Spring rain pattered down in fine, trailing threads, sinking into the earth.
A faint mist rose over the green hills and waters.
In a scattered patch of farmland, Fang Yixin was no longer dressed like a young noble. Instead, he wore a bamboo hat and a straw rain cape, his trouser legs rolled up. He looked just like an old farmer, tilling the ridges between the fields.
After a long while, he straightened and wiped the mud from his hands, smiling wryly. "I used to think that entering the Dao and cultivating immortality meant dining on wind and drinking dew, making a few friends, roaming the eight directions by night, setting out at dawn and returning by dusk, and coming back with flowers in hand... I never imagined it would be like this."
"Heh, heh..."
Not far away, Hu Quan'an smiled as he cast the Spirit Rain Technique. "When I was young, I thought just like you... but now you know better, don't you? We fought tooth and nail to get even this miserable job. If I hadn't swallowed my pride and pulled strings, you wouldn't have been able to sell your life even if you wanted to!"
At his words, Fang Yixin could only smile bitterly.
News from the outside world kept pouring in. The demon army had already broken through Ba Commandery and Yulin Commandery, swallowing most of Shu Land. Reports of military unrest had even come from farther east and the Southern Border.
The cultivators who had stayed behind, unable to bear leaving their ancestral homes, were naturally full of complaints. They fled with their whole families, but most could not escape. They were captured and thrown into the army, then sent to their deaths wave after wave...
The number of cultivators in Xituo Commandery swelled once