"Old Yi, Old Yi?"
Seeing Yi Shuyuan lost in thought, Jiang Lang called to him several times, but Yi Shuyuan seemed several beats slow to react. Only after a while did he come back to himself and look at Jiang Lang.
Although Yi Shuyuan's gaze rested on Jiang Lang, his mind seemed to have wandered far away, looking toward that quiet little river, toward the cabin of the boat upon it.
Jiang Lang froze slightly, his voice falling silent. Though they were face-to-face, he felt no meeting of their eyes. He could not help turning to look behind him, wondering whether Yi Shuyuan was looking at something there.
"What did you say?"
At Yi Shuyuan's voice, Jiang Lang turned back and found that his friend had returned to normal. Or rather, that fleeting moment just now seemed to have been his own illusion.
But at their level of cultivation, illusions like that could not occur. If one did, it could only mean that his cultivation had gone astray.
A thought stirred in Jiang Lang's mind, and his spiritual platform sensed something. His gaze swept toward the book on the table. Without performing any divination, his thought roamed like a wandering dragon, its aura reaching back to the moment when he had "taken" the book, and toward that man.
"The connection still hasn't broken!"
"Yes, it hasn't..."
Jiang Lang was chiefly astonished that the leader of those book thieves still shared an aura connection with the immortal cultivation art. Yi Shuyuan's answer held that meaning too, but perhaps another layer as well: this storm in the Rivers and Lakes had not ended simply because Jiang Lang had taken the book away.
"We can discuss this later. I want to go and see that man."
Yi Shuyuan rose as he spoke. Jiang