"So, what is it? Finally come to your senses? Or has something gone wrong in Qingzhou again?"

Wu Dao'an walked ahead, unhurried.

He'd warned the young man before that the path of cultivation was far rockier than he imagined — a thousand years might sound like an eternity, but in truth, it passed in the snap of a finger.

For a cultivator, lifespan was always the most precious thing of all.

What surprised him somewhat was that Shen Yi had come around to his senses far faster than he'd expected.

"If this is about Qingzhou business, then don't even bother bringing it up. Even if you were a proper disciple of the War Temple..."

"Registered disciple," Shen Yi said quietly.

"This old man knows that!" Wu Dao'an glanced back, exasperated. This boy was genuinely baffling — for most people, becoming a true disciple of the War Temple would have been the kind of fortune their ancestors had prayed for, and yet here this one was, not even bothering to milk the misunderstanding, instead honestly correcting him on the spot.

Absurd, to the very limit.

"Even being a registered disciple of the War Temple! We genuinely haven't got any strength to spare."

Wu Dao'an wasn't lying. This crowd of Martial Immortals might stand above the Nine Provinces' Generals in cultivation, but without a condensed golden dharma form, they couldn't overwhelm a demon king outright either — and if things bogged down into a standoff, it would only leave the War Temple's own defenses dangerously thin.

If any Mixed Origin cultivators happened to be free, he wouldn't have minded, given Shen Yi's talent, putting in a word himself to bring one or two Grandmasters in to lend a hand.

As it stood, though, there was genuinely no one to spare.

"Qingzhou's fine for now," Shen Yi said, shaking his head.

"..."

Wu Dao'an shot him a silent glance, a flicker of confusion rising in him.

Fine? If everything was truly fine, how had Jiang Yuanhua ended up in that wretched state?

He'd assumed Shen Yi had been sent to the capital to…