Events unfolded just as Huo Dongxi had predicted.
Over the next three years, the Nine Suns Sword Sect not only left Li Yun alone, but even recalled the people it had stationed near Guangyang Prefecture.
It looked as though the sect had no intention of clashing with Li Yun and was afraid of giving him the wrong idea.
The Huang Lineage was getting anxious.
Only two years remained before the Purple Jade Cave Heaven opened, yet the Nine Suns Sword Sect had neither sent anyone to deal with Li Yun nor made any of the probing moves they had expected.
Their plan to watch Li Yun clash with the Nine Suns Sword Sect had come to nothing.
The Huang Lineage began to wonder whether Li Yun and the Nine Suns Sword Sect had been in league all along. Perhaps his public killing of Gu Sha had been nothing but a performance they had staged together.
And perhaps Li Yun had returned to Guangyang Prefecture and settled into the Shen Family's residence not to provoke the Nine Suns Sword Sect, much less to enter seclusion, but to keep watch on the Huang Lineage so they could seize the initiative the moment the Purple Jade Cave Heaven opened?
The suspicion drove the Huang Lineage to the edge.
That day,
Huang Yuanqing, head of the Huang Lineage, paced anxiously back and forth in his study, frowning as he muttered curses at Li Yun and the Nine Suns Sword Sect.
Suddenly, a figure appeared silently at the study door.
It was a young man with a proud expression.
"Father!"
"Tianhua, you... Why have you come back? Wait, you've broken through?"
Huang Yuanqing was startled the instant he saw the young man. Then, as if he had noticed something, intense delight spread across his face.