Night Talk
"Aunt Qing?"
Yu Ci stared over in astonishment, only to see a long shadow winding through the air. A female cultivator stood suspended atop it, simply dressed, her gaze sweeping over the two of them. Surprise showed on her usually unsmiling face.
"Immortal He?"
Was this not Xie Yan's territory? Yu Ci had not expected to encounter her here, but Gan Shizhen's form of address was even stranger. When they had first met, had the female cultivator not called Yu Zhou senior brother? Why, upon meeting He Qing, who was of the old Daoist's generation, did she lower herself by another generation? Unfortunately, no one was there to answer him. He only heard He Qing offer faint praise:
"Today, you stepped into the void and flew through the sky. It is another realm entirely. Shizhen, your future is indeed boundless."
"You praise me too highly, Aunt Qing."
The smile from their first meeting faded. The delicate female cultivator lowered her face slightly and answered softly. Yu Ci had been watching her all along. After spending many days together, he had gained some understanding of her temperament. He always felt that after seeing He Qing, her attitude had become somewhat strange—joyful, yet somewhat distant. It was deeply contradictory.
Yet what he felt more was envy. He knew that from the moment she awakened several days ago, Gan Shizhen had officially entered the Void-Stepping Realm, breaking through the so-called Form Stabilization Pass of cultivation—the limit of three hundred years before decline and death. From then on, she would have more ample time and more varied opportunities to seek the immortal path of the Great Dao. This was something the white-haired Daoist Yu Zhou had still been unable to achieve.
Of course, she had traded her life for such an achievement.