A handful of yellow earth, a beautiful face and white bones

Leaving Maple Forest City through the west gate, following the official road for about seven or eight li, then turning left onto a small path, in less than half an incense stick's time, you'll see Green Willow River with weeping willows lining its banks.

The evening breeze brushed his face, the bright moon reflected in the rippling light, a shimmering expanse.

When Jiang Wang emerged from the small path, he saw Ling He's thin, stooped figure standing by the riverbank like a silent tree.

"Hey, let me see, let me see." Zhao Rucheng darted in front of him, craning his neck. "Bet you were hiding here crying your eyes out, weren't you?"

Ling He looked helpless. "How did you guys get here?"

"Your voice is a little hoarse. You definitely cried!"

Just then, a rough voice came from the riverside grass. "Zhao, sometimes you really need a beating, you know that?"

"Brother Hu, you're here too?" Zhao Rucheng shrank his neck. Du Yehu, that brute, would really throw a punch at the slightest disagreement, and he wouldn't spare Zhao's handsome face.

"I was already here drinking." Du Yehu said grumpily, the smell of alcohol wafting on the evening breeze. "Didn't expect him to drag that bastard over too. Bad luck."

"Exactly! Why even bury him?" Zhao Rucheng chimed in. "A heartless, ungrateful thing like that should just be thrown into the river, let him float downstream and feed the fish and shrimp."

Jiang Wang glanced in the direction Du Yehu had come from. "Is he buried there?"

"Third brother," Ling He said, mindful of Jiang Wang's feelings, "I haven't forgotten Pengju's wrongs, but I still remember his kindness too. My family was poor, I often couldn't eat my fill. Pengju always used the excuse of asking me to teach him martial arts, dragging me along and not letting me go until mealtime. He deserved to die, but I couldn't leave his body out in the wild... Of course, you've been good to me too. That year we wiped out Green Ox Stronghold, you saved me..."

"Why bring that up?" Jiang Wang cut him off. "When my father was alive, he told me that adults are different from children. The first thing an adult must learn is to seek common ground while reserving differences. Saying 'I don't play with him, so you can't either'—that's a child's game. You, Fang Pengju, and I—let's keep our relationships separate. I won't let it affect your deep bond with him, and you won't let it affect my cutting ties with him."

"That makes sense," Ling He said.

He looked around at the Green Willow River bank under the night sky. "There's always this illusion that yesterday hasn't passed. Not much has changed here, but we're all different now."

"Nothing stays the same. The only constant in this world is that everything is always changing." After saying this with profound meaning, Zhao Rucheng shamelessly sidled up to Ling He again. "Burying someone doesn't take this long. Were you two crying in each other's arms?"

The moment he finished speaking, he leaped into the air, nimbly dodging Du Yehu's flying kick.

"Tsk tsk, lashing out in anger..." He'd only gotten halfway through his taunt when he quickly cupped his hands and bowed. "Wrong, wrong, Brother Hu."

Du Yehu was already cracking his knuckles as he chased after him. "You're not wrong. I was just about to cry in your arms with you."

Watching the two roughhousing, Ling He said leisurely, "But I believe there are some things that can't be changed."

"Your words, I agree with half," Jiang Wang said.

Somehow, the "sparring" between Du Yehu and Zhao Rucheng turned into a four-way brawl. Fists and feet flew, each tripping the others. By the end, everyone was panting, then they burst into laughter together, and then cried in each other's arms.

If anyone had passed by Green Willow River that night, they might have started another rumor about water ghosts or something.

The four brothers finally left Green Willow River side by side, leaving behind this place that held their youth and friendship.

No one spoke again.

Only Zhao Rucheng muttered one last thing as he looked back:

"Over there, don't hurt your friends anymore. You dead bastard."

Moonlight flowed over the shimmering waves of Green Willow River, and also poured down through the broken roof of Huanzhen Temple.

Perhaps it was because of the moonlight, but the faces of the two people speaking in this ruined temple were both deathly pale.

One was a striking woman, dressed in a bright red gown, her figure exquisite with all the right curves. Especially the dazzling white at her slightly open collar, so bright it was hard to look away.

Her face was too pale too, which should have made her seem weak and sickly, but instead she gave off a startling beauty. Perhaps it was because of those overly vivid red lips?

She sat carelessly on the dusty incense altar, so beautiful yet so at ease.

She lightly traced her red lips with her pinky finger and said, "The beggars in this temple are all dead. How troublesome. What are we going to use to invoke the divine decree?"

Her voice seemed to first circle the cobwebs on the eaves before reaching its intended destination, sounding somewhat hollow.

"A cultivator's life soul would be enough."

The speaker stood at the doorway. Unlike the woman in red, he seemed unwilling to set even half a foot into this filthy ruined temple, and even covered his nose and mouth with an embroidered plum blossom handkerchief.

"Oh my, easy for you to say," the woman in red said. "We have to sneak around just to kill a few mortals. Kill a cultivator? Afraid the Zhuang Kingdom Daoist Academy won't come knocking?"

"Sooner or later, every single person in this city is going to die," the man said, frowning. "Do we have to talk in a place like this?"

The woman in red giggled. "The famous Zuo Guanglie fell right here. The people of Zhuang have turned this place upside down at least ten times. There's nowhere cleaner nearby."

Speaking of Zuo Guanglie, she actually closed her eyes slightly, revealing a look of intoxication, and even a flush quickly spread across her pale face. "I can almost still smell his virile aura~"

"Back to business," the man interrupted her reverie without changing his expression. "Wei Quji is no pushover, and now Dong A has arrived. We must find the Dao Child as soon as possible. Those Qin and Chu barbarians are fighting all over the place, messing up the Huanzhen Temple sacrifice. If you ask me, instead of sneaking around catching mortals one by one, it'd be simpler and cleaner to just sacrifice one cultivator."

"There's more than one way to die. Why fixate on that? Why not slit your throat with a sword? Or call down lightning to strike yourself?"

Perhaps annoyed at having her reverie interrupted, the woman in red opened her beautiful eyes and dropped her smile. "Until the Dao Child appears, you'd better learn what 'keeping a low profile' means!"

The man seemed a bit irritated too, covering his nose. "Miao Yu! Wasn't it your idea to attack Maple Forest Dao Academy? Now you've stirred up the whole city. If we're not careful, our great plan will fail!"

"What do you know? This world is too big, too many accidents! Who could have predicted Zuo Guanglie would die like that? And just happen to ruin our sacrifice plan. At the bottom of the River of Oblivion, the white bones have been silent too long! There can't be any more accidents! Right now in Maple Forest City, Dong A is crucial. We must determine his strength and his bottom line! Some sacrifices are inevitable. Besides..."

The woman in red, named Miao Yu, licked her lips. "Did you know, the beggars in this ruined temple aren't all dead? In Maple Forest City Daoist Academy, I smelled a familiar scent..."

The dirty environment made the man increasingly impatient. "What do I care about the life or death of some beggar?"

Miao Yu casually stretched, her beautiful figure on full display. "Idiot."

The man narrowed his eyes, hiding the flash of desire that passed through them. "Don't think that just because you're nominally the Dao Child's woman, you can act so recklessly. The sect has had plenty of holy maidens over the millennia. When the Dao Child appears, whether he wants you or acknowledges you remains to be seen."

"Rosy cheeks and white bones—empty, illusory. Can you not see through it?"

"Heh heh heh heh." The man turned and walked out of the temple. "Whether I see through it or not, what difference does it make? It is what it is."

After a long while, in this quiet and dilapidated old temple, a seductive whisper finally arose softly, rippling outward like moonlight.

"How could he not love me? How could he not want me? I've guarded this place for so many years, waited for so many years..."

The originally scheduled public update rule was a single chapter on weekends, at 8 PM. But readers all said that today was also a workday, everyone was at work or in class... so, double update it is. Tomorrow is a single update. Double updates only on Monday and Friday.