Yue Ting.
To others, this name might belong to nothing more than a newly risen Nascent Soul True Lord in the northwestern Border Army, but to Qing Chen, it was far more familiar than even Wei Ting or Wang Yan.
The bloody battle at Blackstone County Seat in Qiongzhou, Lingnan Circuit, all those years ago counted among the traps Qing Chen was rather proud of setting.
But during that battle, Yue Ting's master, Xie Yu, had taken a Golden Core killing strike launched from the shadows to protect him. Most of his physical body had been destroyed on the spot, his divine soul gravely wounded, leaving his life hanging by its final thread.
He had already been at death's door.
Back then, Yue Ting had knelt before the Nascent Soul and Dharma Nascent Soul True Lords like a man gone mad, kowtowing until his forehead was a bloody pulp.
He had begged Ye Wushang and the other True Lords, abandoning even the slightest shred of a cultivator's dignity, asking only that they save Xie Yu's life.
And the result?
Even Ye Wushang's intervention had barely managed to seal in that last flicker of life before it went out, keeping his soul from scattering completely.
As for awakening his divine soul and restoring his path along the Great Dao, that had been nothing but a fool's dream.
His condition had been only a little better than that of Zhao'er's remnant soul in the Jade Pendant Qing Chen had previously handed to Blood Fiend Venerable in the Nine Netherworlds Forbidden Grounds.
In the end, his heart cold as dead ashes, Yue Ting had spent all his savings to personally craft a Soul-Nourishing Coffin and placed Xie Yu inside. Then he had left Qiongzhou without a word to seek a way to save