Chapter 210: 210- Reunion.

Lin Zhaoyue didn’t spare a single glance for the glassy, smoldering crater beyond the barrier.

Her entire world had narrowed to the weight in her arms.

With a surge of Qi, she leapt backwards, flying with a graceful speed that belied the fierce protectiveness in her hold.

The Fang family’s barrier shimmered as she passed through it, accepting her without a whisper of resistance.

She landed softly inside the courtyard, ignoring the awestruck and tearful gazes of the clan members.

She marched past them all, her expression a mask of determined care, and headed straight for the inner chambers.

And in a world away, the air was thick with the savory scent of roasting meat and pine needles.

Fang Yuan, hummed a cheerful, off-key tune as he turned a spit.

Two plump boars were roasting over a crackling fire, their skins glistening golden-brown, fat dripping and sizzling into the flames.

Arrayed around him, sitting with an air of improbable patience, were the four Saberfang.

Their eyes, usually burning with primal ferocity, were now fixed intently on the rotating boars.

Their tails gave the occasional, thumping thump against the forest floor, drooling.

They waited, with the absolute discipline of soldiers awaiting their general’s command.

Fang Yuan poked at the sizzling meat with a stick, a satisfied grin on his face. "Almost done, my friends. Just a little more... Ah, perfection."

He leaned back against a log, stretching his arms behind his head. For a moment, his humming ceased.

A distant, almost imperceptible flicker of immense energy, familiar and dearly missed, touched the very edges of his perception.

It was a feeling of stellar radiance, perfected and unleashed, followed by a faint, sudden dimming.

He chuckled softly to himself, a knowing glint in his eyes as he looked up at the sky, as if he could see across the vast distances.

"Done already?" he mused, his voice a low rumble. "And she even pulled that off. I knew she had it in her."

One of the Saberfangs tilted its massive head, a low, questioning grumble in its throat.

"Don’t you worry about it," Fang Yuan said, reaching over to give the beast a fond scratch behind the ear. "Just the sound of my one and only pupil passing her final exam. Now, who’s hungry?"

The four Saberfangs focused their intense gazes back on the fire, their brief distraction forgotten in the face of the imminent feast.

Fang Yuan’s smile remained, a blend of pride, nostalgia, and the simple joy of a perfectly roasted boar.

Kathi City, Southern Region of the Tharz Kingdom:

The air in the small, dim room was thick with the scent of medicinal herbs.

It was supposed to be a reunion, a moment of long-awaited forgiveness. Instead, it was a deathbed vigil.

"Du Xiao..." The name was a broken sob, torn from Du Juan’s throat as she collapsed to her knees beside the cot.

Her hands, trembling violently, clutched her younger sister’s limp, cold fingers. "Oh, Xiao’er..."

On the cot, Du Xiao was a ghost of her former vibrant self.

Her skin was waxen and stretched taut over sharp bones, her breathing a shallow, rattling whisper. The light in her eyes, once so bright and defiant, was guttering out.

Behind Du Juan, a man stood.

A single, tear tracked a path through the grime on Du Xiao’s cheek.

Her lips, pale and cracked, parted with immense effort.

"Jie... jie..." she whispered, the childhood honorific a dagger in Du Juan’s heart. "I’m... so sorry. I should have... listened to you."

"No!" Du Juan cried, the word bursting from her with raw anguish.

She pressed her forehead against their joined hands, her body wracked with sobs.

"No, don’t you apologize! It’s not your fault ! I’m sorry! I was too harsh... I shouldn’t have drove you away... This is my fault! My fault!" Her voice dissolved into incoherent weeping, the grief of years and this imminent loss crashing down upon her all at once.

She had found her sister only to lose her immediately.

Xiao Pei shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the worn floorboards creaking under his boots.

The raw, grieving energy in the room felt like a physical wall, and he was an intruder.

He cleared his throat, the sound awkward and far too loud in the heavy silence.

"I, uh..." he began, wincing at the tremor in his own voice. "I think... I can help her. If you would let me."

His words landed like stones in a still pond.

Du Xiao was too far gone, her consciousness a flickering ember too weak to grasp their meaning.

Du Juan’s head whipped around, her tear-streaked face twisted with anguish and fury.

"Help her?!" she screamed, the pitch raw with desperation. "Don’t you dare give me false hope now! Can’t you see she’s dying? Do you think this is a game?!"

Xiao Pei flinched at the intensity, but his hands shot up quickly, shaking his head.

"No! I’m serious! I—I have an artifact, a Soul-Anchor pendant" he stammered, fumbling at his storage pouch.

"One that can... nourish a person’s soul. Even if her body fails, her spirit can endure. Please—let me try!"

The words pierced through her grief.

Du Juan froze. She was a Nascent Soul master. She was the most knowledgeable person in the room, perhaps for miles, about the intricacies of the soul.

She could see her sister’s soul already withering, flickering like a candle in the wind.

But if the artifact was truly genuine, then perhaps, just perhaps, they could preserve it, nourish it, and keep her alive long enough to carry it back to the Clan Head or Matriarch, together with the Seven-Ring Lotus pill then...

Her heart lurched violently.

In the next breath, she seized Xiao Pei’s hands, tears shining anew in her eyes.

"I love you!" she cried, the words bursting from her in wild relief. "Forgive me for shouting, thank you, thank you!"

Turning back to her sister, Du Juan’s voice hardened, filled with a fierce vitality that had been absent moments before.

She clasped Du Xiao’s frail hand once more, her tears now burning with determination.

"Hear that, Xiao’er? You are not leaving me. You will not die in front of my eyes. Do you understand? I forbid it."