Hearing Wu Zhouxu's call, Zhang Xiaohua cupped his hands and said, "You two Bosses should go on ahead. This little brother still needs to return to practice martial arts, and this bellyful of tea needs to find some herbs to water."
Seeing Zhang Xiaohua speak this way, the two men did not try to keep him. They turned and went back into the courtyard.
Watching their retreating backs enter the courtyard, Zhang Xiaohua muttered to himself, "How can sparrows know the ambition of a swan?"
With that, he did not hesitate, using his lightness skill to head toward Tianmu Peak's summit.
Inside the pill room atop Tianmu Peak, the medicinal liquid within the "Eight Trigrams Purple Gold Furnace" continued to revolve as before. The pale red threads endlessly coiled about, without the slightest abnormality.
Zhang Xiaohua was reassured. After casting several hand seals into the pill furnace, he sat cross-legged before it and quietly contemplated the Heavenly Dao.
Night gradually fell, then gradually deepened.
As Zhang Xiaohua performed his usual Carefree Heart Sutra cultivation, endless starlight continued to pass through the pill furnace and join the swirling process of gestating the pill.
Meanwhile, in an exquisite little room on distant Baiyue Peak, Deputy Hall Master Xu of the Pill-Refining Hall sat in the seat of honor, leisurely sipping tea. Below him on the left, someone sat respectfully upright.
That person was Lu Lihong, who had returned to Baiyue Peak from Tianmu Peak. At this moment, his expression was humble and cautious, as though facing an elder of his own family, utterly unlike the proud and amiable demeanor he had displayed on Tianmu Peak.
Deputy Hall Master Xu was quite pleased by Lu Lihong's behavior. After a while, he said kindly, "Martial Nephew Lu, there is no need to be so