Yet, in the past fifty years, this “eligible bachelor” had only done two things:
First, he visited his old friend Shang Gu at the Star-Plucking Pavilion.
Second, he searched Heaven and Earth for Yue Mi’s soul.
On one sunny day, he visited Shang Gu, who was lounging lazily with an injured leg, basking in the sun as she awaited Bai Jue’s return. Suddenly, he abandoned his search.
The two of them shared a silent smile—friends for millennia, they shared an unspoken understanding.
He picked a peach blossom from the Peach Blossom Forest by Yue Mi’s old residence, scooped a gourd of stream water from beneath the tree, and, dressed in ancient robes, walked away without a care.
Watching his departing figure from the Star-Plucking Pavilion, Shang Gu remembered Yue Mi’s bright smile and toast from many years ago as she leaned against the corridor.
She closed her eyes and sighed softly. Those three carts of wine, sealed in Tian Qi’s palace, had gathered dust for sixty thousand years.
From that day on, Tian Qi never returned to the Ancient God Realm.
Across the Three Realms, he never found Yue Mi’s soul, but he didn’t give up. Before he ventured into the rift of space in search of her remaining spirit, he visited A-Qi once at Daze Mountain.
At that time, A-Qi—one of the most noble yet unfortunate young gods in the realms—had already been pampered into a “chubby little tyrant” by the immortals of Daze Mountain. The “Little Tyrant” ruled the forbidden valley in blissful ignorance, dreaming only of lifting his seal, finding the young phoenix, and conquering the realms. He remained oblivious to his fate.
Satisfied that there was nothing more to worry about, Tian Qi handed over Zi Yue Mountain and the Nine Nether Inferno to Sanhuo, and then stepped into the rift in time and space.
From that day on, the True God Tian Qi was never seen again in the Three Realms.
Years passed—centuries, millennia, an unknown span of time.
When Tian Qi returned to Zi Yue Mountain, worn and weary, the tale of Yuan Qi’s heroic sacrifice to resist the demon clans and save the Three Realms had already faded into the distant past. The Three Realms had changed, filled with people and things he no longer recognized, except for a few old immortals and demon lords.
As a True God of the Ancient God Realm, the constant changes of the mortal realms were of no concern to him.
Only the memory of Yuan Qi’s self-sacrifice caused a faint furrow in his brow, but it soon faded into the depths of his ancient eyes.
Each person has their own destiny, and if Yuan Qi was born a god, his trials could hardly be less severe than those once faced by Shang Gu and Bai Jue.
He cast a glance at the desolate Zi Yue Mountain, but ultimately returned to the Ancient God Realm.
In the Star-Plucking Pavilion, where once there had been only one waiting for him, now there were four.
Shang Gu, Bai Jue, Zhi Yang, and the one who would rather grow old and die in the Nine Nether Inferno than return to the Ancient God Realm—Xuan Yi.
There was a deep calm in the eyes of Shang Gu and Bai Jue, while Zhi Yang remained as steady as a mountain. Xuan Yi, clutching a wine flask, leaned against the Star-Plucking Pavilion’s corridor and suddenly cast a fiery, teasing glance toward Tian Qi from afar.
Tian Qi shuddered and quickly disappeared into the Star-Plucking Pavilion, then turned to head toward the Star-Moon Residence.
As the other three gods gave him reproachful looks, Xuan Yi shrugged, letting out a hint of a human-like exasperation.
“After all, I am operating on his territory, so I thought it would be courteous to give him a heads-up—to ensure that my grand plan goes smoothly.”
The other three couldn’t help but think: After nearly destroying the Three Realms several times, what “grand plan” could possibly be beyond you now?
But they kept their thoughts to themselves, for they knew that whatever Xuan Yi was planning this time wasn’t harmful, and whether it was right or wrong would only be clear after a few more years.
Soon, Tian Qi appeared in the Peach Blossom Forest behind the Star-Moon Residence. He stood beside a stream under a tree for a long time, then slowly sat down, leaning against an ancient tree. Other than the gourd of stream water from the Peach Blossom Forest hanging at his waist, he had nothing left after a thousand years.
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