Chen Yan said again, "Since you’re not dead, why didn’t you tell me the truth?"

Chen Yan asked again, "Do you know that over the past year, I’ve come to this world several times just hoping to see you again in the Domain Realm! I..."

The old lady’s rough hand touched Chen Yan’s face and smiled, but her tone was serious: "I didn’t tell you at the time because... I thought we would really never have a chance to meet again. So... sigh, I didn’t expect you to be so stubborn."

Chen Yan said softly, "I later guessed that you didn’t seem to want me to cultivate too profoundly. The cultivation technique you left me was incomplete, and you probably didn’t want me to come to the Domain Realm either..."

As he spoke, he furrowed his brows and said, "I’ve thought about it a lot, but it doesn’t feel right. If you really didn’t want me involved in the affairs of this world, back then, you actually didn’t have to leave me anything.

Any cultivation technique, any path of cultivation, the Li Huo Candle hidden in the East Sea... If you hadn’t left me any of it, I would know nothing and would just be an ordinary mortal...

If you really wanted me to give up completely, you could have done that, couldn’t you?"

The old lady sighed softly.

She thought for a while and then reached out to pull Chen Yan up from the ground.

With a wave of her sleeve, an old-fashioned wooden dining table and two long benches appeared on the ground beside her—exactly the set from Chen Yan’s old home, identical.

"Sit down!" The old lady squinted her eyes.

Chen Yan was stunned and involuntarily sat over. The old lady deftly took out a large bowl and served the dish from the pot.

Slowly, a heaping bowl of stir-fried green soybeans with shredded pork.

Then the old lady pointed to a small pot on the side, which appeared, and when the lid was opened, inside was a pot of steaming white rice.

The old lady served a bowl of rice and placed it in front of Chen Yan, then shoved a pair of chopsticks into his hands.

"Eat first! Nothing is more important than eating! I haven’t cooked for my good grandson in a long time, hurry up, eat a few big bowls for me!"

"Huh?"

·

The meal was eaten.

The stir-fried green soybeans with shredded pork tasted exactly like what Chen Yan had been accustomed to since he was a child, no different from his memory.

As Chen Yan ate, the old lady sat across from him, lit another cigarette, and smiled kindly at him, watching him and smoking.

When Chen Yan finished his second bowl of rice, the stir-fried green soybeans with shredded pork had been completely eaten. The old lady cooked a pot, and Chen Yan ate a pot.

The last bit of broth, Chen Yan scooped it into the bowl, ate it with rice.

The bowl was licked clean by him, not a grain of rice was left.

Seeing Chen Yan put down his chopsticks, the old lady finally nodded in satisfaction.

"By the way, old lady, you didn’t bring anything when you left. Where did you get these green soybeans? And the shredded meat, it clearly tastes like pork. Are there pigs in the Domain Realm?"

The old lady puckered her lips, waved her hand, and tossed something to Chen Yan. Chen Yan reached out to catch it, surprised.

"My Storage Jade Pendant?" Chen Yan sighed, "Old lady, you haven’t changed the habit of picking my pocket while I sleep."

"You’ve got quite a few good things." The old lady said with a squinting smile.

"Thanks to your blessing." Chen Yan smiled wryly, "It’s because I trained in the cultivation technique you left me that I’ve lived to this day."

"Not thanks to me. That’s your fate." The old lady’s tone was a bit serious when she said this.

Chen Yan noticed a hint of severity in the old lady’s tone, and he instinctively sat up straight.

"Actually, I didn’t intend to see you this time." The old lady sighed, "I locked you in this place, made you see everything here, hoping that by leaving you, when enough time passed and you became restless, you would eventually leave on your own.

You have that Ring, you can’t get out of this building, but you can use the ring to jump out of the Domain Realm and return to your own world."

Chen Yan was silent for a moment, then slowly said, "I... thought about that."

He had really thought about it, in the three years and four months he was locked up here, he had run out of patience more than once.

In impatient moments, he really considered simply using the ring to jump back to his own world!

But then he realized another thing!

The coordinates for the ring’s crossing have rules.

Wherever you cross from, that’s where you’ll appear next time you come!

If you walk out of this ’Time Cage’, the next time you come, you’ll have to enter this

’Time Cage’ again!

This place would become a gate barring entry into the Domain Realm in the future! Keeping you outside the Domain Realm forever!

"Did you think about it but didn’t do it because you were afraid you wouldn’t be able to come back?" The old lady looked at Chen Yan.

Chen Yan nodded.

"I knew the first time you came to the Domain Realm." The old lady took out a crumpled cigarette pack, squeezed it, but it was empty.

She unceremoniously took Chen Yan’s Storage Jade Pendant and pulled out a pack of Huazi cigarettes from it.

She thought for a moment, then shook the Storage Jade Pendant in her hand, and soon, two boxes of cigarettes were shaken out of it.

"They’re all mine now! You’re too young to be smoking." The old lady said unceremoniously.

"Fine, all yours." Chen Yan chuckled, "Anything else you need, I’ll bring it for you next time."

The old lady thought for a moment, "I still need a mahjong table... well, never mind."

"Don’t worry, I’ll get you a mahjong table." Chen Yan laughed, "Maybe I’ll bring over a container full of cigarettes? What else do you need?"

The old lady squinted at Chen Yan, watched him quietly for a moment, then suddenly said in a low voice, "Good grandson, when you go back this time, don’t come again!

Yes, don’t come again!"