I…

An Bing Qing slowly began to meditate as more phrases of the past surfaced from her memories but that was till she fell asleep.

'Sigh…' Wang Shu sighed in his heart when he heard her smooth breath and passive heartbeat, 'Is she that confident in herself or is my reputation that good for her to low her guard like this? Hmmh... Shouldn't be thinking about that...' with his last thought, he took back part of the attention he had on her to give himself more room to check other things.

However, as time went on, he didn't see or hear anything new and to make things even more static, the men in red hadn't gone away; they were still looking around with more people joining their lines. But to his comfort, the old man was clueless about his and An Bing Qing's position, making him acquire a rather frustrated look.

Even so, he didn't think they will give up that easy, 'Earlier, their persistence lasted plenty of hours so this time it can't be that different hence…' he thought; therefore, to have a break, he decided to slowly but precisely laid some formations around them, using the tall bamboos as the pillars. He was quite knowledgeable in formations as he had free access to the ones here; every time he had come to the Forbidden Bamboo Forest he had taken the effort to study them. Moreover, he had also found forms to add his light element into them, having some fun and dreadful results.

'The time for me to put in work those insights came earlier than I thought. Sigh, having my cultivation slowing down wasn't that bad, I guess; it helped me to complete some of the ideas I had worked on since years ago', he had complex and mixed thoughts when it came to that matter.

The night deemed and the formation was completed; it was what he called an illusory type of formation which served to mislead the eyes and soul sense so as long as they don't do a harsh movement or loud sound when the men in red were near, they would be all right.

Midnight passed as well as the hours after it and with the time slipping through their hands, the red-robed men began to look more and more away from where they were and unknowingly, in his vigil, Wang Shu also fell asleep despite of himself. It was a strange sight as both of them were sleeping standing without falling down, just as if they were supporting each other.

…

Rays of light began to make their way through the darkness above in the skies and down on the earth, reaching all their corners and soon, the full brightness of the morning along with colourful clouds were the mantle that painted a picturesque sky.

The warm and silky threads of sunlight that descended fell upon a handsome and perfect face, making its bearer long and dark eyelashes coated by the morning dew tremble in signs of waking up.

It was a slow movement of his eyes that in an instant changed to a quick one; the beautiful pair of eyes opened with lightning speed, showing shock and unbelief, reactions that had tens of years of not appearing on such inky bottomless eyes.

"Ugh", Wang Shu raised his hanging head and moved it from side to side and up and down along with his shoulders to relax his body and shook away his inner shock.

'I... must have been really tired', at length, he gave himself a well-thought explanation which he only half believed as he was used to exerting himself.

'Is it getting worse?' he added to his line of thinking.

'Sigh... Anyway, I can meditate on that later. Right now, what I need to do is...' He lowered his sight when his thoughts were in place and saw a yet to awake An Bing Qing; even with all his earlier movement, she was still sleeping.

'If soundly sleeping were to be a skill, she would be the master of it', that thought sprout in his mind as his hand was rising to touch her childish but womanly face to wake her up.

But as his long fingers were millimetres from her cheek, he stopped his hand in the air; for some reason, he didn't want to disrupt her sweet dreams.