"She isn't the Eldest Princess." Her granddaughter stood behind her, gazing up at the indistinct white figure among the clouds. Her voice was so soft, as though she feared disturbing him. "He's the Eldest Princess's son."
The old woman slowly raised her head. Her cloudy eyes followed her granddaughter's gaze.
High above the clouds, the white figure appeared and disappeared from view. His face and clothes were impossible to make out. All they could see was a hazy glow enveloping him, like the rising sun—gentle, yet impossible to look at directly.
"He looks... so much like her..." the old woman murmured to herself. Tears streamed down her wrinkled cheeks, one drop after another striking the flagstones and shattering into splashes.
High above, Xu Yanli lowered his hand.
He looked at the milky-white pillars of light shooting into the sky, at the faces within them—old, young, bewildered—and fell silent for a long time.
He couldn't even explain to himself why he had done this.
When he came to Star Luo City, he could have flown straight into the palace, walked up to Xu Jiawei, and said what needed to be said and done what needed to be done.
But he hadn't. Instead, he had stopped above the city, poured his power down upon these ordinary people, and rekindled the Fire of Faith that was on the verge of going out.
Why had he done it?
He couldn't figure it out.
Perhaps it was because of his mother. A woman he had never met, whose image he had pieced together from countless people's accounts and countless little details.
She had lived in this city for more than twenty years, planting seeds of kindness here, only to be betrayed by her own younger brother, have her Martial Soul shattered by Divine Punishment, and