Chapter 317: Prime city 9.

"Who is paying?"

The young cultivator stared.

"What?"

"The table."

He looked confused.

Mo Yuxin pointed toward the restaurant.

"You broke it. Pay for it."

Another cultivator stepped forward.

"Senior, this has nothing to do with you."

Mo Yuxin looked at him.

"Now it does. You broke our dinner."

The young man went pale.

Su Yubing came outside.

She touched Mo Yuxin’s arm.

"Let’s go."

Mo Yuxin nodded.

She dropped the sword into its owner’s hands.

"Pay the owner. Both sides."

Nobody argued.

They immediately paid.

The restaurant owner nearly cried from happiness.

Mo Yuxin returned to the table.

Their second fish was still mostly intact.

She sat down.

Su Yubing smiled.

"Satisfied?"

"Yes."

"You only cared about the fish."

"And the restaurant."

"Of course."

The incident became a small joke around the city.

A few merchants started calling Mo Yuxin the "Fish Guardian" because nobody knew her name at first.

When she heard it, she was deeply unimpressed.

Su Yubing found it hilarious.

"Fish Guardian."

"Stop."

"My heroic wife."

"Yubing."

"Protecting dinner from evil sword cultivators."

Mo Yuxin sighed.

"You are enjoying this too much."

Su Yubing leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"Maybe."

Mo Yuxin immediately stopped complaining.

Their week in Prime City continued.

They became familiar faces in several districts.

The innkeeper began preparing their breakfast without asking.

The fruit seller knew which varieties Su Yubing liked.

The old tea merchant saved a particular tea for them.

Even the little girl had made friends with several children in the neighborhood.

For the first time in a long while, they were not outsiders passing through.

They were simply travelers who had stayed long enough to become part of the daily rhythm.

That made leaving slightly harder than Mo Yuxin expected.

On their final evening in the city, they returned to the river.

The festival lanterns had already been taken down.

The streets were quieter.

Su Yubing leaned against Mo Yuxin’s arm.

"We’ll come back."

Mo Yuxin nodded.

"Definitely."

"You like this place."

"I like the food."

Su Yubing smiled.

"And?"

Mo Yuxin looked at her.

"I like the people we met."

"And?"

"I like walking around with you."

Su Yubing looked satisfied.

"Good answer."

Mo Yuxin wrapped an arm around her waist.

"I have another answer."

"What?"

"I like everywhere I go with you."

Su Yubing became quiet.

She gently rested her head against Mo Yuxin’s chest.

"Then let’s keep going."

"Yes."

They remained together by the river until late at night.

The next morning, the road toward the Central Continent officially opened.

The Tang Sword Sect had prepared a large teleportation formation outside the Prime City for the sect members traveling toward the main branch. Since Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing possessed the guest token given by the Southern Branch elder, they were allowed to use it as well.

Before leaving, the Tang elder met them at the formation plaza.

"The Central Continent is different from the South."

Mo Yuxin nodded.

"We know."

"There are more powerful cultivators there."

"That’s good."

The elder laughed.

"You really don’t seem worried about anything."

Su Yubing answered for both of them.

"We have been traveling for a while."

The elder looked at their joined hands.

"I suppose you have."

He handed Mo Yuxin a second token.

"This is a letter of introduction to the main Tang Sect. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but it will let them know you are guests of our branch."

Mo Yuxin accepted it.

"Thank you."

The little girl stood beside them with her small bag.

The elder looked at her.

"And who is this?"

Su Yubing smiled.

"A child we met during our travels. We’re helping her find her family."

The elder nodded.

"Then I hope you find them."

The little girl smiled politely.

The three of them stepped onto the formation.

The teleportation began.

For a moment, the world became light.

Then darkness.

Then light again.

When they opened their eyes, they were standing on a giant mountain platform in a completely different region.

The spiritual energy was denser.

The air felt older.

Far across the horizon, mountains stretched without end.

A massive city could be seen in the distance.

Mo Yuxin looked at it.

Su Yubing looked too.

The city was surrounded by dozens of flying platforms and countless cultivators.

A giant stone monument stood at its center.

The words carved into it were simple.

CENTRAL CONTINENT.

The little girl looked around.

"We’re here?"

Mo Yuxin nodded.

"Yes."

Su Yubing smiled.

"Another continent."

Mo Yuxin took her hand.

"Another journey."

The three began walking.

Behind them, the teleportation formation closed.

Ahead waited the Central Continent, the territory of the world’s strongest sects.

Somewhere beyond its mountains stood the main Tang Sect.

And for the first time since they had entered the Southern Continent, Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing were walking toward a place where their supposed Nascent Soul cultivation would no longer make them particularly exceptional.

There would be stronger cultivators.

There would be older families.

There would be greater sects.

There would be people who had lived for thousands of years.

Mo Yuxin did not care.

Su Yubing did not care.

They had no ambition to become famous.

They simply wanted to see the world.

As they walked, Su Yubing slipped her hand into Mo Yuxin’s.

Mo Yuxin squeezed it.

The little girl walked ahead.

The road stretched toward the distant city.

And for now, that was enough.

There had once been seven gates and a mysterious city that claimed to know their past.

There had once been strange lanterns and ancient records and impossible voices.

They had chased those mysteries only to discover that most of them were exactly what Mo Yuxin had suspected from the beginning: old leftovers of a cultivation civilization that had been broken, repaired and exaggerated by generations of storytellers.

The truth was not a grand revelation.

It was simply history.

And history belonged behind them.

Their future was ahead.

The Central Continent waited.

The Tang Sect waited.

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.

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TO BE CONTINUED.