"Brother Xiang!"
Zhongshan Weisun sprang to his feet and called out warmly.
Xiang Bei carried the World-Covering Halberd upside down as he turned around, indicating that he was "watching."
"It has been eight years since we parted at River Viewing Terrace!" Zhongshan Weisun's face was wreathed in smiles. "Brother Xiang's heroic bearing still often rises before my eyes!"
Eight years had passed. Neither of them was the fledgling phoenix of old, only just testing its cry. They had each been through much.
Time had carved Xiang Bei's features into something stark and hard. Once arrogant to the heavens, peerlessly domineering, he was now deeply restrained.
Hearing this, he merely said, "The heroic bearing of having Flame Flowers pressed onto my face?"
For many years afterward, whenever people revisited the Yellow River Assembly of Dao Calendar 3919 and discussed the finest moments of that prodigy gathering that had outshone all generations, two matches usually received the loudest acclaim—
Dou Zhao and Chongxuan Zun, two prodigies born into the same age; Jiang Wang's Sword Immortal against Qin Zhizhen's Yama Son of Heaven.
Below those came Jiang Wang's sword cutting across Reverse Journey, and Jiang Wang pressing Flame Flowers onto Xiang Bei's face.
This was a battle often brought out for observation, discussion, and study. Of course it often rose in one's mind. When many outside Chu Kingdom spoke of Xiang Bei... ah, that big fellow whose face Jiang Wang had set alight with Flame Flowers!
Zhongshan Weisun froze for a moment, then hurriedly tried to patch things up. "That's all in the past! Who hasn't had a poor showing now and then? Back then, I was only one of the Outer Tower Arena's final four."
"I made the Inner Palace Arena's final eight," Xiang Bei said.
Only then did Zhongshan Weisun recall