Ning Huaishan and Duan Bi waited by the mountain road in the suburbs as agreed.

Before getting on the carriage, Yi Wusheng lifted the curtain and glanced into the distance.

The snow outside was too heavy to see their faces, only their silhouettes. One of the two subordinates was particularly thin and small, looking like a fourteen or fifteen-year-old youth at first glance.

'A child?'

Yi Wusheng shook his head and sighed inwardly: 'These days, there are indeed many who enter the path of evil demons at such a young age. How hateful, how tragic.'

He had encountered someone like this before and, in a moment of weakness, hadn't dealt a killing blow.

"Why is Sir shaking his head?" Wu Xingxue asked. His voice was pleasant, and when he spoke like this, he was no different from an ordinary young master from a wealthy family.

But it still made one's heart race, perhaps because the "ah" was too soft.

Yi Wusheng immediately dropped the curtain.

He pinched a piece of paper, and just as he was about to answer, the door curtain was flung open, and wind and snow rushed in.

"City Lord, we've been waiting for ages!" Ning Huaishan came up first. Just after calling out to Wu Xingxue, he saw Yi Wusheng, and his face instantly turned ashen. "Why is it you!"

Yi Wusheng was stunned for a moment.

"What a reaction." Wu Xingxue glanced over. "Do you two know each other?"

"Heh." Ning Huaishan sneered, saying sarcastically, "As someone from Zhaoye City, where would I have the chance to know someone from a prestigious and righteous sect like him? It's just that my lucky star was shining many years ago, and I ran into him once."

Yi Wusheng clearly didn't recognize him, a look of confusion on his face. "?"

Ning Huaishan's face turned even more livid.

He cursed under his breath, pulled open his collar to reveal a section of his neck. Near a vital spot, there was, shockingly, a long sword scar. The scar had a newly formed scab, as if it had split open again not long ago.

Seeing this scar, Yi Wusheng recognized him. He stared at Ning Huaishan in utter astonishment, the paper in his hand crinkling from his grip, a clear sign of his shock. "You are... that child from the Jiaming Wilderness?"

"Child, my ass." Ning Huaishan let go of his collar. "I was around ten years old back then. It's been almost forty years since."

Naturally, Wu Xingxue didn't understand a word of their conversation.

But that didn't stop him from stirring the pot. "Jiaming Wilderness?"

Ning Huaishan had just finished cursing, but at this question, he sneered again. "Yes, the Jiaming Wilderness. You know about it, City Lord. It was that time when the Black Bodhisattva and I went on an errand, but we were intercepted by the Hua Family, and the Black Bodhisattva fell on the way."

"..."

The City Lord did not, in fact, know.

Wu Xingxue said, "Oh." "I remember the matter with the Black Bodhisattva." 'Like hell I do.'

"This sword wound of yours is?"

'You're already an evil demon, shouldn't fighting and killing with the Hundred Immortal Sects be a common occurrence? Why hold a grudge over a sword wound for so long?'

"Ask him." Ning Huaishan pointed at Yi Wusheng.

"..." Yi Wusheng thought to himself, 'What kind of mess have I gotten myself into in this carriage.'

He was silent for a moment before explaining, "Back then, the sword was coated with some... medicine."

They had been bent on slaughtering evil demons. At the time, everyone from the Hua Family had coated their swords with spiritual medicine, medicine that he himself had personally mixed. One strike, even if it didn't hit a vital point, would cause the sword wound to repeatedly split open and fester.

Because the people of Zhaoye City cultivated wicked arts, they had their own methods for healing wounds, which were extremely fast but also came at a great cost.

"This one sword strike from him has forced me into the medicinal pools every few days. I've been practicing poisonous forbidden arts and soaking in them for over thirty years." Ning Huaishan gritted his teeth. "My body and height haven't grown at all since then!"

"And he even lectured me." Ning Huaishan stared at Yi Wusheng. "What did he say? Oh, right. He said that at such a young age, I was already obsessed with the evil path and had gone astray. He told me to open my eyes and take a good look at those killed by evil demons, and to ask myself if I ever once thought of my own family. He said if I continued like this, I would surely regret it for the rest of my life."

"Old Sir." Ning Huaishan smiled, his two sharp teeth looking fiendish.

'Old... Sir.'

Yi Wusheng was silent.

Disciples of the Immortal Sects did not age easily. With his appearance, if placed in an ordinary family, it would be no problem to say he was twenty-five or twenty-six.

"Everyone in Zhaoye City knows I'm an orphan who crawled up from the ground. I have no damned family to think about, so what can I do? But you, Old Sir, did you ever think that one day we would meet again on a narrow path?"

Yi Wusheng: "..."

'I thought we might meet with swords drawn, not that we'd be squeezed together in a carriage.'

Ning Huaishan's gaze swept over the black cloth strip stretched across his mouth and nose, and he said cuttingly, "Aiyaya, it seems Old Sir's treatment in this carriage is a bit poor, I—"

Yi Wusheng's pale skin was almost taunted into blushing, when a silver sword sheath by the door lifted and struck Ning Huaishan behind the knee.

With a thud, Ning Huaishan fell to his knees before Yi Wusheng.

"..."

I—

He clutched his numb leg and cursed, turning his head to glare at the one who had hit him. He saw High Immortal Tianxiu looking down at him, expressionlessly moving a finger, and the sword returned to its original position.

Ning Huaishan saw the Black King Lotus flash on Xiao Fuxuan's hand and remembered that this was his City Lord's puppet; whatever it did was on the City Lord's orders.

Ning Huaishan turned his head to look at Wu Xingxue. "City Lord, did you tell him to hit me?"

Wu Xingxue: "..."

'I did not.'

He lifted his eyes and stared at Xiao Fuxuan, who was opposite him.

Xiao Fuxuan also looked over at him, their gazes meeting through the dim light. After a moment, he raised an eyebrow ever so slightly, then turned his face away as if it had nothing to do with him.

Wu Xingxue: "..."

'A dignified High Immortal, sowing discord against me?'

He rubbed his warming fingers, observing for a while. Then, he tapped the table and said to Ning Huaishan, "No need to keep kneeling. You're blocking someone from getting in the carriage. Go sit over there."

"Who?" Ning Huaishan glared back.

He saw Duan Bi clinging to the carriage door with one hand, one foot inside and the other still dangling outside. He expressionlessly said to Ning Huaishan, "I've been putting up with you for a long time. Get in."

Ning Huaishan: "..."

He was so aggrieved he could have died. He stared at the empty seat next to Yi Wusheng for a long while, then looked at the sword-hugging Xiao Fuxuan. Gritting his teeth, he turned and sat down next to Wu Xingxue.

Then, he saw Xiao Fuxuan's sword move slightly.

Ning Huaishan had an almost conditioned reflex. The moment his bottom touched the wooden plank, he shot up and bounced over next to Yi Wusheng, squeezing in to sit with his "enemy."

"If you don't want me to sit there, just say so. Don't hit people, City Lord," he grumbled.

Wu Xingxue: "..."

A row of question marks appeared above Wu Xingxue's head.

'Who said you couldn't sit here?'

Ning Huaishan realized that Xiao Fuxuan had no intention of drawing his sword and suddenly felt he had overreacted, losing all face.