Half a quarter-hour earlier, in the inner hall of Shi Mansion.
The hall was simply furnished. There was only a table, not even a chair. A nameless memorial tablet, draped in red silk, sat upon it.
Before the table, Su Lanyue lit three sticks of incense. After bowing three times, she placed them in the incense burner.
She had followed this routine for decades, ever since Shi Lan left home. Su Lanyue did not believe in gods or Buddhas, but now, besides praying to those elusive deities to protect Shi Lan as she wandered far from home, there was nothing she could do.
Both Shi Lan and the Lingyang Realm had changed too drastically for her to keep up. Her world had never been large; once, it had held only the little city of Tenglong. Now, all that remained in it was Shi Lan.
Ever since the day Shi Lan had secretly left Tenglong City, Su Lanyue had rarely slept soundly.
From an "innately useless body" in Tenglong City to the peerless king whose name resounded across Shenzhou, Su Lanyue could only wonder how much hardship Shi Lan had endured.
Shi Lan had never spoken of it to her, but with every return home, Su Lanyue had seen how she had changed.
She could feel Shi Lan's heart growing colder by degrees. Without her even realizing it, Shi Lan's temperament had become resilient beyond anything she could imagine.
Whenever she thought of this, her heart bled. Compared with that sudden calamity of demons, what she hated more was her own helplessness—that she could not shelter Shi Lan beneath her wings for her whole life.
Creak—
Su Lanyue was staring into the curling wisps of smoke when the sound of a door opening suddenly came from behind her.
Shi Tianlu stepped