The light within the Ancestral Pagoda's space was soft.
Qing Yanjing was held tightly in Mu Feng's arms. Feeling his familiar warmth and trembling, she shed scalding tears that soaked both their robes.
She raised her head and looked at her husband through tear-blurred eyes. His face, far more weathered than she remembered, was now wet with tears.
"Feng..." she choked out, a thousand words trapped in her throat.
Mu Feng shook his head firmly and only held her tighter, his voice hoarse. "All that matters is that we're together again... that we're together again..."
Mu Chen stood beside them, watching his parents embrace with a warm smile on his lips.
He could sense the vast, oceanlike fluctuations of spiritual energy within his mother, but at this moment, she was merely a wife reunited with her husband after a long separation, a mother finally seeing her son.
After a long while, Qing Yanjing's emotions settled a little. She eased back from Mu Feng's embrace, yet could not bear to take her eyes off her son's face.
She reached out and stroked Mu Chen's cheek with a trembling hand. The warmth beneath her fingertips was real and unmistakable.
"Chen... my Chen..." she murmured, her eyes filled with boundless tenderness and aching love. "You've grown so much... you must have suffered all these years..."
"I haven't." Mu Chen held his mother's hand, his smile radiant. "As long as I can bring you home, none of it is hardship."
Of course, that was the truth.
Apart from the rigors of cultivating his techniques, he had never suffered any other hardship. If even his life counted as suffering, every cultivator in the Great Thousand World might as well give up on living.
Qing Yanjing laughed through her tears, her gaze moving between her husband