Before Spring Turned Green

Plain Spirit Peak.

The wind carried the bitter freshness and dampness of grass and trees, mingling with the thin cloud-mist at the summit as it swept across the bluestone platform. No one had come here for a long time. Weeds had claimed most of the ground, their stubborn blades pushing through cracks in the bluestone and forcing fine fissures across its hard surface. One could not tell whether to sigh at its desolation or laugh at its wild charm.

Ye Jingxuan stood at the cliff's edge, unconsciously rubbing the hilt of his wooden sword with his fingertips as he gazed toward the end of the rolling sea of clouds. He had waited here for quite some time, yet his mind remained on his conversation with the Peach Blossom Immortal.

Regarding the Profound Heaven Sect, he had only vaguely said that it was part of the immortal's "forgotten past." He had not dared explain the entanglements of those years in detail—indeed, he truly did not know those deeply buried events himself.

He had only said that his elders wished to invite the immortal to stay at the sect for a while. Yet he had also honestly admitted that the immortal's identity as a Ghost Cultivator might bring trouble. At the end, he had solemnly looked toward the phantom on the flowering branch. "No matter what the immortal chooses, I will support him."

He did not know how much the immortal had taken in. He only remembered the other man lightly tapping a peach blossom at the end of the branch. The pink-white petals trembled, as though agreeing to meet True Person Yu Qing.

The meeting place had been chosen by True Person Yu Qing: a platform near the summit of Plain Spirit Peak. Looking at the wildly overgrown weeds around him,