Day and night did not go unnoticed within the crystal cave, thanks to the cracks in the cave ceiling.
Once the sun was up, the meager sunlight streaming into the space would be amplified by the many crystals hanging from the top.
Mo Zhiyuan, who could not stand sleeping in a bright surrounding, usually woke up around this time.
It took a little more time until the walls, and with them Shen Ruizhe's writing become visible. Mo Zhiyuan had no way of counting the days, so he relied on the characters on the wall to know what day it was.
For example, yesterday was the day of "Morality". And the day before yesterday was the day of " Harmony".
Shen Ruizhe last visited him on the day of "Virtue", so he should be visiting again on the day of "Benevolence". And yet, the day arrived and ended with no Shen Ruizhe in sight.
Mo Zhiyuan scoffed to himself in the darkness.
"Like I care," he snapped at the cave wall, Shen Ruizhe's blood shining through the neat scripts. "If you don't want to come, you don't have to come. I am sick of seeing you."
But when Mo Zhiyuan awoke the next morning, on the day of "Heart", he inadvertently felt aggrieved by Shen Ruizhe's absence.
He thought that Shen Ruizhe probably skipped a day. Or a week.
Although Mo Zhiyuan would rather die than admit it, he looked forward to seeing Shen Ruizhe every week. Not because Shen Ruizhe was anything special. He was simply the only link Mo Zhiyuan had to the outside world at the moment. Without him, Mo Zhiyuan might have gone insane.
The week went by slowly, steadily.
And when the third day of the week arrived again, the one who made his appearance at the crystal wall was not Shen Ruizhe but Zhang Xukai.
When their eyes met, both of them had ugly expressions on their faces.
"Why is it you?" Mo Zhiyuan snapped.
"Who else but me?" Zhang Xukai snapped back.
Mo Zhiyuan arched a brow at Zhang Xukai, once his shixiong under Shen Ruizhe.
"I don't want to see you. Get Shen Ruizhe in here."
Zhang Xukai's blood reached its boiling point in record time.
"You! How dare you call Shizun by his full name!" he cried out in indignation.
Mo Zhiyuan scoffed.
"Still a loyal lapdog, I see. How pompous you now look, Zhang Xukai. You might as well be the sect leader."
"You...!!!"
Zhang Xukai took three steps forward, and Mo Zhiyuan's heart leaped to his throat in excitement.
Alas, just before his foot bumped into Shen Ruizhe's imprisonment array, Zhang Xukai halted his advance.
Mo Zhiyuan sneered. Just a few more provocative lines, and this guy would ruin the array for sure. And then he would be free.
"What is it, Zhang Shixiong?" he sweetly called out. "If you want to hit me, you should come closer. I am tied up everywhere. I can't retaliate against you at all."
Zhang Xukai took a deep breath to calm down. His gaze wandered around the crystal cave and fell on Shen Ruizhe's handwriting across the cave walls. The shizun's elegant and smooth handwriting stirred a wave of pain in his heart anew.
He didn't want to be here at all.
If not for Shen Ruizhe specifically asking him for this favor, he would never have stepped a foot in this cave, ever.
Mo Zhiyuan watched the changes on Zhang Xukai's face with a lot of interest.
"What is it? Are you crying?"
Zhang Xukai's head snapped up, glaring at Mo Zhiyuan fiercely.
"If you have the time to run your mouth, Mo Zhiyuan, you should recite the lines from Cultivator's Code of Ethics," he snapped.
Not wanting to be provoked further, Zhang Xukai left soon after. Mo Zhiyuan did not even have the chance to ask about Shen Ruizhe.
Not that he was curious about Shen Ruizhe at all.
He did not care about Shen Ruizhe.
So what if he skipped a week or two? Eventually, Shen Ruizhe would show up his face again.
But this was where Mo Zhiyuan was mistaken.
From then on, Shen Ruizhe no longer made his appearance at the crystal cave. The one who showed up for a weekly exchange of insults was Zhang Xukai. Eventually, after several more years passed, they both got tired of it.
Neither of them recalled who stopped first.
Maybe it was Zhang Xukai, because arguing with Mo Zhiyuan reminded him of Shen Ruizhe again and again, and his heart ached from losing his shizun.
Maybe it was Mo Zhiyuan, who considered Zhang Xukai beneath his niveau. The person he really wanted to see was Shen Ruizhe. Only Shen Ruizhe deserved to engage in an exchange of jabs with him.
Weeks bled into months, and months bled into years.
After twenty more years had passed, Mo Zhiyuan finally had enough. He tried to break free from Shen Ruizhe's seal one day, only to fail miserably. The seal remained as firm and strong as ever, reducing his attempts to bloody lacerations at his neck and limbs.
His frustrated roar shook the mountain, going as far as causing an avalanche at one side.
This displeased Mo Zhiyuan, but at the same time, it also filled him with relief.
As long as the seal remained intact, it indicated that Shen Ruizhe was still alive and kicking.
Mo Zhiyuan did not try to break out anymore afterward. Like a predator looming in the dark, he patiently counted his days. Until he could finally leave this accursed place.
True to Shen Ruizhe's prediction, right at the one-hundred-year mark, the chains binding Mo Zhiyuan's shattered into pieces.
Mo Zhiyuan opened his eyes, his bright purple eyes gleaming with malevolent intent. He casually rubbed his wrists before sending a ball of energy toward a section of the cave wall, reducing it into a pile of rubble.
And then, his face twisted into a grotesque smirk, and he whispered, "Shizun, I am coming."