In the silent hall, Zanxing looked at the person before her in disbelief: “That wasn’t my arrangement at all!”

For five years, her fragment of primordial soul had wandered through Duzhou, barely surviving from one meal to the next. How could she have had any mind for debauchery and romantic affairs? This was something Xiao Shuang had made up on the spot to comfort the Lamp-Blowing Ghosts, yet Gu Baiying had taken it seriously.

How was he still as gullible as he had been back then?

Yet this person was still dwelling on it even now, speaking expressionlessly: “The pools in your hall are still there.”

Zanxing was speechless: “You can’t just fill in perfectly good pools, can you? What a hassle that would be.” She stared at Gu Baiying and suddenly crossed her arms, looking him up and down. “Besides, what right do you have to lecture me?”

Gu Baiying looked at her: “What?”

“For these five years, I was just a fragment of primordial soul—even if I wanted to do something, I lacked the ability. You were different. During these five years when I wasn’t here, you must have shown your face plenty in the outside world, right?” Zanxing put on a sharp expression. “You’re so handsome, and you’re the beloved young martial uncle of the Taiyan Sect. If you say there weren’t several admirers buzzing around you like butterflies, I don’t believe it.”

Gu Baiying laughed in exasperation and said irritably: “You’re talking nonsense.”

“How is it nonsense?” Zanxing looked at him. The Gu Baiying of years past had been an exceptionally handsome youth. Now, having grown a few years older, he had less recklessness and more composure, though the pride and arrogance in his brows remained as always, particularly eye-catching. Standing in the hall like a sharp, upright spear, he always carried an edge that couldn’t be ignored.

Zanxing said, “Oh, I remember now—there was also that junior martial sister from the Xiangling Sect. During the years I was away, I wonder how you two got along. Times change and hearts are fickle—who knows if you flirted with other girls…”

Gu Baiying couldn’t listen anymore. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into his embrace.

Zanxing was startled.

“Stop being the villain who complains first.” His embrace was warm, and a faint grass fragrance came from his robes. He held Zanxing as if embracing a precious treasure lost and found again. His voice fell from above: “I’m not like you. I told you—the Jiexin Bell only rings for one person. If you hadn’t returned, I would have waited forever.”

“Fortunately…”

Fortunately, she had returned.

His arms tightened, holding Zanxing so tightly it hurt a little.

Zanxing didn’t push him away. She reached out and embraced Gu Baiying in return.

“I’ve been by your side for a long time,” she said softly.

When her physical body was nearly completely refined again, Qin Chong had already repaired most of her spiritual meridians and primordial soul. Though she still couldn’t manifest physically, Zanxing could travel to more distant places.

Knowing that Duzhou was now at peace, she first went to Gufeng Mountain, only to find it empty. She heard that Gu Baiying had gone down the mountain.

Duzhou was vast—finding one person was like searching for a needle in a haystack. She had no idea where Gu Baiying might go. After thinking for a long time, Zanxing decided to try her luck and went to Li’er Kingdom first.

There, on the beach of Li’er Kingdom, she saw Gu Baiying staring at the night sky in a daze.

People came and went around him, the sea was magnificent and tranquil, and she saw Gu Baiying standing in the night, his figure filled with countless loneliness that others couldn’t see.

Zanxing desperately wanted to take his hand.

She walked up to him and said to Gu Baiying: “Gu Baiying, I’m here.”

He didn’t hear her.

After that, Zanxing accompanied Gu Baiying to many places. She saw him murmuring, “I don’t want to be separated,” by the campfire in Wudong Mountain. She watched him carve two names again in the snow of the treasure site. She accompanied him through the Wudan Lin Desert and watched the Buddha wheel sunset over Yue’e Mountain. Just as in the past, they had walked through these places together.

If everything from the past was erased, then they just needed to leave footprints of traveling together once more. So-called memories were created by countless “present moments.”

Finally, she accompanied Gu Baiying back to Heishi City.

Among the coming and going crowds, the young man stopped and watched alone as that vulgar opera with its happy ending concluded.

The performers in the play sang: “Never to part in old age, forever united through all eternity. May all lovers under heaven become married couples.”

The heavenly demon power in the spiritual veins filled the last small gap in her primordial soul. Zanxing felt herself about to become complete again. She tugged at Gu Baiying’s hand and whispered to the completely unaware Gu Baiying: “Gu Baiying, we’ll be reunited very soon, too.”

In the hall, the night wind lingered, and clear bell sounds rang out, shattering the tranquility.

He held Zanxing tightly, feeling somewhat displeased, and pursued the matter fiercely: “Back then, you even said you wanted us to have nothing to do with each other until death.”

Zanxing laughed with a “puchi.”

At that time, she didn’t know what the outcome would be, and felt she needed to prepare for two possibilities. If she left and never returned, at least she didn’t want to become someone else’s eternal regret, a permanent phantom. Since she couldn’t make promises, it was better to personally shatter hope and end things there.

But she hadn’t expected there would be such a fool in this world, whose persistent waiting made one unable to bear continuing the separation.

Zanxing tightly embraced him back, burying her head in Gu Baiying’s chest. She said, “Didn’t you answer back then? You said you would wait for me forever, that you would refuse to be separated from me for lifetime after lifetime. I thought about it—it’s not good to ruin someone’s life for nothing, so I simply came back.”

He raised an eyebrow: “When did I say ‘lifetime after lifetime’?”

Zanxing: “Ah, then about those few consorts of mine…”

He lowered his head and held her even tighter, snorting: “It’s not too late to say it now.”

By the window, flowering trees swayed, and the wind carried the bell sounds to distant places.

Zanxing thought that ordinary people had their forms of persistence, too. As long as the ending wasn’t good, it only meant the story hadn’t finished yet.

And this story would have the best possible ending.