More than twenty thousand li southwest of the nameless island in the lake.
Here lay a stretch of rolling mountains.
Song Wen hid within a dense forest at the foot of a mountain, burying himself in the earth.
After parting ways with Feng Zhongli, he had made his way here by a roundabout route.
Though he knew there was a fortunate opportunity to the southwest, Song Wen had not rashly gone there.
Yuan Rong and the other three had joined forces, yet still returned with their feathers soaked; if Song Wen went alone, he would either come back empty-handed as well, or fail to escape at all and die there.
Thus, Song Wen chose to wait here. Once Yuan Rong and the others headed there again, he would follow them and wait for an opportunity to act.
More than ten days passed, and the tedious wait finally bore fruit.
Four figures swept across the skies overhead, drawing nearer from afar.
Song Wen keenly sensed that they were Yuan Rong, Feng Zhongli, Ji Yue, and Xuan Li—four late-stage Mahayana cultivators. Their auras were all deep and mighty, unfathomable as the sea.
Evidently, throughout these past ten-odd days, the four had been recuperating and restoring their spiritual power.
Where is Xuan Gu? Why hadn't he gone with them?
Could it be... that, for some reason, they had abandoned Xuan Gu?
Song Wen mused inwardly.
He could not help but ponder whether he should immediately follow the four, or first go find Xuan Gu.
Killing Xuan Gu offered two benefits.
First, he could learn from him exactly what fortunate opportunity lay to the southwest.
Second, he could use the spiritual power within Xuan Gu's body to assault the bottleneck of the early Mahayana stage. If all went smoothly, his cultivation could advance to