After the New Year.
Li Ping eagerly went to Master Hu to buy pills, only to be told by his disciple, Feng Qufeng:
Before the New Year, his master had taken his junior disciple out of the Immortal City on business. They might not return for a year or two.
He alone had been left on Immortal Peach Mountain to watch over the place.
At this point, Feng Qufeng sounded distinctly disgruntled, seemingly unhappy with his master's favoritism.
Unable to see Master Hu, Li Ping could only return in disappointment.
At the same time, he was rather curious. What had Master Hu gone off to do?
But that curiosity lasted only an instant before he cast it to the back of his mind and returned to his cultivation.
Several more months passed in the blink of an eye.
Deep within the Cloudmist Mountains, in a valley tens of thousands of miles from Windmist Immortal City.
A black-robed figure and a red-robed figure sat cross-legged, barely three feet apart. Several dozen feet above their heads, a translucent barrier enclosed them both.
Yet anyone looking down into the valley from the sky would have found their position utterly empty, without even a trace of a living person's presence.
Suddenly-
Boom!
A sound like a falling meteor rang out above the valley. The next moment, an enormous fireball swept overhead, the outline of a magnificent spirit bird faintly visible within it.
Exuding a terrifying aura, the spirit bird vanished into the horizon in the blink of an eye!
The two figures in the valley did not even dare breathe loudly as the fiery spirit bird passed overhead. Fortunately, the concealment formation they had laid was exquisitely crafted, and the bird noticed nothing amiss!
The black-robed figure was none other than Protector Yan,