A Meeting of Fate

The mountain wind had shed its biting chill, carrying the vigorous life of grass and trees and the last faint fragrance of fallen blossoms as it brushed past Shen Yuxi's robes. Having dealt with the incident at Beast Spirit Peak, he did not hurry back to Spirit Pool Peak, instead strolling alone down the winding mountain path.

Only after the courtyard where the Primordial Unity Sect was lodged had vanished completely behind the mountain ridges, leaving nothing around him but birdsong in empty mountains and the clear music of streams, did he stop at a secluded bend.

Shen Yuxi slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, long and drawn out, pouring all the composure and inscrutable profundity he had deliberately maintained while dealing with Ling Anxin into the tranquil mountain scenery.

He stood still and gazed into the distance, his eyes resting upon the layered emerald hues ahead, yet his focus lay elsewhere, as though it had pierced through the very real clouds and mist-shrouded mountains before him and reached toward a more ethereal dimension hidden in the cracks of memory.

Only now, when names and personalities that had once dwelled solely between the pages of a book had suddenly become flesh-and-blood beings standing before him—beings who could speak and laugh—did that sense of "reality," mixed with strange tremors and crushing weight, belatedly slam solidly into his chest.

The Hundred Sects Tournament was truly just around the corner.

He had thought he had long grown accustomed to this world, accustomed to the identity of "Shen Qingming" and everything that came with it.

Yet when those characters from the book, destined to stir up storms and clouds, appeared before him carrying their vivid joys, sorrows, and secrets, an emotion woven from excitement, sudden realization, and even a trace of absurdity still