Twenty years could pass in the flick of a finger, yet they were enough for a child to grow into a true powerhouse, and enough for a once warm, bustling tribe to become cold, desolate ruins.
The uncle and his three nephews sped toward the tribe. Gradually, they smelled the Dao Sea, gradually saw the mountain hollow in the distance, and gradually left all signs of human life behind. The evening haze was like mist, nestling around those mountains and that sea in silent stillness.
Under the White Wolf Tribe's intervention, this desolate land had not been occupied by the surrounding tribes. It still belonged to the Haibei Tribe. Today, the people of the Haibei Tribe had returned.
The tribe was right before their eyes, yet all four could not help slowing their steps. Their earlier eagerness grew heavy, so heavy they could barely move their feet. How they wished these twenty years had been a dream. How they longed to see cooking smoke rising from the tribe again, their loved ones laughing and chatting as they busied themselves with their work, the children chasing one another and playing through the tribe... Yet with every step closer, cruel reality struck hard at the tender place in their hearts, sending tears streaming down their faces.
Cruel as reality was, their steps could not stop. Even a thousand hardships and ten thousand dangers ahead could not halt the homeward steps of those long parted. The tribe's gate stood before them, collapsed and rotted after twenty years of wind and rain, but it was still the gate to their home, still the threshold the uncle and his three nephews could neither forget nor dare to cross.
"Kneel!"
With the tribe before his eyes, Hai Zhan dropped to his knees with a thud, tears