Two men stood on the boat.
Both wore white robes whiter than snow.
Their robes remained utterly still amid the raging wind and rain; not even their hems were damp.
The man in front looked about thirty, with a steady expression and swordlike brows sweeping toward his temples. He stood with his hands behind his back, his gaze calm as water, as though beneath his feet lay not a furious sea, but a pool of spring water in his own backyard.
Behind him stood a young man in his early twenties, with red lips, white teeth, and extraordinarily lively eyes. He tilted his head as he surveyed this unfamiliar coast, curiosity and amusement mingling on his face.
Rain poured down in torrents, yet parted of its own accord three feet in front of them, as though an invisible barrier separated the pair from heaven and earth.
The howling wind could not stir a corner of their robes; the towering, turbid waves could not wet them in the slightest.
Two men and one boat, like the faintest stroke of ink on the wildest canvas between heaven and earth.
At the landing, Yin Wujiu's pupils abruptly contracted.
They're here!
Without betraying anything, he gave his two elder brothers a meaningful glance. The stalk of grass he had been picking his teeth with crumbled silently between his fingers.
Twenty years of understanding needed no words. All three moved into position.
Heaven Fiend Xi Changkong turned slightly, his Great Silk-Rending Hand poised to strike; Earth Fiend Li Wuji slipped silently into the ground, his presence vanishing entirely; Human Fiend Yin Wujiu took out a copper whistle, held it beneath his tongue, and soundlessly blew a coded signal only the Plum Blossom Guards could understand.
The message had been sent.
Now they only needed to