The Great Celestial Venerable stood high above, looking down on everything. Ants could not see the person looking down at them. In their understanding, humans might not even exist. But Lu Yin was no ant. He could see the Great Celestial Venerable, and that meant they were the same kind of person.
That was Lu Yin's stubbornness. It was like the last time he met the Great Celestial Venerable, when she asked whether he hated her and he did not answer.
He had no standing to challenge the Great Celestial Venerable, yet he did everything he could to preserve a shred of dignity. That shred of dignity was like a spark that could set the prairie ablaze. One day, it would burn the entire universe.
"Venerable, can the tea gathering begin?" Wood God asked calmly.
The Great Celestial Venerable shifted her gaze from Lu Yin. Her hollow eyes looked neither at those seated around her nor at the nine million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand listeners. Instead, she looked toward Reincarnation Space-Time, toward the Six Directions Meeting, toward the Boundless Battlefield, toward the countless people fighting the Eternal Clan—and perhaps even toward the River of Time, toward the heroes and prodigies born throughout human history.
One name after another left the Great Celestial Venerable's lips. Each belonged to someone who had contributed to humanity, someone who had given their life for humanity.
That was the tea gathering. Savoring tea was only part of it. It was also about savoring life, the passage of time, and the long history of humanity.
At every tea gathering, the Great Celestial Venerable recounted these stories. Those people deserved to be remembered, deserved to be commemorated by all.
That was what it meant to be human. The Eternal Clan said that emotion was humanity's greatest weakness.