The moment Zhao Min's questioning words reached his ears, Li Yan's body jolted.
"Oh, oh... no... no, I thought you would hold the wedding ceremony after forming your Nascent Soul..."
"Then go back in a while and tell Mother and the others yourself. She will definitely be very happy!"
For all the years since Zhao Min had emerged from seclusion, she had never gone to see Li Yan, afraid of disturbing his cultivation. But every time she saw Zhao Zhi forcing a smile, Zhao Min's heart tightened.
She knew that Zhao Zhi felt she would ultimately be unable to accompany her husband and daughter forever along the immortal path. She had already grown somewhat disheartened, yet did not wish to make Zhao Min sad.
But this was also the sorrow of cultivators. Unlike mortals, who understood from the moment they came of age that, barring calamity or disaster, they would live no more than a hundred years.
In the years that followed, they watched the people around them leave one by one as they grew up.
Though their hearts could not accept that reality, they lacked the strength to change anything, until one day they exhausted their lifespan and ended the cycle of that life.
Cultivators, however, knew the rough limits of lifespan for every realm and had to ceaselessly seek breakthroughs.
When the day came that they discovered they could no longer cross the towering peaks ahead, the sorrow of waiting for death could not be described in words.
And the higher a cultivator's cultivation, the longer their seclusion. Decades or even centuries could sometimes pass in the flick of a finger. A lifespan that seemed long could not withstand more than a few sessions of meditative cultivation.
When they emerged from seclusion again, all would already have changed;