White robes like snow, black hair cascading down. The Ming Dynasty attire was solemn and elegant. She appeared to be no more than a sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl with her hair in twin buns, but the familiar feeling in her brows and the air of grace and elegance were extremely familiar to Yuan.

That sentence, "We meet again," undoubtedly confirmed his conjecture.

The white-robed girl gestured for Yuan to come over.

Around her, spiritual energy flowed, and the secrets of heaven were twisted to a certain extent, briefly transforming into a formation-like space, different from the mortal realm around it. To demarcate an area and form a formation in an instant – such methods were far superior to the so-called true cultivators of the mortal world.

The white-haired man murmured with emotion, "As expected of you..."

The Maiden Queen of the West, in the form of a young girl, slightly raised her chin and smiled, "That's only natural."

"However... I didn't expect that you could achieve this step."

The girl's eyes held a hint of admiration as she gazed at the man before her:

"To join forces with Ying Long and actually distort the time node of the Great Tribulation to a certain extent, and to crush the opponent's counterattack so decisively. Now that the overall situation is set, if they want to change the course of history again, they must appear in person."

"And if They appear in person, then we can take the opportunity to act."

"I never imagined that the original stalemate would change because of you alone. As expected of someone who was once close friends with Zhuge Wu Hou."

Yuan muttered to himself, "A stalemate..."

In an instant, he understood the situation the Maiden Queen of the West was talking about.

The gray-robed man suddenly chuckled softly:

"There is a third matter that requires the Maiden Queen of the West to clear up my confusion."

"Hmm?"

He suddenly stepped forward, raising his right hand and forming a palm.

Then he directly struck the white-robed girl's forehead lightly, chuckling:

"Ask, ask, ask, asked for thousands of years."

"Aren't you tired of it?"

"Ah!"

The divinity in the Maiden Queen of the West's eyes happened to recede, and the white-robed girl she had transformed into exclaimed in bewildered surprise, raising her hands to cover her forehead, glaring angrily at the Taoist before her with tears welling up in her eyes. The Taoist stared blankly at his own palm, lost in thought, but only laughed heartily, carefree and unrestrained, before flicking his sleeves and leaving:

"Gone! Gone!"

"A single acquaintance in the mortal realm, nothing more than two drifting duckweeds."

"Hahaha, joyful, joyful, my mind is clear!"

Several girls, seeing their friend suddenly lagging behind, were puzzled. Then they saw the girl covering her slightly reddened forehead, glaring angrily at the white-haired Taoist with tears in her eyes, thinking their friend had been bullied. They all swarmed over, but somehow, in the blink of an eye, the Taoist had already drifted away, gone far away.

White hair, gray robes, drifting away slowly. The crowd looked up, only to hear his unrestrained laughter, singing loudly:

"A Taoist!"

"No longer plant peach blossoms in the Mountains and Seas."

"No longer exchange medical skills for wine at the Zhuge family."

"No longer look at the portraits on the Lingyan Pavilion of the Great Tang."

"No longer envy the longevity flowers of Kunlun's Jade Pool."

Far away, they saw the white-haired Taoist enter Tianmu Mountain. The clouds at the horizon were ablaze in the evening, burning a fiery red. The Taoist wore simple gray robes, with deep mountains in front and the mortal world behind, desolate and lonely, yet carefree and captivating. He stepped into the mountains, his wide sleeves fluttering, turning into the mountains and disappearing from sight, leaving only the last few words of his open-minded laughter slowly falling.

"I have my own wild life in the mortal world."

"From afar, I hear the sounds of weapons clashing beneath Kunlun Mountain."

"Then I shall hold my sword, ride the dragon, and enter the clouds."

The boys and girls behind him stared blankly, captivated.

They didn't know how much time had passed before someone softly asked, "Who is that?"

The white-robed girl was puzzled. Finally, they grumbled:

"Perhaps, just a wild Taoist with white hair?"

After a while, the boys and girls no longer cared. The sun was setting, and the tavern was still singing the praises of the Qi Family Army. The Wuju opera troupe, having finished their performance, entered the town to buy wine. A flock of solitary geese entered the clouds, firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea, the mortal world, cooking smoke curling upwards, laughter, shouts, the sound of reading, the sound of peddling. The storyteller clapped his wooden block on the table, and the crowd below, first spoke of the Qi Family Army's southern and northern expeditions, then of the newly spread Journey to the West and the Great Sage Equaling Heaven.

Finally, they spoke of the former Emperor's time, when immortals rode dragons into the capital, and the crowd below listened intently.

Everything was as usual, with not the slightest difference.

In Tianmu Mountain, the Taoist closed his eyes and passed away with a smile.

It was just an ordinary day.

ps: Today's first update... three thousand words, the Jiajing Volume of the Ming Dynasty ends, the next chapter, Wei Yuan wakes up.

If this chapter were a wake-up, it would feel wrong.