He Pingsheng put his things away, then strolled leisurely down to the first floor.
The first floor was completely empty.
Qiao Huizhu was not there.
It had taken Qiao Huizhu only two years to restore her cultivation to the sixth level of the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Over the ten years that followed, she had spent another eight years raising her cultivation to the eleventh level of the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Then she, too, had hit a bottleneck.
For the past two years, with no breakthrough in sight, she had taken to wandering outside. On the one hand, she hoped to find an opportunity to break through her bottleneck, since both she and He Pingsheng had to contend with that problem; on the other, she was searching for Qiao Xiaoqiao.
Twelve years had passed in all.
There was still no word whatsoever of Qiao Xiaoqiao.
If He Pingsheng was the one Qiao Huizhu relied on, then Qiao Xiaoqiao was her only blood relative in this world.
Unable to find Qiao Xiaoqiao, she could not put her heart at ease.
"Is Fellow Daoist Xu here?" A booming voice came from outside the courtyard.
The moment He Pingsheng heard the voice, he knew who had come.
Elder Ling.
This man was a junior elder of the Red Moon Trading Company, with cultivation in the Foundation Establishment Realm. His real name was Ling Zhiwang.
Since arriving in Redstone City, He Pingsheng had always used the name Xu Kunlun, so there was nothing wrong with Ling Zhiwang calling him Fellow Daoist Xu.
Over the past ten years, He Pingsheng had not spent all his time in seclusion.
When he had nothing to do, he would visit the Red Moon Trading Company, and he had purchased materials for third-grade formations several times.
Ling Zhiwang had also