Alex quickly turned about, facing Bai Jingshen with a bewildered look on him.
"What?"
"You know, the thing you did back then," Bai Jingshen said.
"I told you that wasn’t ," Alex said. "I didn’t do anything."
"No, but you had a hand in it. Try it again, just so they know what they’re dealing with," Bai Jingshen said.
Alex frowned at the hopeless task, but he had to try. If that would be enough to prove his usefulness to Scarlet’s mother and grandfather, then he would do it.
He turned back around to a pair of confused eyes and took in a deep breath as he prepared to do what he thought he needed to do.
"Sun God!" he said in barely more than a whisper. "I need your help."
Alex waited for a mont, hoping to hear so sort of response. But the only reply he got was silence.
"Sun God, I ne—"
"I cannot help you," the Sun God spoke all of a sudden, surprising Alex. He had gone into this request fully expecting to not hear anything from the Sun God at all, so the sudden reply was more than startling.
The world around him seed to have frozen all of a sudden, the light around him splitting into many colors. Dust hung in the air like a painting and the air was thick like molasses.
Ti had either slowed down to a point where it was close to frozen, if not fully frozen. The surprise of it all made Alex take a mont to fully grasp what he had been told.
The Sun God had heard his request, but he had denied it at the sa ti.
Alex tried to speak again, to request again for the minute of help he could receive, but before he could, the Sun God himself continued.
"The Sun’s Talon awaits your arrival. Visit the site of your Destiny and relight the smothered embers. Our paths don’t yet rge fully. I cannot help you or the world when you are so far away."
The air turned imperceptible, the dust fell, and ti returned to how it was.
Alex remained frozen, his eyes wandering in search of anything. However, the Sun God was gone, and he had received no help.
Alex turned back toward Bai Jingshen, wanting to explain what had happened, but before he could, Scarlet’s grandfather’s aura grabbed onto Alex, pulling him forward.
Alex turned around just as he reached the bird, his face re inches away from the Phoenix’s beak. He could see the vermilion eyes staring at him with a quizzical look.
"What was that?" the Phoenix asked.
Alex cocked his head, genuinely confused as to what the bird ant. The Sun God hadn’t helped him, so what else could it be talking about?
"Tell , what was that?" the Phoenix asked again.
"Senior, I don’t know what you’re talking about," Alex said.
"The aura just now, that... that complex aura," the Phoenix said. "What aura was that? I have never seen a Ti Dao anywhere close to being as complex as that."
"Ti Dao?" Alex asked as he slowly realized what had happened. "Did you sense it, Senior? The frozen ti?"
"Frozen ti? Ti cannot be frozen," the Phoenix said. "It can be slowed, it can be hastened, and it can even be reversed. But it cannot be stopped."
Alex didn’t know what else to say. "If that was not Ti being stopped, Senior, then what else was it?" he asked.
"That... I..."
The Phoenix could not answer. Its eyes road the room in bewildernt, hoping to grab onto the answer from sowhere, but he couldn’t. He could not tell what that aura was.
"That was the Sun God," Alex said, taking advantage of the mont. "That was his way of showing his presence, Senior."
Even though the Sun God had refused to help him until he went to the Sun’s Talon, his actions had inadvertently proved his existence. At the sa ti, Alex also learned one crucial fact about the Phoenix before him.
This one understood the Ti Dao, and likely knew a few of them too.
The Phoenix slowly let go of Alex, the aura around him disappeared.
"Father, what is going on? What was that?" Scarlet’s mother asked. She too had sensed the sa thing as her father, except her understanding of Ti wasn’t good enough to fully understand that what she had sensed just then was sothing far beyond her own understanding.
Scarlet’s grandfather seed lost in thought for a few monts. "That was the Sun God, you say."
Alex nodded.
"So the figure was real?" he asked.
"Of course he was real, Senior," Bai Jingshen said. "He was the one who blessed us."
"I do not trust that yet," the Phoenix said. "But... if the young human does have sothing to do with the god, then he might just be worthy of being bonded with my granddaughter."
"Father!" Scarlet’s mother sounded aggrieved. "How can you say that?"
"You didn’t sense what I sensed, my child," Scarlet’s grandfather said. "In my eyes, he is worthy."
He then turned toward Alex with a gentle smile on his face. "I fear I have gone too long without introducing myself, haven’t I? I am Feng Ningzhu, nephew of the Matriarch."
"It is a pleasure to et you, Senior," Alex said with a deep bow. "Would it be okay if I request to et with your granddaughter now?"
The Phoenix suddenly laughed out loud. "Young human, I said I thought you were worthy of my granddaughter, but my words don’t an much when her mother is against you. You will have to win her over first."
Alex paused and turned toward Scarlet’s mother, who suddenly had a smug look on her face.
"And I refuse," she said.
Scarlet’s grandfather sighed. "Daughter, don’t be so hasty. At least give him a chance to prove himself. Your daughter has said that she chose him herself. Do you not trust her judgnt?"
The smile faded from Scarlet’s mother before being replaced with a bitter frown. "Fine," she said, turning to Alex. "I’ll give you this one chance. Tell why you are worthy of my daughter?"
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