The lamps in the Long Manor stayed lit until the Hour of Mao.
When Hu Yuan and the others stepped into the inner courtyard, they saw his mother, Long Xianjun, and his cultivation partner, Xuanyuan Liting, dozing off on pearwood chairs beneath the veranda. Xuanyuan Liting was still clutching an unfinishable handkerchief in her hand; only half of the astral flower on it had been embroidered, its silver threads gleaming with faint, shimmering light in the morning glow. The moment he walked over, the handkerchief slipped from her grasp and fell onto the bluestone pavement. Roused instantly, sleep still lingering in her eyes, she immediately rose to steady him. "Why did you take so long? The Nine Yin Jade Pendant grew hot three times, and I thought—"
"I ran into a bit of trouble." Hu Yuan picked up the handkerchief, his fingertips brushing against the place where she had embroidered it wrong. The silver thread was tied into a knot on the fabric, perfectly mirroring his own tangled state of mind. "There are fragments of the Primordial Fragment Stele deep within the Liu family mines, and I've retrieved them."
Chapter 424