Yu Sui left the Hún Tiān Yí Chǎng and hurried toward the outer city.
She did her best to avoid crowded places, taking less-traveled paths to slip away quietly. She met Xue Mushi on the road outside the academy.
They had both been busy with their own cultivation lately and rarely saw each other, communicating almost entirely through the Listening Wind Ruler.
Xue Mushi arrived at their meeting spot first. He stood beneath a street lamp, its light dim and yellow. This was a secluded path, and the only street lamp stood at this fork in the road.
The temperature had plummeted after nightfall recently. A night breeze slipped down the back of Xue Mushi's neck, and its chill made him hunch his shoulders. He sensed the strange flame wavering deep in his consciousness and turned toward it, spotting a familiar figure strolling through the misty darkness.
Yu Sui idly played with the Listening Wind Ruler in one hand. When she drew near, she looked up at Xue Mushi, and they walked side by side into the depths of the path.
Night mist veiled the street lamp's glow, making it impossible to see what lay ahead.
"You're triggering the Fire Spirit Orb by bringing yourself to the brink of death. You'll be all right, won't you?" Xue Mushi still sounded worried.
"I can keep it under control," Yu Sui said. "There's no other way."
They followed the Mountain Wall deeper in. As Yu Sui had explained, they needed to go to a remote stretch of coast where few people went, far from the academy and the outer city, in case anything went wrong.
Xue Mushi lowered his voice. "You said before that the man who's hard to tell apart as male or female, and the ill-tempered man, were already World