The Sun-Chasing Flying Boat.
Ji Yuan's gaze swept past the bustling crowd on the deck.
It settled on an inconspicuous corner near the railing.
A young man was crouching there.
He wore fitted clothes, half a grass stem between his teeth. A long saber wrapped tightly in coarse cloth hung diagonally across his back, and the leather cord around its hilt had been worn to an oily shine.
Xu Youxia.
It was him!
Before Ji Yuan could send a greeting through Divine Sense, Xu Youxia had already stood up.
He threaded through the crowd in a few quick strides and headed straight for the seat beside Ji Yuan.
A brawny body cultivator in the Golden Body Mystic Bone Realm occupied it, his eyes closed as he rested.
When someone blocked his light, he opened his eyes, ready to snap. Xu Youxia quietly released a wisp of his aura.
The aura of the Five Viscera Furnace Realm.
The cultivator's expression changed twice in the space of a breath: first anger, then suspicion, before settling into an obliging deference.
Without another word, he picked up his luggage, lowered his head, and said, "The seat's yours, brother."
Then he headed for Xu Youxia's former spot without looking back, walking noticeably faster than before.
Xu Youxia sat cross-legged in the vacated seat, turned to Ji Yuan, and grinned.
"Brother Qiu, long time no see."
Looking at that grin, as though Xu Youxia had never thought of himself as an outsider, Ji Yuan felt a flicker of joy.
Ever since they had been separated in the Star Abyss, he had known nothing of the others' whereabouts.
Running into an old acquaintance aboard a Flying Boat far from the Martial God Continent finally put his mind somewhat at ease.
"What brings you here, Brother Xu?"
Ji