A rustling.

Shen Yi appeared outside the Nanyang relief with the three of them.

No sooner had they stepped clear of the curtain of light than they saw the treasure ship hanging in the air ahead — some thirty zhang from end to end, jet-black all over, painted with the Clear-Moon design.

"Nanyang Sect Master. I am a steward of the Clear-Moon Sect, sent by the elder's order to fetch you."

Only one person stood at the bow, a woman in a deep blue robe, young enough by the look of her, and not without beauty.

"You've gone to trouble."

Shen Yi inclined his chin. Plainly the Clear-Moon elder had even taken into account that he had not reached Return-to-Void and could not have got to the Clear-Moon Sect on his own.

For a group of Nanyang natives who had only just set foot in this world, it was a most considerate gesture.

"……"

Li Qingfeng rubbed his chin and looked at the woman. She called him Sect Master, but made no move at all to receive him — she stood with her hands at her sides, looking down at Shen Yi, her expression not quite arrogant, but distinctly cool.

He drew his gaze back and said nothing.

Led by Shen Yi, the three of them boarded the Clear-Moon treasure ship.

"Please."

The woman nodded in answer, and at once the cloud and mist around them blurred away.

In less than an incense stick's time.

The clouds parted, the mist scattered, and everything opened out before them.

Shen Yi looked down from the ship. The platform on the peak was much like the Nanyang Sect's overall, differing only in the details — the Nanyang relief, for instance, had become a Clear-Moon relief.

Almost like two peaks of one and the same sect.

So the Nanhong Seven had not allied later; they had been of a piece from the founding.

"This way."

The steward gestured, then dropped onto the relief, her figure melting straight into the curtain of light.

"Wow! Their sect's grand formation just stays open!"

Xu Qing'er could not…