Lingsi sat on the palanquin, her gaze passing through the dispersing fog until she could make out the figure among the clouds.
Then she called out in her mind, Sister Ao Gui, it's Young Master Song and Xiao He!
Lingsi was delighted. Song Yan and Xiao He had once saved her life, and to her, the human and the snake were already good friends.
They were two quite extraordinary friends, and Lingsi certainly did not want anything to happen to them.
But Ao Gui's attention was not on Song Yan.
As the mist dispersed, the enormous yao body standing on the clouds beneath Song Yan astonished everyone even more.
Ming the Qilin had been dead for nearly four thousand years. Her Demon Beast Core had long since gone dark, and her hide was no longer sacred and majestic.
Yet Lingsi still recognized her.
Because Ao Gui recognized her.
"Aunt Ming-"
Ao Gui's voice rang out in Lingsi's sea of consciousness.
Ao Gui had grown up in the Eastern Sea.
She had never met her mother, and her father, Ao Yu, had left the Eastern Sea and the Yu Abyss very early on for certain reasons.
He had never returned after that.
Almost all her memories of her parents had come from Ming.
It had always been Ming who raised and taught her.
Ao Gui had never met her birth mother, but she knew in her heart that Ming had given her everything a mother could.
So when Ao Gui learned from Lingsi that Ming had fought Penglai to the death over her demise, finally dying of exhaustion, she had been overwhelmed with grief and guilt.
Ao Gui had never imagined she would see Ming again, even if Ming, too, was already dead.
But death had not stood in the way.