The light was soft within the Ancestral Pagoda's space.
Mu Feng held Qing Yanjing tightly in his arms. Feeling that familiar warmth and trembling, she let her scalding tears soak 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 caught in her throat.
Mu Feng shook his head hard and only held her tighter, his voice hoarse. "All that matters is that we can see each other again... that we can see each other again..."
Mu Chen stood beside them, watching his parents embrace with a warm smile on his lips.
He could sense the oceanic surges 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 who had finally seen her son.
After a long while, Qing Yanjing's emotions settled a little, and she drew slightly away from Mu Feng's embrace. Yet she 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 unmistakably real.
"Chen... my Chen..." she murmured, her eyes filled with boundless tenderness and heartache. "You've grown so much... You must have suffered all these years..."
"I haven't." Mu Chen held his mother's hand, smiling brightly. "As long as I can bring you home, none of it counts as suffering."
Of course, that was also the truth.
Aside from the trials of cultivating his techniques, he had never suffered any hardship. If his life could still be called bitter, then every cultivator in the Great Thousand World would probably find life unbearable.
Qing Yanjing laughed through