Wangzhou City, the "Immortal's Delight" tavern.
Hong Longxiang contentedly patted his slightly bulging belly and let out a burp. This was the most solid, most lavish meal he'd had in fifteen years.
Across from him, Jiang Che also set down his chopsticks, a look of satisfied contentment on his face.
"Waiter, the bill!" Jiang Che waved his hand grandly, cutting quite the generous figure.
The waiter came running over with a beaming smile, swiftly counting the bowls and dishes on the table. "Two Immortal Masters, that'll be three low-grade spirit stones."
Jiang Che's smile froze for an instant before quickly returning to normal. Hong Longxiang didn't catch that fleeting flash of embarrassment on his senior brother's face at all.
Three low-grade spirit stones? Jiang Che's heart skipped a beat.
He gave a dry cough, didn't reach for his money immediately, and instead turned to look at Hong Longxiang with a tone of concern.
"Junior Brother Hong, are you full? Would you like to order more? I hear the roast goose in Wangzhou City is exceptional."
Hong Longxiang looked at his senior brother's "sincere" eyes, and a warm current suddenly surged through his heart.
His senior brother clearly wasn't well-off either, yet he still worried about letting him eat his fill...
He nodded emotionally.
"I do still feel like something's missing. Then... how about another roast goose?"
"Coming right up! One roast goose!" The waiter sang out loudly and hurried downstairs.
Jiang Che's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly as he muttered under his breath, "Why are the prices in the Central Plains so outrageous..."
Hong Longxiang didn't hear him clearly, still immersed in his senior brother's warm concern.
Soon, a glossy, fragrant roast goose was carried to the table.
Jiang Che enthusiastically tore off a leg and placed it in Hong Longxiang's bowl. "Eat up, Junior Brother. Look how thin you are."
Hong Longxiang was so moved he nearly wept, burying his head in the food.
Seeing Hong Longxiang lost in the delicious meal before him, Jiang Che suddenly stood up.
"Junior Brother, you eat slowly. I just remembered something urgent I need to take care of. I'll be right back."
"Senior Brother, be quick." Hong Longxiang replied with his mouth stuffed full of goose meat, his words muffled.
Jiang Che nodded and hurried downstairs.
Hong Longxiang continued enjoying the delicacy, mentally planning how he'd inquire about his fellow disciples once they reached the Anti-Saint Alliance headquarters, and how to improve his cultivation as quickly as possible...
A quarter of an hour passed. Jiang Che didn't come back.
Two quarter-hours passed. There was still no sign of his senior brother downstairs.
Half an hour passed...
Hong Longxiang was starting to feel restless.
The remaining goose leg on the table had gone cold — he had deliberately saved it for Jiang Che — and the fat had congealed white.
The waiter had come up to refill the tea three times, and the look in his eyes had shifted from warm to suspicious, and then to a faint hostility.
"Esteemed... guest," the waiter came up again, his tone now carrying a hint of stiffness. "Has your friend still not returned?"
Hong Longxiang forced himself to remain calm. "My senior brother had urgent business. He'll be right back."
The waiter gave a perfunctory snort and headed downstairs, deliberately stomping on each step.
Hong Longxiang's palms began to sweat, and an ominous premonition crept into his mind. He tried to sense Jiang Che's aura, but found that his pitiful Object Control realm spiritual sense couldn't reach very far at all.
After another stick of incense, the tavern keeper himself came upstairs.
This was a sharp-eyed middle-aged cultivator whose cultivation wasn't high but whose gaze was piercing. He swept his eyes over the messy table and the lone Hong Longxiang, his tone cold. "Young friend, when do you plan to settle your bill?"
Hong Longxiang braced himself. "Keeper, please wait a bit longer. My senior brother will really be back soon."
The keeper gave a cold laugh.
"Wait? This humble shop runs on thin margins — I can't afford to wait. You're a cultivator too, and you can't even produce three spirit stones?"
Hong Longxiang's cheeks burned.
Even if he turned himself inside out, he couldn't scrape together half a spirit stone. Merely surviving these past fifteen years had been a miracle — "luxuries" like spirit stones had never been within his reach.
Just then, another waiter came rushing up and whispered a few words in the keeper's ear.
The keeper's face instantly darkened.
He looked at Hong Longxiang with eyes full of contempt and fury.
"Well now! Dine-and-dashing on my turf! Someone saw your senior brother hurrying out the north gate half an hour ago!"
Hong Longxiang was struck as if by lightning, his entire body frozen in place.
Jiang Che... skipped out on the bill?
That Jiang Che who'd kept saying "just follow your senior brother and you'll never go hungry," that fellow disciple of his own sister from the Lower Realm's Immortal Spirit Holy Land —
Actually sold him out for the price of a single meal?!
An indescribable humiliation and rage surged through his heart, making his entire body tremble.
"No, that's not it... Senior Brother, he..." Hong Longxiang tried to defend him, but his voice was dry and powerless.
"Enough nonsense!" the keeper barked.
"Someone! Seize this dine-and-dash brat! Send him to the mines to work off his debt!"
Several burly attendants immediately surrounded him, each at the late Body Refining stage, their eyes glinting with malice.
Hong Longxiang instinctively stepped back, circulating what little spiritual energy he had. But facing so many cultivators, he didn't stand a chance.
"I really... my senior brother will come back..."
Hong Longxiang's voice carried a weakness he couldn't even convince himself of, his eyes stinging. Fifteen years of grievance nearly broke through the dam in this moment.
Just as the attendants were about to seize him, a voice as clear as a mountain spring came from the stairway.
"Wait. I'll pay his bill."
Everyone turned to look. A young woman in moon-white Daoist robes was ascending the stairs with unhurried steps.
She appeared to be around sixteen or seventeen, with an exquisite, ethereal beauty. Her features were like a painting, her presence otherworldly and pure, as if she were a celestial maiden who had never tasted the dust of the mortal world.
The keeper and the attendants were momentarily stunned by the young woman's presence, forgetting to move.
Hong Longxiang stared blankly as he turned around. Looking into those bright, star-like eyes, fifteen years of fortitude and pretense collapsed in an instant.
It was really her...
It was really... his sister...
Tears spilled uncontrollably from his eyes. Hong Longxiang, like a child who had endured endless suffering and finally seen family, for the first time in his life, cried out with a sob in his voice:
"Sis! That bastard Jiang Che skipped out on the bill! Save me!"
Hearing the rare address of "Sis," Chen Xingcai was taken aback.
Then, looking at the ragged, tear-stained youth before her, a trace of complex emotion and... helplessness flickered in her eyes.
She sighed softly, walked to Hong Longxiang's side, and patted his shoulder. "It's alright. Your sister is here."
With that, she turned to the dumbfounded keeper and drew a crystalline spirit stone from her sleeve. The stone was wreathed in spiritual qi, far superior to ordinary low-grade spirit stones.
"A mid-grade spirit stone?!" The keeper gasped, his attitude instantly turning reverent.
"Immortal Master... this... this is far too much."
"Our humble shop can't make change for this..."
Chen Xingcai gave a faint smile. "No need for change. Consider the excess compensation for the trouble my brother caused."
The keeper beamed with joy, bowing repeatedly.
"Thank you, Immortal Master! Thank you! It was this lowly one who was blind and offended your noble brother..."
Chen Xingcai paid him no further attention, leading the still-sobbing Hong Longxiang downstairs.
Reaching the tavern entrance, Hong Longxiang finally calmed down a little. With red eyes, he asked, "Sis... why are you here?"
Chen Xingcai looked at him, a hint of playful mockery in her eyes.
"Good thing I sent people to find out where you were and rushed here overnight. By the way, you just said Senior Brother Jiang Che... skipped out on the bill?"
Hong Longxiang nodded fiercely.
"Yes. He told me to wait, and I've been waiting ever since. He still hasn't come back."
Hong Longxiang clenched his fists, silently vowing to make Jiang Che pay the next time he saw him.
But looking at his tall, graceful sister beside him, feeling that faint trace of care, fifteen years of hardship and grievance seemed to find solace in this moment.
His feelings toward Chen Xingcai were extremely complicated — not something that could be explained in a word or two. But as things had evolved to this point, he still yearned more for this bond between siblings, and for her recognition...
Chen Xingcai didn't notice Hong Longxiang's complicated thoughts.
"Senior Brother Jiang Che wouldn't skip out on a bill. Something must have happened to him. Where is he now?"
"I heard the people in the shop say they saw him leave through the north gate."
"The north gate?" Chen Xingcai's expression changed.
"What's wrong?"
"That's one of the battlefields where the Holy Dynasty is attacking the Central Plains right now! Senior Brother is in danger. Let's go find him quickly."
...