"Ascension."
Si Chen murmured the word.
That concept had once piqued his curiosity.
Third Uncle was going to ascend?
Why so suddenly?
The message in the Communication Talisman was simple, mostly in his father's usual style: few words, but everything that needed saying was there.
Yet the final passage about Third Uncle seemed a little strange.
"Your Third Uncle can no longer suppress his cultivation realm. He may face his Ascension Tribulation in a year."
Ascending was ascending. What did he mean, "may" ascend?
Si Chen thought for a moment, activated the Communication Talisman, and asked him directly.
A reply soon came.
"Don't you know what your Third Uncle is like?"
His father sounded a little helpless. "He could actually have ascended long ago."
"But he kept holding back, saying something about 'how could I leave when I have yet to explore all the stars in this realm?'"
Si Chen froze for a moment. "..."
He raised his head and looked out the window at the sky above Great Yin's Imperial City.
His eyes beheld the vast expanse of stars, but his mind pictured Third Uncle's bruised and swollen face...
The stars in this realm?
More like "the aunties in this realm," surely?
His father continued transmitting his voice. "He's spent these years wandering everywhere, supposedly searching for some 'insight into the stars.' Lately, whenever he comes back, there are always fresh injuries on his face."
"When I asked what happened, he said they were 'mementos of intimate exchanges with the stars.'"
Si Chen froze for a moment. "..."
This one-year deadline, this supposed "inability to suppress his cultivation realm any longer"...
Why did it sound like... an excuse to run away?
"Chen'er?"
Ye Fu's voice came from outside the hall.
She had just finished dealing with a batch of