A Dream of an Old Friend in the Night

Wang Hui looked at his dazed expression and clicked his tongue. He jumped down from the table's edge, landing without a sound. On short legs, he walked up to the floating Wen Mu, raised a hand without ceremony, curled his knuckles, and knocked him on the forehead with a thunk.

"Mm!" Though Wen Mu was already a spirit body, he still felt the pain clearly. He immediately covered the spot that had been struck, a mist of aggrieved tears instantly gathering in his large pink eyes as he looked accusingly at the fierce little "child" before him.

Strangely enough, despite being hit, Wen Mu could not summon even the slightest fear or dislike. On the contrary, as he looked at this gray-eyed child, an indescribable sense of closeness and trust rose from the depths of his soul, warm and steady.

Such unreserved peace of mind was exceedingly rare for him.

Wen Mu liked the simple, honest villagers of Peach Blossom Mountain, and he liked the free creatures in the mountains as well, but he had never truly trusted them from the bottom of his heart.

That included Ye Jingxuan.

Wen Mu liked that child, but it was more like the gratification an elder felt toward a clever junior. He had never completely relaxed around them or revealed all of himself.

Yet before Wang Hui, that instinctive wariness vanished. Even after being struck, he still felt goodwill toward the little child before him and believed from the bottom of his heart that Wang Hui meant him no harm.

"You're the one feeling wronged now, huh?" Seeing him like this, Wang Hui's anger flared up even more. Hands on his hips, though he was much shorter, his presence was overwhelming. "You vanished for five hundred years! Not a word, not a trace!