore. It had a human head and fish body, with the plump little face of a baby atop its neck. It was exceedingly adorable. "What are you thinking about?"
The white-robed, barefoot Bei Huai on shore was resting his chin in his hand, his eyes vacant, as though he had been lost in thought there for a long time.
Dead leaves lay all around him, dust covered his body, and cobwebs hung along the slant between his legs and the stone, tethering his chin to his chest.
He had become one with the trees, the stones, the lake, the wind, the rain... not an individual, but something wholly natural.
At the sound, the motionless, naturally integrated Bei Huai seemed to have his soul return. His eyes shifted, and he slowly looked down.
Whoosh! Wind and rain swept in from the lakeside.
The dust and cobwebs on Bei Huai's body were washed