Inside the earthen city.

A long street of coarse mud and stone, wind rolling dust along it, and crowds standing packed on both sides.

They watched the few figures walking toward them without a word, their eyes drawn despite themselves to the black shirt.

Something complicated welled up in those eyes, and gratitude with it.

What Xiao Family Fort had suffered these last years did not match the fate of those whose gates were slaughtered and clans wiped out; but for the common folk and cultivators who had lived through it, it was a fierce torment that did not stop by day or night.

"Uh."

The Immortal Maiden Baohua had been all ready to cup her hands and acknowledge them.

But once she had seen the look on their faces—

the appetite for it left her.

She lowered her hands blankly and walked quietly beside Shen Yi.

She glanced sideways. Under all those watching eyes Shen Yi was as calm as ever, with nothing in him that looked like pity, as though none of this interested him.

But in the instant the great palm of water had appeared, that sea of gold and those wings of fire had blazed up all at once…

He had plainly guessed that her standing was no ordinary one.

And in the end he had still not staked everything on that thread of guesswork.

"Hey."

The Immortal Maiden Baohua gave Shen Yi's arm a surreptitious shove, and in the moment he lowered his eyes to her she looked into that jet-black gaze and bit her lip. "I think you're rather like a hero after all."

Shen Yi raised an eyebrow and withdrew his gaze, at a loss for words.

He looked off toward the other end of the earthen city.

A figure came sweeping quickly toward them from there, stopped in front of the group, and ground out through his teeth, "Have you people lost your damn minds?"

The strongly built man in plain cloth strode up and made to seize Shen Yi by the collar.

Only for a hand to catch his head and…