Five hours had passed inside the illusion of the rural mountain village since Snake Dog had set out.
A warm breeze brushed his face, gently lifting his hair and sending it fluttering messily against his cheeks.
Beneath the blazing sun, a scrawny old man sat cross-legged on the ground, his eyes narrowed as he gazed toward Qingshan.
His hair was white, and wrinkles covered his sunken cheeks; his exposed skin was sallow and covered in age spots.
His body was as thin as a rake, seemingly reduced to a skeleton, his back hunched and his limbs drawn in. It seemed that a strong gust would leave him unable even to sit upright.
From a distance, the old man looked as though his life had burned down to its last embers, ready to close his eyes and die at any moment.
This old man was none other than Big Fat Dragon, waiting for Snake Dog to return.
The Witch Spirit Ghost Child had said beforehand that for every two hours Snake Dog was gone, Big Fat Dragon would age twenty years.
Now, five hours had passed, and he had aged a full fifty years.
Time was like a warm breeze sweeping across the earth, scattering youth like grains of sand in a fleeting instant.
For Big Fat Dragon, however, what it blew away might not have been youth, but his twilight years.
The Witch Spirit Ghost Child's "aging curse" targeted not his identity within the Immortality Mountain Secret Realm, but his true body.
Outside this Secret Realm, Big Fat Dragon had already lived a very long time and had entered his twilight years long ago.
Now that the Witch Spirit Ghost Child was taking fifty years from him, it was effectively taking his life.
He sat cross-legged on the ground, staring