[Qingyuan, my disciple, by the time you see this Jade Slip, your master will already be gone. Do not worry. My lifespan had long since reached its end. The only reason I was able to return to Yuzhou alive was because I was holding on to my final breath.]
[Looking back over this old man's life, I achieved nothing. Above, I failed my master; below, I failed my friends and family. You disciples who joined our lineage suffered even more because of this old man...]
Beneath the dim yellow sunset, Zhang Qingyuan held a Jade Slip in his hand. Within his Sea of Consciousness, Daoist Ming Shui's vaguely visible figure floated in mid-air, gazing beyond the heavens with what seemed to be a trace of bewilderment.
And at this moment,
Before Zhang Qingyuan, at the cliff's edge drowned in the afterglow of the setting sun, Daoist Ming Shui's body sat quietly cross-legged. His frame was dry as a skeleton, without the slightest trace of life.
Between heaven and earth lay deathly silence.
Even sound itself seemed to have vanished.
Daoist Ming Shui was dead.
Even before this, he had had less than a few months of lifespan remaining. His life had been nearing its end.
To rescue Zhang Qingyuan, he had forced back the Cave True Realm Cultivators who had joined forces to assassinate him, burning away the remainder of his lifespan in the process.
After leaving behind a Jade Slip to settle his final affairs, he had passed away on the spot.
Zhang Qingyuan stood silently at the cliff's edge, clutching the Jade Slip, silent for a long while.
Within the Jade Slip, Daoist Ming Shui had also frankly explained the relationship between their lineage and the sect.
He said that if he had not wished, back then, to