"Why not? I've got plenty of time to waste around here." It almost went without saying, given that he wasn't spending time trying to fix Xiao Xingchen's soul any more, and he couldn't spend time tinkering with demonic cultivation.

He brushed off the comment about dying. In some ways, it wasn't that it was wrong: it just wasn't his death that had changed things. He still didn't know how he was supposed to die, or when, but it continued to be an unsurprising thing. He'd been so close to death so many times, it was a wonder it hadn't happened already.

"Since you know so much about what happened, surely you know that I do have it in me to be patient."

Two years of living with Xiao Xingchen... or eight years of waiting for something that could bring him back.