Especially Zhan Tai—at the sight of Ye Tian, he unconsciously recalled that morning in Azure City, when he had awakened after a night of unconsciousness and opened his eyes to see Ye Tian for the first time.
Exactly the same as now—or rather, now was exactly the same as then.
Still just over twenty, gentle and refined, seeming to face everything with calm waters and still winds. In his spare time, he was always reading or doing something leisurely and elegant, like a carefree scholar wandering the dusty world.
More than ten years had passed. They had all grown from youths into young men. Shi Yuan in particular now looked far older than Ye Tian.
Yet when Shi Yuan saw Ye Tian, he was instead the one with the humblest posture, the sincerest and most respectful.
"Big Brother Ye Tian!"
After stepping over the threshold, the group stopped as one and deeply bowed in salute to their teacher.
"Come over and sit," Ye Tian said, lifting his eyes from the books and rising with a smile to greet them.
During those three years long ago, they had all spent plenty of time in this small courtyard. They did not stand on ceremony, each casually finding a stone stool to sit on.
"Please sit, please sit!" Only Shi Yuan waited until Ye Tian had taken his seat before sitting down beside him. His enthusiastic manner made the others struggle not to laugh.
Every time they met, everyone would tease Shi Yuan about what had happened aboard the boat back then. Shi Yuan alone had no way to deal with that matter; he could not even find words to refute them. Or perhaps he actually liked being teased about it.
They casually chatted about what had happened during their cultivation on their