Ning Huaishan silently pinched a piece of flesh on Fang Chu's waist and quietly sent a voice transmission: "See that? The Spirit King..."

Fang Chu: "..."

He gritted his teeth, stifling a grunt of pain, and pinched Ning Huaishan's fingers back: "I see him. I'm not blind. You pinch me again?"

Ning Huaishan: "I'd rather be blind."

He thought for a moment, and the more he thought, the stranger it seemed: "That's our City Lord. The entire Zhaoye City, the Demon's Lair, is a place he carved out. A famously great Demon Lord. How could someone call him by the title of a High Immortal?"

"...Why? Are they crazy?"

"It's not out of the question that they look alike and he was mistaken, or—" Fang Chu struggled to come up with a reason, but gave up halfway through. "Forget it, I can't make anything up. Let's just leave it at that."

Their City Lord's face was one of a kind; finding someone who looked like him under the heavens would be incredibly difficult. In all the various rumors, everyone who had seen him said he was unforgettable. How could he be mistaken for someone else?

Besides, Ning Huaishan and Fang Chu both remembered the way that Spirit King had caught the tossed sword...

Anyone who had been around Wu Xingxue for a while knew that this Demon Lord didn't like to hold troublesome things. Whenever he needed something, he would often find it on the spot or ask someone around him for it.

Ning Huaishan and Fang Chu had followed him the longest. Often, Wu Xingxue would just hold out a hand, and they would obediently hand over their things.

And every time Wu Xingxue caught something, he would give it a little twirl with his fingers.

Ironically, in the Immortal Capital with its tens of thousands of Yao Palaces, his twirling a sword was seen as graceful and dashing. Here in the mortal Demon's Den, it became an inscrutable carelessness...

It was clearly the same motion.

Ning Huaishan was stunned for a moment, then shook the strange thought from his head. Together with Fang Chu, he stared at his City Lord in bewilderment, trying to figure out what was going on.

However, Wu Xingxue was no less bewildered than the two of them.

He was quiet for a moment, then lowered his gaze and asked Yun Hai, "What did you call me?"

But Yun Hai didn't answer.

He had been slumbering underground for a long time, never seeing the light of day. His face was a sickly, frail pale, like the paper ash from mortal sacrificial rites, as if it would scatter with a gust of wind.

He blinked slowly, his eyes sweeping over all of Wu Xingxue's reactions, then slowly turned to Xiao Fuxuan. His gaze moved from top to bottom, sweeping over the wrist with the black mark.

Then, Yun Hai closed his eyes, his body trembling lightly under the cover of the wrapping vines.

A moment later, Wu Xingxue realized he was laughing.

It was a silent, soundless, yet irrepressible laugh, born from extreme weakness.

"You're actually asking me... what I called you..." Yun Hai's lips moved slightly, still only able to produce an extremely faint, breathy sound. It was as if the vines were wrapped too tightly, constricting his chest and throat, to the point he couldn't even exhale a full breath.

But he was long accustomed to this bondage and didn't care. He just kept his eyes closed, repeating in a nearly inaudible, hoarse voice: "I never would have thought... that one day, you would ask me... what I called you..."

"Isn't that a question only a Deposed Immortal, one who was cast out of the Immortal Capital, beaten back to the Mortal Realm, and remembers nothing, would ask? To think I'd hear it from you..."

Yun Hai laughed silently a few more times, then said slowly, "The Spirit King... Tianxiu... Summoned by Heaven, they don't take offerings, nor do they rely on incense..."

With his eyes closed, he looked as calm as if he were in a dream, a dream where the scene of just entering the Immortal Capital was as vivid as yesterday. He slowly repeated the words that Lingtai Immortal Messenger had said.

"I once... was so envious of you both," he said softly after repeating the words.

Hearing this, Wu Xingxue raised his eyes and glanced at Xiao Fuxuan.

In that instant, a sentence flashed through his mind—"I'm so envious of you..."

The voice wasn't this hoarse, nor was the tone this light. It was more like a casual complaint between good friends. Wu Xingxue didn't remember the complete scene, but he subconsciously knew that Yun Hai had said it.

Yun Hai, back when he was still in the Immortal Capital, had said it.

***

Back then, Yun Hai had just been demoted to the Mountain God of Great Sorrow Valley and was still receiving additional punishment from Immortal Leader Hua Xin. He had passed by Lingtai six times in a single day but didn't have the face to enter, so he circled the vast Immortal Capital several times, ending up at the most remote place, "Zuo Chunfeng."

The Spirit King was rarely there. He was sitting by the window lattice with one leg propped up. On the table before him sat a decanter of immortal brew and two empty cups.

"You always say few people come here, few people come here, yet everything is laid out so neatly." At that time, Yun Hai had not yet endured for nearly a century, and no matter what he pondered in his heart, he would never reveal his gloom to others. Whenever he spoke, it was always with a jest: "Don't tell me the Spirit King has a date with some beauty? Have I come at an inconvenient time?"

"It is inconvenient. If you run now, you can still make it," the Spirit King replied irritably.

"I can't do that. I suffered a setback today, so I have to find a place to chat for a bit, otherwise..." Yun Hai paused.

"Otherwise what?"

"Otherwise, I might have to circle Lingtai a seventh time," Yun Hai said with a self-deprecating laugh.

The Spirit King never asked about Lingtai matters; this was a consistent rule. He didn't respond to that line, instead asking him, "What setback did you suffer to be so frustrated?"

"Can I drink this wine?" Yun Hai asked.

"No." The Spirit King waved his hand, and the immortal brew and empty cups landed steadily on an empty tray held by an Immortal Attendant. "This is an apology gift I prepared."

After speaking, he beckoned to another Immortal Attendant and handed a new pot of wine to Yun Hai.

"An apology? Who would dare make you apologize? Fine wine is for a beauty; using it for an apology would be a waste of this night," Yun Hai grumbled, pouring himself a cup of wine.

For others, wine enters a sorrowful gut, and complaints spill out.

Yun Hai drank three cups but didn't say what setback he had suffered. He only complained that the new vintage from the Wine Pool wasn't as clear and sweet as last year's. After three cups, he was drunk.

He raised his cup, tapped it against the Spirit King's, and said, "I'm so envious of you. You don't have to worry about your incense offerings growing cold, and you can live as long as Lingtai."

"Why would my lord want to compare his lifespan to Lingtai's?" The Little Attendant was puzzled before the Spirit King could even speak.

But Yun Hai just laughed heartily, then pinched the Little Attendant's cheek and said, hugging the wine pot, "Those little attendants at Lingtai are like little old men, not nearly as cute and clever as the ones at Zuo Chunfeng."

The Spirit King was not modest at all: "But of course. They are my attendants, after all."

The Little Attendant ran off, rubbing his cheek, and bumped into a pair of long legs at the doorway, letting out a cry of "Aiyo!"

The Spirit King looked up. Yun Hai, in his daze, also turned his head and saw High Immortal Tianxiu, Xiao Fuxuan, lifting the screen curtain and standing by the door.

His gaze swept over the room, finally landing on the immortal brew Yun Hai was hugging. A moment later, he looked at the Spirit King and said coolly, "You plucked the immortal bamboo leaves from my Palace Manor and stuck a note on an attendant's forehead just to have me come see this?"

Yun Hai was already muddled by then. He looked left and right, then laughed, saying, "This is the first time I've heard High Immortal Tianxiu say so many words in one sentence. How rare, what an eye-opener."

He added, "The fine wine for a beauty you mentioned, it couldn't be Lord Tianxiu, could it?"

High Immortal Tianxiu's expression instantly became a picture.

He had originally intended to leave but suddenly changed his mind. Holding up the misty screen curtain with two fingers, he waited to hear what other nonsense would be spoken.

***

Perhaps because there were too many interruptions at the time, Yun Hai probably didn't even remember that garbled sentence himself. It was only hundreds of years later that he brought it up again.

Yet, the person who had laughed and chatted while hugging a wine pot was now like a phantom. The High Immortal Tianxiu who had lifted the curtain back then was now just a shell of a clone. And the host of Yao Palace who had entertained guests had forgotten his own identity completely.

"I once thought that you two were the ones who least needed to worry about life, death, or being deposed, that you would last as long as Lingtai and the Immortal Leader. I never thought..."

Yun Hai's silent laugh was filled with mockery, it was unclear whether he was mocking himself or others.

"How did you end up like this?" He was quiet for a moment, then his neck twitched slightly. The eyeballs under his eyelids trembled for a moment, and he let out an "Ah," as if remembering something. "That's right. Even the Immortal Capital is gone. Naturally, no one can be an Immortal anymore."

Hearing this, Wu Xingxue frowned. "How do you know the Immortal Capital is gone?"

Ning Huaishan and the others were taken aback and followed up, "That's right. How could you know?"

Yun Hai has been pinned here for at least several hundred years. The Immortal Capital was perfectly fine back then.

Even though he had used the Offering Seal to absorb a lot of sustenance for himself over these hundreds of years, and had used dreams to lure common people here in an attempt to break the suppressing formation, no one would have come to the depths of this tomb to tell the person underground about the current state of the world.

So how did he know that the Immortal Capital was gone?

Wu Xingxue's gaze swept over and he suddenly noticed runes carved on the stone wall at the edge of the deep pit. The reason he hadn't noticed them before was because the runes were too dense and chaotic. At first glance, they were indistinguishable and looked like cracks from a tremor.

Looking closely now, he realized that the runes were so dense and chaotic because they were layered—there was an old layer, and later a new layer had been added on top.

And the brushstrokes of the two layers of runes seemed to be different, not from the same person.

If the old runes were left by Hua Xin when he buried Yun Hai here...

Then what about the new ones?

A guess suddenly flashed through Wu Xingxue's mind.