The young Daoist in black was the boy He Ping had rescued at Golden Bull Head Temple.
Chixinzi had even hidden the token on this boy, luring He Ping into ambushing the demon monk Abula and taking the token.
He Ping had seen back then that the boy possessed the aptitude for cultivation. Just as he had expected, the boy named Liansheng had also caught a cultivator's eye and learned Daoist arts. He was now an expert whose divine soul had reached Great Cheng.
Several years had already passed since He Ping explored the Narcissus Ruins and obtained the immortal embryo and the Seed Demon Technique. Over those years, the boy had gradually grown up; coupled with all the upheavals he had endured, he looked far more mature than before.
In truth, with He Ping's Primordial Spirit at Great Cheng, his thoughts possessed the ability to peer into past and future. A single glance should have been enough for him to recognize Liansheng's identity.
Yet Liansheng had also been subjected to the arts of an expert, as though his fate and karmic threads had been altered. Unless He Ping noticed something amiss, discerned the clues, and used his magical power to calculate further, he could not see through this veil merely by relying on recognition.
As for the woman dressed in lake-blue robes, she was the young lady who had once led a caravan to spend the night at Beacon Smoke Fortress.
Beacon Smoke Fortress lay in Tunyun Province of the Western Wasteland Province, several hundred li from here. The Western Wasteland Province had never been a peaceful place; since ancient times, it had frequently suffered the ravages of war.
In fact, whenever dynasties rose and fell, the Western Wasteland Province would be engulfed in beacon fires and chaos. When