The sound still rang in his ears, but people and things had changed beyond recognition.
Thought Deprivation had only been an attempt. When Shouye's voice was truly stripped out, Xu Xiaoshou instead fell into a daze.
"Old man, long time no see..."
Shouye was one of the rare few who truly held fast to his convictions.
In Xu Xiaoshou's memory, Shouye seemed to have devoted his entire life to the frontier, suppressing who knew how many savage Ghost Beasts.
When they first met at Tiansang City's City Lord's Manor, Shouye had tried to capture him as a Ghost Beast Host. Looking at it now, he had not been wrong.
When they met again, they had already gone to White Cavern. Shouye had even extended an olive branch to him, but their paths differed, and they could no longer walk together.
Since they had gone their separate ways, every encounter afterward had ended with one chasing and the other fleeing.
It was not that Xu Xiaoshou could not defeat Shouye, nor that he had no way to scheme against and kill him.
It was simply that, though their stances differed and their paths diverged, he acknowledged this Red Robes member's steadfastness. He knew some people could be killed and should be killed, while some things could be done and should be done.
But when it came to Shouye, he mostly chose to muddle through.
Meeting in humble beginnings, they cherished one another as kindred spirits.
During the Royal City Trial in the Yunlun Mountain Range, at their final meeting beneath Solitary Sound Cliff in the Deep Sea, there was little Xu Xiaoshou could do. He had merely casually given Shouye a few bottles of pills.
He had never considered it anything worth mentioning.
After that, once the Nine-Death Lightning Tribulation beneath