Shen Yi wasn't just being polite.

There really were a few people in this crowd he hadn't seen in ages.

Like the girl he'd met in the Baiyun County town. The last time he'd seen her, if he remembered right, was when Yue Tianji had carried off Senior Xuanqing and she'd come out looking for him.

Things had been urgent then, and they'd barely traded a few words.

Then there were his brothers from Wutong Mountain, and the Xu family, who had helped him build formations for the Great Qian.

He had always hurried down his road, and these people had stayed behind on it, doing their best to smooth it out a little.

Seeing them again, he couldn't help feeling glad.

That was the beauty of the Divine Dynasty. It had room for people like these, whose cultivation wasn't high.

It meant Shen Yi didn't have to be in such a rush. He had time to stop and say hello with a calm heart.

“……” Their faces full of mixed feelings, the crowd hadn't even dared greet him at first. Shen Yi had troubles of his own right now. It wasn't that they were afraid of being dragged in. They were afraid of becoming a burden to him.

But those few short words were enough.

Smiles broke out across the crowd, and that old, familiar sense of safety welled up in them again.

Lin Baixi carefully let go of Senior Sister Jiang's sleeve, stepped out of the crowd and walked shyly up to Shen Yi.

Her nose twitched. She closed her eyes and took a soft breath.

It was the same smell she remembered, with that faint trace of blood.

Suddenly she was back in that dark, cramped side room with space for just two, waiting for the battered wooden door to swing open and the young man to come back with food, still reeking of blood from his latest kill.

Less than a month, all told, and yet she'd never forgotten it.

“I missed you.”

Lin Baixi murmured it with her eyes closed, her voice barely a whisper.