Outside the window, the sounds of silk and bamboo instruments could be heard. The mandarin ducks raised in the back lake were sleeping soundly in the shade, and a string of small purple flowers had just bloomed by the lakeside.

The mornings at the Qingqiu Pavilion were always slow and lazy. The ladies had not yet hung up their curtain hooks or risen from their late slumber, and only the early-rising young attendants were yawning as they applied pine resin to the ladies' pipa and yangqin.

But in a small chamber, an uninvited guest politely requested Feng Rugu to accept his death with peace of mind.

Feng Rugu took a sip of tea and said, "Many people have wanted me dead, but you're the first to be so polite about it..."

But before he could finish his sentence, he hurriedly put down his teacup and took a bite of the leftover pastry beside him.

Feng Rugu said with a bitter face, "It's bitter almond. I hate bitter almond the most."

The white figure watched him very patiently.

Feng Rugu brushed away the fallen pastry crumbs and dusted off his long robe, as if the person sitting across from him was an old friend he had known for many years, and they were having a leisurely conversation over tea and chess.

"Although 'he' told me that it's best not to talk to you and not to believe anything you say, I still want to say one thing..." the white figure said, "You have indeed changed a lot compared to twelve years ago."

This sentence contained many profound meanings, and there seemed to be something amiss. Feng Rugu couldn't figure it out for a moment, so he casually asked about the thing he cared about the most: "Who is 'he'? Dressed in black, wearing a ghost mask, and wielding a Tang sword?"

The white figure was slightly stunned for a moment, then laughed, "He told me not to talk to you, and he was really right about that."

...It was indeed the man in black who had forced Wen Chen to behead his own sister with his own hands.

"Even if you don't say it, I know you have an accomplice," Feng Rugu said as he tasted the pastry and found it surprisingly delicious, so he took another piece. "Just now, I thought he was here too, so I mixed everything together when I spoke."

The white figure had an air of frankness and uprightness. Seeing Feng Rugu eating and drinking at ease, he also sat down and listened quietly to his detailed explanation.

Feng Rugu didn't stand on ceremony with him and said to himself, "There have been two strange incidents in the ancient city of Shuisheng recently. The first is that some people in the city have had their souls taken away and are bedridden. The monks of Hanshan Temple have returned to their hometowns to visit them, only to have their throats slit and their bodies abandoned, which is the second incident."

The white figure remained silent, his long lashes lowered in the shadow, and his mood was unreadable.

"These two incidents are very strange in themselves: the young monk of Hanshan Temple had his throat slit with a Tang sword, the technique was extremely ruthless and merciless; but the person who took the souls only took one hun and one po from each person, and the victims were all from wealthy local families. Even if they were in a coma, their families had the means to support them, so at least they wouldn't suffer from cold or hunger... In any case, this is really very thoughtful and meticulous, so meticulous that it's almost a bit meddlesome. In short, these two incidents don't seem to have been done by the same person at all."

At this point, Feng Rugu brushed the pastry crumbs off his hands and laughed, "A heartless person and a person with feelings, why would they join hands to do this? Just to kill me? Am I, Feng Rugu, so easily detested by others?"

The white figure didn't speak, and it was unclear whether he was acquiescing or had decided not to say another word after being stumped by Feng Rugu's words.

Feng Rugu didn't care about his silence. He pointed to the teacup in front of the white figure and said generously, "I thought you two would come together. This cup of tea is to honor your righteousness in leaving a way out when you do things; he killed my fiancée and many unrelated bystanders, so he doesn't deserve to drink tea, only to watch."

These words were arrogant and childish, but they made the white figure speak again, "Sorry, I take back what I said. You are still similar to how you were twelve years ago."

Feng Rugu raised his eyebrows, "We met here twelve years ago?"

The white figure smiled and actually took on a human form.

He was a young man of eighteen or nineteen years old, with snow-white clothes, handsome eyes and eyebrows, and an air like the wind in the forest. However, his eyes were shrouded in an extremely bewildered melancholy, giving him a sense of being out of this world.

As soon as he opened his mouth, his cheeks turned red, and he said, "This humble one is Lian Ruxin, and I once had a brief encounter with Lord Yunzhong."

Feng Rugu scrutinized his face carefully, "But I don't remember you."

Could it be the plague demon he had killed?

But even if we don't mention the fact that Feng Rugu had long since dismembered that demon, that demon had cultivated to the point of being unrecognizable, with plague insects crawling all over his body, a thoroughly ugly thing that didn't match the air and appearance of the person in front of him.

The young man named "Lian Ruxin" was not angry or annoyed. He said, "Excuse me," and reached out his fingertips to lightly brush them in front of Feng Rugu's eyes.

Feng Rugu was holding a cup, hesitating whether to take a sip of the bitter almond to suppress the sweetness under his tongue, when he felt his vision blur and his hand shook, spilling some tea from the cup.

...

What appeared before Feng Rugu's eyes were Lian Ruxin's memories.

To be precise, they were the memories of Lian Ruxin, the spirit of the stone god.

There really were stone gods in this world.

In ancient times, Nüwa smelted stones to mend the heavens and repair the cracks in the sky. However, a drop of molten stone fell on the peak of Mount Mizhi, nearly causing the sky mending to fail. Fortunately, the molten stone had a spirit, and although it was not in its proper place, it was still able to successfully mend the leak in the sky with its spiritual consciousness.

Thus, the world was at peace, the seas were calm and the rivers were clear, and only a line of cracks remained in the sky to the southeast of Mount Mizhi, where the sight of broken rosy clouds could often be seen. In the evening, one could climb the mountain and see it.

After the flood subsided, people were moved by the divine miracle and worshipped the divine stone, revering it as a god, and settled down around Mount Mizhi, establishing the ancient city of Shuisheng.

However, although the divine stone had divine power, it was not in its proper place after all.

The ancient gods had long been lost, and the divine stone needed the power of great vows to have a continuous source of sky-mending power.

The so-called "power of great vows" was the incense and offerings of the common people. Every three years, there needed to be believers who would climb the mountain and voluntarily enter the divine stone, their flesh and blood merging with the divine stone, in order for the divine power of the stone to continue and keep the sky from cracking.

For the divine power of the stone to continue, each sacrifice required three believers to offer themselves.

If the divine stone's will to exist ceased, the sky would crack open again, and the people of this land would surely suffer.

Therefore, from the day the divine stone was born, every fifty years, it would split off a stone person. One was to protect the divine stone from damage, the second was to guide the believers to complete the sacrifice, and the third was to guard the local land and water and fulfill the responsibilities of a god.

After fifty years, when the spiritual power of the stone person was exhausted, they would return to the stone, and the next stone person would emerge.

All the stone people looked exactly the same, always with a youthful appearance, never aging or dying.

They also had names, derived from the phrase "smelting stone to mend the heavens," using the character "lian" from "smelting," and passed down for a thousand years.

...Although no one knew.

On the day Lian Ruxin walked out of the divine stone, he inherited all the memories and responsibilities passed down by his predecessors, the Stone People, over thousands of years.

Those memories quickly taught him what he should and shouldn't do.

The Stone People were born from the divine stone and their existence relied on the divine power of the stone. Therefore, they could not step outside the boundaries of Shuisheng City, and their spiritual power could not extend beyond the city.

Aside from various important matters, the memories of his predecessors also told him a peculiar precaution.

— Do not form connections with any living beings.

They were the guardians of the divine stone, not the divine stone itself. If they took on a specific appearance and emerged into the world, their willpower would inevitably deviate, ultimately backfiring and making things worse.

Lian Ruxin, dressed in all white, stood before the stone, his demeanor dazed like a newborn child, his mind filled with a thousand years of memories.

The memories also told him an important thing.

...The divine stone now was no longer as renowned as it once was.

During the last sacrificial ceremony, only two people were willing to make offerings on the mountain.

The Stone People did good deeds in the city to develop followers, even at the cost of consuming their own lifespan to manifest miracles. But the east city claimed it was the work of the shaman god, while the north city said it was the blessing of the City God. Opinions varied.

Of course, some also said it was the protection of the ancient stone god, but that voice was suppressed by the other two, sounding so weak and powerless.

The previous Stone Person, in order to keep the incense burning, overextended his life and manifested miracles, ultimately living only thirty-five years.