"The Emotion Clan."
Those four words fell into the dark red light like a copper coin dropping into the deep well, stirring up a tiny splash while leaving a long echo.
Zhang Chu stood at the center of Purgatory Heaven, his half-gold and half-white hair drooping slightly in the windless air, the silver vertical mark between his brows casting a chilling light.
His Spiritual Power was still unfurled, yet in this core hinterland of Underworld Heaven, it had been compressed to the absolute extreme.
Lan stood before him.
No, that could not be called Lan standing before him.
Song Li's body stood before him.
She wore that practical martial attire already saturated by the dark red light, and the short sword still hung at her waist.
The copper buckle on the scabbard cast a warm, dark golden hue in the dark red light.
Yet she was no longer Song Li.
That face remained Song Li's face, but her bones had shifted, her skin was as thin as aged paper, and her dark red pupils churned with a stillness that had been sealed away for tens of thousands of years.
She stood upon that boundless dark red platform like an old pillar grown from the ruins—lean, steady, and unmoving.
"The Emotion Clan."
Zhang Chu repeated those four words.
His tone was very flat, flat as though he were recounting a name he had already heard somewhere before, yet could not temporarily remember where.
Lan did not urge him.
She raised her withered, skinny right hand, her five fingers spread open, palm facing upward.
A pale and extremely thin grayish-white light condensed in her palm, like a drop of water salvaged from a very deep place.
"Do you know why the Three Worlds Well was chosen by the Secret Treasure of Emotion?"