"Speaking of which, Cloud Retainer, is it okay for Shenhe to enter the adepti gates looking like this?"
"Do you think entering requires severing all emotions and desires? How could that be possible? Look at this Adeptus —have I severed all emotions and desires? Little Shenhe entering now with her pure, childlike heart is just perfect..."
After Cloud Retainer found a topic, she began chattering away endlessly. One should be understanding toward the elderly.
You see, out of the three adepti, two are traveling together, so which one is the one left out?
The lonely old crane has quite a lot to say. The old uncle pulled out a small stool from his Vision and sat there listening.
Little Shenhe blinked her eyes, sitting on the small stool, somewhat puzzled as she watched the scene before her.
Clearly, the surroundings are quite frightening, but why does it feel so reassuring?
As soon as Cloud Retainer started speaking, she got excited about the conversation. She glanced at the small stool provided by Cid, then thought about how this person is protected by the Lord, and directly transformed into human form, sitting on the stool to share some little secrets.
"This Adeptus will tell you, when Ganyu was little, she really loved eating Qingxin flowers covered in fresh morning dew..."
"Is it true that Ganyu can't eat meat?"
"Yes, she can't eat any at all. When Ganyu was young, she accidentally bit into a vegetarian dish fried with meat oil. She didn't notice before eating, and just as her mouth was about to bite down, she couldn't help but vomit. This Adeptus had to help her rinse her mouth and stroke her horns to calm her down..."
The old uncle listened contentedly to Cloud Retainer's gossip. He couldn't say much about other things, but he had heard plenty about Ganyu's childhood.
Speaking of which, is it okay to listen to so many of these?
Cid looked at Shenhe. "Little Shenhe, remember this: you absolutely must not tell anyone else what Cloud Retainer said today, or your senior sister will die of embarrassment."
Little Shenhe nodded.
Very good, problem solved.
The old uncle continued listening to Cloud Retainer's gossip.
Until...
"Old uncle, have you gotten a bit older?"
Shenhe tugged at the old uncle's clothes.
"Have I? I've become more mature?"
The old uncle seemed very excited.
"You're clearly exchanging lifespan for ley line rules. Wait, why can you do this?"
"Maybe because my Descender constitution is overpowered?"
"Don't move. Let this Adeptus take a look at what's going on..."
Cloud Retainer leaned close to the old uncle Cid and examined him carefully.
"Eh, Cloud Retainer, you should transform back to your original form first. Your human form is too challenging for a young man like me..."
The old uncle, who rarely got so close to a mature woman, instinctively kept his distance.
"How troublesome."
The Cloud Retainer transformed back into her crane form and began observing.
...
"Normally, the ritual requires entering the border between life and death to burn away the death energy. After going to the realm of death, one needs to leave an anchor point toward life to come out.
But you, little one, came in, yet because you're not within the three realms or the five elements—if not for the Vision positioning you, you wouldn't have been able to enter at all."
Cloud Retainer's emotions seemed somewhat complicated.
"This constitution of yours is insulated, yet not completely insulated. It blocks out the things you don't want, only keeping what you do want, like a filter. The cost of this filtering is your body's lifespan."
"Then this is really impressive."
The old uncle nodded.
"You shouldn't be so happy about it. Based on the current efficiency of filtering the ley line rules, you'll lose at least ten years of lifespan. And now, the influence of death energy on you is very real."
Cloud Retainer looked at the unchanged darkness around them and knew how serious the border issue was. The greater the problem, the more one has to pay.
At the current efficiency, it would take at least a few more hours to burn it off.
The old uncle sat on the chair, feeling that the situation was looking very promising.
It seems tomorrow will surely be a wonderful day.