Three days later, deep in the Death Swamp.
The light here was even dimmer than on the outskirts.
The poisonous miasma in the air was thicker, too.
Li Xiaoyu traveled alone through this perilous land.
He had sent all his fellow disciples away, including Lu Xueqi.
Li Xiaoyu had come to find someone.
He had come to have a true man-to-man conversation with the dear friend he had never been able to let go of.
Following that familiar, icy baleful aura, he pressed onward.
At last, in a Bone Forest made up of countless enormous, withered bones,
Li Xiaoyu saw the familiar figure.
Ghost Li sat quietly atop a gigantic, unidentified beast bone.
Beside him, Little Gray held a wild fruit and munched on it with relish.
In the black mire beneath Ghost Li's feet, enormous monster fish with sharp fangs kept trying to leap from the water and attack him by surprise.
But without exception, the moment they came within three feet of Ghost Li, an invisible force shredded them to pieces.
Li Xiaoyu stopped at the edge of the Bone Forest.
He did not go any farther.
He simply gazed in silence at that figure, so utterly out of place in the world.
"You came."
Ghost Li didn't turn around, but his voice rang out softly.
"I came."
Li Xiaoyu answered.
A brief silence fell between them.
Only the mournful cries of some unknown swamp birds echoed through the air.
"What did you come to see me for?"
After a long while, Ghost Li finally spoke again.
His voice was still cold, but now it carried a note of weariness.
"I just wanted to see you."
Li Xiaoyu looked at him and spoke slowly.
"I wanted to know whether you've been all right these past ten years."
Ghost