That someone seemed to crouch down next to him. “Level waters green the color of the willows,” the other said. “The moon and the flowers keep distant mutual watch. Year upon year upon age upon age, every time… every time, what?”

Those few, understated verses were like thunder, instantly exploding in his ears. At a loss, he looked up, but still couldn’t see their appearance clearly. As if hallucinating, he couldn’t even say whether they were male or female, only vaguely recalling… that there had been a giggling maiden, who loved to wear green.

Liu Qianqiao. Such a hard-to-look-at woman. Why had she gotten high hopes with him? She’d been a fool. One fan, and one verse, had been enough to make her dead-set.

“Every time… the ice vanishes later.” Those phrases, long forgotten and once recited casually, were suddenly awakened from his memory in this instant of intersection between life and death. “Several times, the blue sea is calm. Mountain snow… is separated from cloudy peaks. One glance… one glance sees infinite youth. Only this… this heart… is so… old…”

One glance sees infinite youth; only this heart is so old.

He had blurted that out. She had kept it in mind unto death. All his life, he calculated against others, and others calculated against him. Only one such woman had treated him sincerely — missed, then gone.

Yu Qiufeng’s slightly-parting lips finally stopped moving. Hand clutching the muddied grass, his eyes looked blankly to one side, pupils unfocused — they bore his pledge of eternal love of questionable validity, and reflected a road that was infinitely dark, sinister, and cold.

Dust returned to dust. Earth returned to earth.

Zhou Zishu crouched beside him for a time, looking down as if in deep thought, then sighed, reaching out to close his eyes. “Thanks for letting me know,” he said, not very sincerely.

He stood, and followed the Scorpions’ trail.

Zhao Jing amassed heroes of all sorts in the Central Plains, about to strike Fengya Mountain in the name of rectifying the righteous path, taking revenge, and eliminating grudges. The oath of ‘no one comes in, no one comes out’ from thirty years prior was already broken. In this world, where evildoers were to all be thrown out, a thorough purge would begin.

Simultaneously, a figure that had not been in anyone’s view for a very long time arrived at Fengya Mountain.

The mountain was as tall as a thousand blades. Surrounded on all sides, Green Bamboo Ridge was in its middle.

It was the midst of early summer, where plants were just starting to flourish, and birds were going on riots. A small path wound straight into the valley. Were it not for the gigantic sign saying ‘Those with Souls, Do Not Pass’, it would resemble a paradise of gorgeous scenery.

This was Ghost Valley.