Beyond the Eastern Sea, in Long Abode Grotto-Heaven.
The blood-red setting sun remained half-submerged in the western sky, neither advancing nor retreating, blurring the boundary between day and night. Below it, clumps of pitch-black dusk grass half-concealed the sun's manifestation.
Dusk was "mo."
The sun sank into the grasses and trees, and evening drew near.
This was the hour when dusk grass grew.
Once the bloody light of this setting sun faded, it meant that [Jiao Yang]'s savage, terrifying true body had sunk into Yu Abyss and entered death, waiting quietly to revive the next day and continue displaying Greater Yang's most ancient and brutal face.
Then came the hour when the white epiphyllums bloomed.
An enormous, wondrous silver-white Mysterious Crow would appear at the western edge of heaven. Lin Hun would pry open the remnants of daylight with his iron beak, spread his wings, and unfurl the curtain of night across the sky, then use his own body as boundless celestial soil to bear the stars and moon.
Sadly, he was already dead.
Long Abode Grotto-Heaven remained shrouded in this desolate glow of the setting sun, never changing. Entangled vines and blooming poisonous flowers could be faintly seen, some pale jade like polished stone, others pitch-black like clots of ink.
Below.
The young man atop the Bronze Dao Platform slowly opened his eyes. His features were handsome and regular, his eyes dark as lacquer. The white scales on his neck and wrists had turned a deep blue-green. Powerful Jia Wood energy circulated around him, yet carried a hint of impurity.
He was Ye Yanzhen, the orphan of the Ye clan of Green Pond, now Long Abode's third Purple Mansion cultivator, with the Daoist name [Remnant Leaf].
Beside him, rays of gold and emerald radiance rose. Mystic leaves grew, blotting