Lin Qingwan immediately recognized the voice. This familiar voice could only be Lin Xuan's.
There was no possibility of error; it had to be him!
Lin Qingwan looked down to confirm. As she expected, the person was Lin Xuan... Wait, he was holding hands with a young girl!
A girl even younger than herself!
How could this person be with her younger brother, Lin Xuan?
Lin Qingwan was filled with confusion.
She even felt a hint of jealousy.
According to her logic, the reason for this was naturally understandable.
Seeing two people of similar age together, Lin Qingwan immediately jumped to conclusions.
This was the way people, especially young girls, thought. It was normal to jump to such conclusions.
Of course, even with hostility in her heart towards Lin Zhuyu, she couldn't show it on the surface at this moment.
"Lin Xuan, weren't you supposed to be in the Taihang Mountains for training? Why are you back so early?" Lin Qingwan asked.
She naturally suppressed her desire to ask why they were together. Asking directly would yield no good results, so she avoided the topic and instead asked Fang Ming why he had returned from the Taihang Mountains so soon.
Fang Ming, being someone with keen observation skills, naturally noticed something unusual about her. However, even if he noticed, it was difficult for him to expose it given his status.
Therefore, Fang Ming also avoided the topic and directly answered her surface question.
"I found what I was looking for, so I came back."
"On the way back, I saw people from the Lei family... so I did what I did..."
Fang Ming calmly recounted the events that had just transpired to Lin Qingwan.
He told her about the Lei family's attack and Lin Zhuyu's predicament.
"The Lei family dares to be so arrogant?"
After hearing Fang Ming's account of the events, Lin Qingwan's expression immediately shifted from a subtle atmosphere to anger.
When faced with a real threat to her kin, Lin Qingwan's mindset naturally shifted away from seeing Lin Zhuyu as a romantic rival. This was not the time to dwell on matters of the heart.
Instead, she felt anger at the Lei family for hunting Lin Zhuyu and causing harm to their kin.
She couldn't believe the Lei family would be so shameless as to attack a young girl. Disputes should be settled in the arena; retaliating against someone's relatives was a matter of character.
Unforgivable!
"Young brother Lin Xuan, do you want me to organize people to intercept the Lei family?" Lin Qingwan offered.
Despite Lin Qingwan's usual aloofness, her status as a "goddess" among the Lin family disciples and her position as the fourth elder's daughter allowed her to summon many people. She wasn't afraid of the Lei family.
Of course, this was limited to the younger generation; those in the Dao Foundation realm were not included.
"No need. I killed a few of them this time, and the grievance is settled. I will defeat them fairly on the arena," Fang Ming said.
Fang Ming expressed his opinion.
He had concealed some things – such as the corpse-dissolving water.
Fang Ming used the corpse-dissolving water precisely to de-escalate the situation, to make a big issue into a small one, and a small issue into nothing.
If Lin Qingwan were to gather a group of Lin family members to retaliate now, it would be tantamount to admitting that he was the murderer of those people, which would directly contradict Fang Ming's original intention.
Given the choice, Fang Ming certainly didn't want to be so aggressive.
After all, who knew how big a mess Lin Qingwan would make if she interfered?
"Is that so... Alright then."
Upon hearing Fang Ming's refusal, Lin Qingwan nodded in agreement, respecting his choice.
Then, as if remembering something, she added, "Oh right, Lin Xuan, the clan leader said that if he saw you, he wanted you to go see him. He has something to instruct you on."
"Do you think it's a good idea to choose a suitable time to go see him?"
Lin Qingwan suddenly remembered something. During the arena competition, only Fang Ming had not returned. The clan leader couldn't find him, so he had instructed several of them that whoever saw Fang Ming return from the Taihang Mountains first should tell him to go to his place.
Lin Qingwan had been too shocked by Lin Zhuyu and Fang Ming being together to immediately recall this matter. Now that she remembered, she directly told Fang Ming.
"The clan leader wants to see me? Alright, I'll go later."
Fang Ming agreed.
This matter was not difficult to understand. After all, among the several people who went to the competition, everyone else had returned except for Fang Ming, who had gone to the Taihang Mountains.
After the clan leader had met with the others, it was natural for him to casually instruct someone else to find Fang Ming, who was the only one he hadn't met.
...
After returning to the clan, Fang Ming first arranged for the two girls, then headed to the Hall of Discussion.
In the clan's Hall of Discussion, the clan leader was sitting on a chair, meditating with his eyes closed.
Seeing Fang Ming arrive, the clan leader said with a smile, "Lin Xuan, you're here. You did very well this time. You were able to contend with Lin Junjie against Lei Jian in the arena competition. It seems my previous prediction was wrong. You might not only contend for an outer disciple spot but even an inner disciple spot."
Looking at the clan leader's happy expression, Fang Ming found it a little amusing. If he told the clan leader that he had already secured a spot as a core disciple, he wondered what his expression would be. It would probably freeze instantly.
"Clan Leader..."
Just as Fang Ming was about to speak.
Suddenly, he felt a tremor deep within his mind, and an image flashed by.
His head began to ache uncontrollably!
He had accessed Lin Xuan's memories.
Not only had he accessed them, but he had also accessed the memories of the original Lin Xuan, a fourteen-year-old youth considered a waste, and the memories of Lin Xuan, who had gone through countless reincarnations and was once an Immortal Lord.
Lin Xuan was not just a young boy with a naturally weak physique from the Lin Prefecture in the Kyushu world.
Lin Xuan, while being this person, also pointed to the reincarnation of an ancient Immortal Lord from the Immortal Realm.
Immortal Lord Lin Xuan had once challenged the Seven Lords of the True Immortal Realm, seeking to seize their opportunities and achieve the true Immortal Venerable realm. He was then jointly struck down by the seven Immortal Lords into endless reincarnation, into a minuscule world.
And now...
"He is about to return..."
Fang Ming uttered these words.
Am I Fang Ming, or Lin Xuan?
Fang Ming could no longer distinguish.
Compared to Lin Xuan's billions of years of Immortal Lord memories, his own memories, even after traversing myriad worlds, were only sixteen or seventeen years long, insignificant.
When an immortal with billions of years of memories and a youth with only sixteen or seventeen years of memories had their souls merged, which personality would take the lead?
This was an answer that could be easily obtained.
...
"He has already awakened."
Outside the minuscule world, Mingyu Immortal Lord stood in the True Immortal Realm and said this.
The term "minuscule world" was the True Immortal Realm's designation for lower-level planes.
It meant that these worlds were as insignificant as dust, and the highest beings in them were merely at the Ascension Realm – a realm where one had not truly converted their internal magical power into immortal power, in short, not yet an immortal.