Sunlight poured over the valley, driving away the chill of night.
Chen Ji paused among the trees and looked back.
He had watched with his own eyes as dozens of the Five-Mad Soldiers stood calmly in the sunlight and turned into wisps of bone-ash, drifting away on the wind.
Now that the wild things had been returned to their rightful owners, Chen Ji felt only a hollow sorrow.
Beneath those white bone masks were faces and voices that ought to have been the most familiar to him, but he could not remember a single name.
He should have remembered.
Would those who dissipated be re-summoned to the world again by blood rites? Where had they lived before coming here? If they dispersed, would they return there?
Chen Ji did not know.
He would have to go ask Zhang Xia when he returned.
But he could not go back yet.
He looked down at the soil and the fallen leaves spotted with fresh blood, each drop leading deeper into the forest.
He followed the trail north.
The blood ran thinner and thinner, but it never stopped.
North of Xianglu Peak, as he walked, he suddenly halted.
Chen Ji stood motionless in the woods, eyes fixed on the broad crown of a great tree ten zhang (about 33 meters) away.
He neither approached nor withdrew.