A stream beneath the clear sky and drifting clouds looked like a little road with no known destination, carrying those heartbreaking memories as it wound toward a distance beyond sight.
The white-haired man atop the bluestone opened his eyes. A sword hidden for a thousand years had revealed its edge, and this entire world was pierced by its pain.
The clouds split apart in layer after layer.
But he merely gazed calmly ahead, his sword-like eyes illuminating the clear stream, unable to give rise to even a wisp of feeling.
"Is there something?" he asked.
Ripples stirred faintly across the stream's surface, reflecting a Daoist-robed woman with her hair bound beneath a jade crown.
The corners of her brows and temples seemed bathed in starlight, her features dignified and perfectly composed. There was grace in her appearance, and the trace of passing years as well. The divine light in her eyes was as ever-changing as the faintly shifting water ripples.
"Hey, listen." The Daoist-robed woman's voice carried a note of complaint. "The Duke of Huai Mansion in Great Chu sent someone to pass you a message, and you would not even listen? You are not going to care about that precious disciple of yours?"
"He wanted to kill someone, and I did not stop him. If he is about to be killed, why should I interfere?" the white-haired man asked blandly.
Fine lines rippled across the water mirror, and the woman's face within it seemed to fracture somewhat.
"Uh..."
That actually made a great deal of sense. For a moment, there was no rebuttal!
"But he is your disciple, after all, and also a direct inheritor of our Southern Dipper Hall," the woman said.
The white-haired man calmly watched the clear stream. "The matter was his own doing, and the