``` [You quietly found Lü Qingyu and her party of six again, yet only used the gentle force of the Evergreen Art to awaken Xiao Wan'er.]
[Amid the mountain forest where morning dew had yet to dry, ripples stirred in the barefoot girl's suddenly opened eyes, like spring waters newly born.]
["Little Jing, I knew it was you."]
[You felt somewhat helpless as the barefoot girl pressed her entire body against you and wrapped her arms around you.]
[You held her by the shoulders. "Senior Sister Xiao, enough, enough."]
[Xiao Wan'er was known among the Little Green Peak disciples for her icy aloofness and her refusal to let strangers approach, yet before you, she was especially obedient.]
["I'll listen to Little Jing in everything."]
[Xiao Wan'er asked nothing, and you returned to Mount Fangcun's camp.]
[What followed was simple. Yang Chen and the others returned and learned that the demonic cultivators had already receded like the tide. The fellow disciples looked at one another, all wearing the dazed expression of survivors who had narrowly escaped death.]
[Yang Chen came to find you. Seeing that you still looked as though none of this concerned you, he secretly pondered. It was a fact that this Junior Brother Zhou had never left the camp from beginning to end.]
[Yet he had an inexplicable premonition, just as he had during the matter of the "pregnant white snake." It seemed to have threads upon threads of connection to you, but whenever he tried to grasp the end of one, there was nowhere to begin.]
[Lin Shuang led five people out of the thin mist. You also did not report to Lü Qingyu and the others that those five had left.]
["Senior Brother Zhou!"]
[After the five greeted you, delight showed on all their faces.]
[Especially