The Endless Promise

98. Pieces In Place

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Fei Yun had gone to sleep with Zhurong Fen in his arms, but

But that night, a sudden chill awoke him, and he realized the one in his arms was paled and cold as ice.

"No! A-Fen! A-Fen! What's wrong? What's happening?"

"A...Yun." She weakly opened her eyes. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry we couldn't be happy." Her eyes closed and her body went limp.

"Don't blame your friends..." She said on her last breath, and then faded away in his arms...

"No." Fei Yun shook his head in disbelief. "Nooooooooo!" He threw back his head and roared at the raw pain in his heart.

But he suddenly found himself staring at the empty window.

It was still daylight, and barely any time seemed to have passed at all, but he could remember every second, minute, and hour he had just spent with Zhurong Fen.

The dream- whatever it was, was a picture of what his life should have been, but here he was in an empty room, imprisoned for a thousand years, as Tianlong, Zhurong Fen's own brother, protected Bailong, her murderer!

'Yin Bailong!' Fei Yun internally raged, spitting out blood. 'I will never let you go!!'

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At the same time, in the mortal realm, a handsome young man painted beneath an umbrella which shielded him from the sunlight, and he hummed an odd tune as the lush and vibrant scenery around him slowly appeared on his paper with each skilled brush stroke.

He sat before a thick grove of trees and bushes, with a nine tier tower in the distance, and lazy clouds in the sky, and with a final stroke of his brush, the scene had been replicated near perfectly on the paper.

"Your painting has improved through the years." An echoing voice rang out, and a black crystal butterfly landed on the paper.

He sighed. "Surely, it's not beautiful enough to *attract butterflies."

(*Culturally tied to harmony between art and nature... If a painter can capture nature's essence, then the butterflies might mistake a painted scene or flower for a real one...)

But the butterfly simply flew off, and he heard on the wind:

"Yu Shui City..."

He sighed again and looked between his painting and the natural scene.

"At least it's finished." He said as he rose to his feet.

But just then, a small ferret darted out of some bushes, and it sniffed around before the trees.

The painter's brows furrowed.

"If you wanted to be in the scene, you should have simply said so..." And with a single swish of his brush, the ferret vanished.

But on the painting, somewhere before the trees, a ferret had appeared...

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Meanwhile, *Yu Shui City was a vast and beautiful place, named after a large crystal clear lake in its center, which reflected the skies perfectly, making it resemble an impossibly large piece of the finest jade.

(* Literally Jade water)

Yu Shui City was considered an extremely lucky place, with natural beauty, rich harvests, vibrant trade, countless treasures, and a good and constant flow of pure energy, yet there were no cultivators in the City!

In contrast, the cities around were drab and full of natural disasters like plagues, droughts, floods, fires, and even unprovoked landslides, yet a cultivator or two would defy the odd to visit, pass through, or even dwell there.