Time Spent Apart

Even as she was being carried in the arms of her fleeing brother, Hua Chunyi kept her burning gaze focused on the people chasing them, her expression filled with murderous intent.

Lifting her hand, Hua Chunyi summoned the wooden practice sword the sect allowed the disciples to carry, then filled it to the brim with her wood-based spiritual force. She forced its shape to mold to her will and made it grow thick thumb-sized wooden thorns throughout the surface of its blade.

Just then, Xie Xingye looked at his wide-awake sister with surprise. "Chunyi, what are you doing?"

Her expression morphing into fierce anger, Hua Chunyi snarled, "I'm going to fucking kill those bastards!"

Because they hurt her brother! Those bastards actually hurt her precious brother! Even though she had tried to protect him…even though she always tried so hard to protect him…why did they still end up hurting him?!

Xie Xingye felt alarmed and worried at his sister's suddenly intense expression. But before he could say something in response, Hua Chunyi had already slipped out of his arms to stand on her own.

Seeing this, Xie Xingye had no choice but to stop running and stand beside his sister in solidarity, anxiously looking at the nearing Elders. He didn't mind anything happening to him, but his Chunyi had already gotten so injured on his behalf, he couldn't bear to let her get any more wounded.

But not paying any mind to her younger brother's worries, Hua Chunyi stabbed the ground in front of her with the point of her wooden sword. The thorns she'd just summoned out from the blade of the sword slowly detached from the wood and fell down. Then gradually, the thorns seemed to get absorbed into the earth, no sign of them visible anymore.

Xie Xingye wanted to ask his sister just what she was planning, but the Elders were almost upon them by now.

With neither a weapon to fight with nor any talisman or instrument to imbue his spiritual power into, Xie Xingye did not know how he could face against the Elders, but Hua Chunyi had already considered this matter.

Not waiting for the Elders to target her brother, she gritted her teeth against the pain stabbing deep in her back and showed a wide smile brimming with insanity.

Lifting the wooden sword, she leapt up as quick as the flutter of a dragonfly's wing, landing behind an Elder and stabbing the practice blade violently into his back, aiming for his heart. Since the edges had already been sharpened after being molded by her ability and coated with her spiritual force, the sword easily slid through flesh and bone, piercing out through the Elder's chest.

With a stunned expression, the Elder looked down, not yet having understood where that female disciple had disappeared off to from right in front of his eyes or how he had ended up suddenly being pierced through from the back. Before he could put these two things together, the light faded out of his eyes and his lifeless body toppled down.

The other three Elders stared at Hua Chunyi with shock before quickly putting up hemispherical barriers around themselves, not willing to let this dangerous female near them. They still felt fear and disbelief at how easily she had killed the Elder. After all, though he wasn't proficient in fighting, he was still a revered Elder of their sect!

All this time, this Hua Chunyi had never shown any talent in combat, always content to just sneak around with her brother and shoot off her mouth. However, since she still continued to make strides with her cultivation, she had mostly been left to her own devices till now.

But it was only now that the Elders realized that this Disciple Hua had been hiding her strength all along, not only from her peers, but from the entire sect as well!

With shaken hearts, the three surviving Elders looked at Hua Chunyi with vigilance. Even though they were safely ensconced within each of their barriers, they still felt waves of danger battering their senses.

This woman was not to be underestimated!

Meanwhile, with her head cocked to the side, Hua Chunyi merely kept smiling broadly, her eyes wide with something akin to excitement.

Then suddenly pushing off the ground, she leapt at the bald Elder's barrier, her wooden sword slashing at it brutally.

The bald Elder flinched back, his body beginning to lightly tremble in trepidation.

But despite the spiritual force coating it, Hua Chunyi's wooden sword did not even manage to make a dent on the Elder's barrier. And it was no wonder, since he was already on his guard against her, and his high-level cultivation wasn't merely for show.

However, Hua Chunyi remained unrelenting, the blade of her practice sword slicing repeatedly and unerringly in the exact same place over and over again, madly and without pause.

Soon, under her continued efforts, a thin white line appeared on the previously transparent barrier.

The bald Elder frantically fed more energy into his barrier to patch it up, but Hua Chunyi merely cackled with delight as she kept on with her offensive, unmindful of the three pairs of horrified eyes fixed on her.

Meanwhile, unknown to the transfixed Elders, the wooden thorns that Hua Chunyi had ejected from her sword before had successfully managed to burrow through the earth and under their shields as per her directions. And now that the Elders all had their attentions fixed on the woman madly hacking at the barrier, the thorns that had stealthily managed to infiltrate into the confines of the three Elders' barriers slowly gathered behind the Elders inconspicuously and grew upward, forming into sharp-tipped wooden vines.

When everything was in place, Hua Chunyi finally stopped her meaningless attacks and grinned wider. In an eerily cheerful voice, she spoke, "This is what you get for hurting my brother."

And then, before the Elders could understand what she meant, the wooden vines exploded towards their unprotected backs, piercing through their bodies and skewering their hearts.

The three Elders showed expressions of horror, their lips trembling and eyes peeled back.

Even though they thought they were safe behind their barriers, this woman had still found a way to take them by surprise and attack them!

As their lives slowly drained away, the Elders' bodies slumped down, falling onto the ground as the wooden vines withdrew from their still chests and into the ground once again. And so, the four Elders now laid limply on the ground, pierced almost identically from behind through their hearts, their lifeless bodies beginning to cool.

Now that she had completed what she'd set out to do, Hua Chunyi's injured and tired body at last gave out, and Xie Xingye barely managed to make it in time to catch his sister.

Xie Xingye swept an unfathomable gaze over the four dead Elders. Then setting down his once again unconscious sister to comfortably rest against a tree, he walked over to the Elders to take all their valuable possessions, especially any medicine that might be useful to his Chunyi. After throwing all his findings into his low level spatial storage, he took his sister and finally scaled the wall to escape.

And he knew that they would never be able to set foot inside the sect again.

Soon after, Xie Xingye managed to secure a small cottage for them to stay in and nursed Hua Chunyi back to health by using the medicine he'd stolen from the Elders. Once Hua Chunyi regained her health, the pair of siblings began thinking of what to do from now on.

It was at this time that they were invited to join a demonic sect.

And since they were already being hunted down by the righteous faction right now due to the four Elders' murder, Xie Xingye and Hua Chunyi agreed, thinking it the safest option.

As for the matter of morals, when had anyone in the cultivation world had any?

The righteous faction just hid their cruelties behind pompous sounding words while the demonic faction displayed it openly, so neither of the two siblings thought much about switching sides.

As Hua Chunyi and Xie Xingye thus started to cultivate according to the demonic path, it was soon discovered that Xie Xingye had a very high aptitude for it while Hua Chunyi was unsuitable for this type of cultivation. Not minding it, Hua Chunyi simply continued cultivating the righteous way she'd been taught even as she stayed in the demonic faction, while Xie Xingye began learning more and more advanced dark arts.

As Xie Xingye grew in power, he began using dark colored vines of his own in mimicry of his sister after receiving her guidance. He learned basic necromancy and the art of devouring life to increase one's own power, taught to him by the sect master of the demonic sect himself.

And eventually, Xie Xingye also began sleeping with this sect master to boost his own power using basic dual cultivation. But towards losing his virginity this way, Xie Xingye felt no loss or sadness. He had long since become disillusioned towards his childhood dream of falling in love with and marrying a man he cared for. Now, as long as something was useful, whether it was his cultivation talent or the appeal of his own body, he was determined to use it to the fullest. The demonic faction was also far more open-minded about sexual matters, and Xie Xingye took part in many group events and orgies to successfully raise his power even further.

Meanwhile, Hua Chunyi didn't lag behind either, raising her level just as steadily as before using the righteous faction's method. But despite her different cultivation technique, her ruthlessness, cunning, charm, and brutal way of fighting made her seem more a part of the demonic faction that Xie Xingye with his dark vines.

In the end, both Hua Chunyi and Xie Xingye flourished in their own way under the care of the demonic faction, still maintaining their bond strongly and living their days peacefully.

But as they were wont to do, their peaceful days eventually came to an end once again.

This night, Xie Xingye was in the room he shared with his sister, carefully going through a few scrolls that the sect master had given him to practice with.

Suddenly, there was a quiet tap, and Xie Xingye immediately turned to see a familiar silhouette standing in the window, with the clear starry sky as the backdrop.

Perched on the windowsill, Hua Chunyi looked at her brother with a deep, almost melancholy look in her eyes.

Xie Xingye immediately put away the scrolls and stood up from the desk. Walking up to where his sister still stood in the window, he asked worriedly, "Chunyi? Is something wrong? Why do you look sad?"

Hua Chunyi sighed, then smiled a small smile. Reaching out, she brushed her fingertips against her brother's cheek as if memorizing the shape of his face.

"Ah-Ye, I… I've decided to leave this place."

Xie Xingye blinked, then nodded. "Alright then, since you feel that it's necessary, we'll leave the demonic faction right now. But if we have a few more minutes to pack, then I can at least take the sect master's scrolls with us. I bet they'd sell high on the black market."

But Hua Chunyi shook her head. "No, you're staying here. I will be the only one leaving."

Xie Xingye froze. "Chunyi, w-what are you…?"

"Ah-Ye, I did something that will make these people target me from now on. I don't want to pull you in and make you live your life on the run just because of me. You just stay here and learn as much as you can. I can run better if I'm alone anyway," Hua Chunyi spoke with a rare solemn expression.

But despite hearing all this, Xie Xingye was still unable to come out of his shock.

His face turning pale, he finally managed to ask, "…Why?"

Hua Chunyi sighed, "I killed the sect master. Actually, I even made his underground torture chamber cave in. Any minute now, the entire main hall of the sect is going to colla―"

Interrupting her in a timely manner, a sudden rumble abruptly shook the ground, as if a family of giants was rolling and shaking underneath the land. Following it, the loud roars of a massive building slowly, ponderously crashing down sounded out in the distance.

Hua Chunyi showed a guilty expression. "Ah, shit, I didn't expect it to fall so quickly…"

Ignoring the sounds of alarm beginning to sound outside, Xie Xingye shook his head and asked, "Chunyi, you…did you just say that you killed the sect master? Why? What did that bastard do?"

For a moment, Hua Chunyi looked at her brother with wide eyes, then brushed it off easily with a chuckle. "It's nothing you need to worry about. I just did it on an impulse because he pissed me off. You know how my temper gets."

Unconvinced, Xie Xingye pressed, "You just indicated that you were in his underground torture chamber, didn't you? What were you doing there? Don't tell me…that bastard, did he actually…"

As various scenarios went through his mind, Xie Xingye's expression grew more and more thunderous.

Till now, they'd been no dearth of people chasing after his Chunyi, drawn in by her charm, power, and unique personality, most of them trying to force themselves on her after they were refused. Of course, these people always came away without a limb or two, and in some cases, without their head as well.

But if someone as powerful as their sect master tried to force himself on her, even his Chunyi might not be able to deal with him that easily. Then did that mean…

Meanwhile, seeing that her misdirection was only causing more worry for her brother, Hua Chunyi sighed and finally decided to not hold anything back as she confessed, "No, the sect master just wanted to kill me. He…he was jealous of me because of you."

Xie Xingye blinked uncomprehendingly.

Hua Chunyi continued, "After hearing that we weren't related by blood, he became furious at me for spending so much time with you. He suspected that we might have deep romantic feelings towards each other, so he wanted to torture me and then kill me so that I wouldn't stand in his way of 'claiming my Xingye for myself', as he put it."

Opening his mouth and closing it again, Xie Xingye felt that he didn't know what to stay. His relationship with the sect master had purely been a mutually beneficial one, and it was the sect master who had asked it to be that way from the very beginning. But now, why did it seem as if he had some great obsession with him?

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Xie Xingye put the sect master out of his mind and focused on his sister instead. "I don't care about what happened to him, I only care about you. Chunyi, I understand that you want to escape before they find out that it was you who killed him, but I still don't want to let you go alone."

Hua Chunyi simply said, "No."

"But Chunyi―"

"I said no!" Hua Chunyi remained uncompromising. "You will stay here and cultivate. If you can grow powerful enough to make sure that no one can hurt you anymore, then you can come find me. Right now, they won't suspect you. You have talent that they need, so though they might keep a very close eye on you to see if you are keeping in contact with me, they won't make it too difficult for you. As long as you are here, you can live a somewhat secure life at least. With me, you can only live like a hunted rat."

Gritting his teeth, Xie Xingye returned, "I don't care what kind of life I'm living as long as I'm with you. Chunyi, please, don't leave me! I can't―"

Hua Chunyi suddenly looped an arm around her brother and pulled him close. Leaning down, she placed a light kiss on his forehead.

Xie Xingye snapped his mouth shut, stunned. His Chunyi had never once shown such an open sign of affection before. For her to do so now…was she really preparing to leave him behind?

"Ah-Ye, my decision is final. If I try seriously, even you won't be able to find me, so don't even attempt to follow me," Hua Chunyi spoke with determination. Then her expression turning soft at her brother's miserable expression, she continued, "It's not like we won't meet each other again. This is only temporary. I hate to stay apart too, so I'll just lead both the demonic and righteous factions on a merry chase and quickly take care of them all. Then we can continue to stay together, alright?"

By now Xie Xingye had begun to tremble, silent tears dripping down his face. He finally understood―he couldn't stay with his sister. They had to separate. Because if he went with her, he'd only drag her down. Without having him to take care of, his Chunyi would easily be able to evade capture and resolve the situation on her own.

And so, gulping down all his objections and selfish requests, Xie Xingye finally nodded, even though his heart felt like it was being crushed and turned to pulp in his chest.

But if he had known at that time about what would happen later, then would he have made a different decision? Would he still have held on to her?

But unknowing of what the future had in store for them, the pair of siblings reluctantly parted for now, their hearts heavy with inexpressible sorrow.

And so, Hua Chunyi became a criminal on the run, wanted by the righteous faction for the death of the four Elders and the demonic faction for the death of one of their sect masters.

Meanwhile, though a lot of eyes constantly kept watch for any communication between him and his sister, Xie Xingye was mostly left alone to keep going as before.

Remembering what his sister said, Xie Xingye trained and cultivated as hard as he could, taking shortcuts that he'd once considered despicable and low, just so that he could quickly increase his strength. All of this was only so that he could soon become a power of his own who could shield his sister and keep her safe, so that his presence beside his Chunyi wouldn't end up becoming a burden on her.

But just as he reached the tenth realm, Xie Xingye heard news that Hua Chunyi had had an accident, that she'd fallen off a cliff―or rather, jumped off a cliff to spite her pursuers―and went mad as a result of a head injury.

After she decimated the entire crowd of righteous and demonic cultivators who had been chasing her, getting grievously injured in the process, she was seemingly rescued by a famed and extremely powerful demigod level lone cultivator called Feng Huixin, taken away to his abode in the mountains to heal and recuperate.

Though Xie Xingye wanted to heave a sigh of relief that someone was at least taking care of his Chunyi, he also couldn't help but get anxious now that his sister was in the hands of someone he didn't know and couldn't find no matter how much he searched.

And so, Xie Xingye pushed himself to rise even more in power, not caring about the means and methods as he desperately tried to climb higher. Knowing that he was nearing a breakthrough, he entered secluded cultivation and poured his entire focus into preparing for it.

Within a few years, he successfully reached the level of demigod, the highest realm able to be achieved in this world.

But it was only after he exited his seclusion that he came to know that his sister had ended up falling in love and marrying that demigod level cultivator Feng Huixin. Then after being chased around by and decimating the Feng household, the husband and wife had gone into hiding.

Xie Xingye didn't understand why his sister didn't come and get him now that she was at least free of her pursuers from the righteous and demonic factions, but he still earnestly searched for her, not knowing that due to her fall from the cliff before, his beloved Chunyi had already forgotten most of her memories, including those of the person she used to call her brother.

Centuries passed as Xie Xingye desperately searched for his sister's whereabouts. He needed to know that she was okay, he needed to know whether her promise of not pushing him away in lieu of her family still held true. He needed to be reassured that Hua Chunyi still considered him as her brother.

But before he could find her to ascertain all this, he received news that Feng Huixin and his wife had ascended into the heavenly realm together.

However, rather than losing hope, Xie Xingye refocused his attention on his cultivation, pouring in his all once again so that he could ascend as well. But the path to ascension was especially difficult for demonic cultivators, yet Xie Xingye refused to give up.

And so, millennia later, Xie Xingye finally succeeded.

But even after entering Heaven and asking around, Xie Xingye couldn't find any deity by the name of Hua Chunyi. But when he inquired about Feng Huixin's wife, he was told that her name was Feng Chunyi instead.

What Xie Xingye didn't know was that after losing her memories, Hua Chunyi had forgotten even her own name. She just recalled that she was called Chunyi after seeing it sewn into a pouch that had actually been made by Xie Xingye for her. Then later, due to hearing someone mention her full name in passing, she recalled that her surname was Hua.

But the 'Hua' in her surname was something all the people in her caravan had carried, denoting the 'flower' in 'flower house', that is, a reminder that they were a part of a brothel.

And despite losing her memories, though she did not remember why, Hua Chunyi still understood that she hated her surname. Since she was wooing Feng Huixin at that time anyway, she happily changed her surname to Feng instead, using it to endlessly tease her beloved.

But for the Xie Xingye who heard that his beloved sister had changed her name after meeting her now-husband, he only felt confused and distressed.

Did that Feng Huixin force her to do that so that she would be branded by his name? Or did his Chunyi want to throw Xie Xingye off her trail? But neither option seemed all that probable, so Xie Xingye could only put this matter out of his mind to think about later.

Now that he knew where to find his sister, all Xie Xingye could think of was their eventual happy reunion.

However, just as he began heading out of the demonic deities' territory to set out towards where his sister and her husband had made their home, Xie Xingye ran into misfortune.

A few of the older demonic deities decided to gang up on him in an attempt to steal his cultivation core, wanting to use it to boost their own power. And since Xie Xingye was a young deity in comparison, they figured that he would be the easiest one to target.

Knowing this, Xie Xingye could only put his plans on hold and flee.

After being hunted for a while and wounded, Xie Xingye ended up finally taking refuge in a large cave.

And it was here that he met the black dragon, who decided to let this demonic deity take shelter in his cave.

For the next while, Xie Xingye stayed in the cave to heal from his injuries and hide from his pursuers. And so, he ended up spending time with the large and scarred black dragon that had now morphed into an equally as scarred large man.

Due to a few of his scars that cut through his throat, this dragon called Zheng Xuan was unable to speak for long and used only a few words at a time when he did choose to speak. And for some reason, Xie Xingye felt more and more drawn towards this dragon as he shared the cave with him.

He learned that Zheng Xuan was ancient and had once served as his dragon queen's guard. But after some mishap in a lower realm, the dragon queen sent away all of her most loyal guards out of the territory of the true dragon clan so that they would not be implicated along with her. She instead chose to rule while willingly allowing herself to be constricted by her court advisors in return for their promise to not go after the ones she cared for.

Towards this queen, Zheng Xuan only seemed to have endless loyalty and respect. But after his queen had passed away, Zheng Xuan did not have anything left to do, so he spent all his time in this cave, waiting to see if some new purpose to his life would emerge.

After hearing all this told to him, Xie Xingye in turn recited his own story and the reason he ascended. He poured out his fears of how his sister might shun him and his hopes of a future where he would be included into his sister's family.

Zheng Xuan patiently heard him out and silently offered comfort.

After this, they grew closer and closer, eventually deciding to become lovers.

A while later, the demonic deities came in search of Xie Xingye, but ended up being scared away by Zheng Xuan instead. Feeling freed now that his pursuers had given up on him, Xie Xingye wanted to finally meet up with and introduce Zheng Xuan to his Chunyi. And after he was done catching up with his sister, Xie Xingye eagerly stated that he would spend his first night with his new lover after that.

And so, Xie Xingye and Zheng Xuan set off to the Feng residence, the house of the Deity of Judgment Feng Huixin and the Heavenly General Feng Chunyi.

But nothing went as Xie Xingye planned.

Feng Chunyi did not remember her past and only treated Xie Xingye as a stranger. But the more desperately Xie Xingye tried to get closer to her, the more cautious she became and the more alarmed Feng Huixin grew, thinking that this stranger was fanatically pursuing her.

And so, Feng Huixin finally confronted Xie Xingye and asked him to stop harassing his wife. Hearing this, Xie Xingye grew beyond furious, misunderstanding that Feng Huixin was the one who had somehow made his sister ignore him all this while. Xie Xingye immediately tried to use his vines to push him away and continue talking to his sister.

However, thinking that he meant to attack her husband, Feng Chunyi leapt forward to block him and started going on the offensive.

Xie Xingye was beyond stunned at being attacked by his beloved sister.

He couldn't bear this. He couldn't bear to see his sister defend someone else over him. He couldn't bear to see that vicious expression of hers directed at him. He couldn't bear to see his Chunyi acting as if she didn't remember him.

Had he been such an insignificant part of her life that she couldn't even be bothered to remember his name? In the end, did her promise of so long ago mean nothing to her?

As Xie Xingye just stood in a daze without minding the blows raining on him, Zheng Xuan came forward to protect him with his own body, taking severe damage in the process.

Feng Huixin quickly restrained his wife so that she wouldn't hurt them when they weren't even putting up a fight, but the harm was already done.

Xie Xingye finally came to a realization―

His Chunyi, his dear beloved sister, had really, truly abandoned him.

This was when Xie Xingye drowned into the hopeless confines of his heart demon that almost ended up in a qi deviation, his all-consuming despair making him unwilling to escape its grasp or let anyone help him out.

After all, if he left his wretched inner world, he would have to face what waited for him outside, he would have to face the cruel, wretched truth that would break him.

Meanwhile, the deities of the heavenly court decided to seal him in a lower world until he was able to come out of his heart demon on his own and stabilize himself, since no one else could help him with it from the outside.

Unexpectedly, Zheng Xuan snuck in while the seal was being placed to accompany his beloved, not wanting Xie Xingye to be alone.

His beloved's sister and the world itself might have abandoned him, but Zheng Xuan wanted Xie Xingye to know that he was still there, that he at least would never let him go.

And many millennia later, when Xie Xingye finally woke up in the darkness disoriented and vulnerable, Zheng Xuan had still been there, his familiar presence the only stable thing that Xie Xingye could hold on to.

Since he had been feeding his beloved with his own spiritual energy all this while in an attempt to make his presence known and to also slowly erode the sealing spell, Zheng Xuan was now weakened to the point of being unable to even transform into his human form.

And so, after awakening, Xie Xingye stayed in the Valley of the Terrified Dead with Zheng Xuan to gather their strengths and to secretively prepare the army of ghouls.

Xie Xingye remembered what the demonic sect's sect master had once taught him—the art of devouring life to gain power. And so, he prepared to devour this world and gain enough power so that he could forcibly enter Heaven again.

Then he could face his Chunyi once again and ask―

Why? Why did you abandon me? Why did you forget me? Why did you aim your weapon at me?

Were we not siblings in all but blood? Were we not each other's only pillars of support? Were we not supposed to be welcomed into each other's family?

So Chunyi…why?

And to ask this question, Xie Xingye didn't mind destroying this world.

With his ghouls, he had set out from the Valley of the Terrified Dead and to the Battle Arena to do just that when he encountered his Chunyi's son, and later, her husband.

From Feng Huixin, Xie Xingye heard that rather than just forgetting him due to disinterest, his Chunyi had actually forgotten entire bits of her past, presumably due to her head injury at that time in their world when she jumped off a cliff.

Hearing this, Xie Xingye's hope was rekindled. If he could meet his Chunyi again and help her recall their memories together somehow, then would she treat him like she had before?

As for her child and husband, Xie Xingye was sure that as a highly regarded deity, Feng Huixin would be able to open the gates of Heaven at will and take his son to escape to safety. Even if something happened to them, they shouldn't die that easily. Even if his sister ended up being angry with him later, Xie Xingye didn't mind. As long as she was willing to talk to him again and acknowledge his existence, he would let her beat him up or even kill him.

And so, after escaping the Battle Arena with Zheng Xuan, Xie Xingye waited in the Castle of Echoes, wanting the cultivators to come on their own and battle his ghouls. And after they were weakened, he could easily wipe them out.

Because of the deep crack running under this castle, Xie Xingye knew that Feng Huixin would also not be able to act as he wanted or use his powers like last time at the Battle Arena. Therefore, Xie Xingye hypothesized that if he and his beloved, the black dragon Zheng Xuan, joined forces, then they would more or less be able to suppress him.

And as for Feng Qinghe, with his cracked core, what could he do?

Now, standing on top of the staircase while looking at his Chunyi's son and seeing the similarities in their features, Xie Xingye felt complex emotions arise in him. Seeing the young man smile so happily as he cut through the hordes of ghouls, it really reminded him of his Chunyi.

But even then, Xie Xingye would still not hesitate to do what needed to be done if it meant getting one step closer to his goal.

And so, Xie Xingye finally descended the staircase, his gaze fixed on Feng Qinghe.