A'Liang stopped drinking, and he re-tied the small silver gourd to his waist. However, his legs remained crossed, and the bamboo saber that the mountain lord from Go Table Mountain had carved for him rested flat across his knees. A'Liang lightly drummed the hilt and tip of the saber scabbard with his hands, causing it to see-saw up and down. 

"Truth be told, I've actually been testing you this entire time — you've already completed many tests. Your choices will determine how far I escort you, and to put it simply, I'll accompany you for a distance proportional to how many obstacles you can overcome."

Chen Ping'an nodded and replied, "After pondering for a while, I also started to develop some suspicions. However, I feel like there are all kinds of thoughts and ideas swimming around in your mind, so I've been unable to make heads or tails of it this entire time."

A'Liang wasn't surprised by this, and he openly revealed, "The first test was by the Dragon Whisker Creek. If you proved yourself to be a naive child who was ignorant of worldly affairs, and a foolishly kind person who would act only on impulse, then perhaps I would have only left the donkey to you. Afterward, I would have patted my hands and left. As for whether you could last until Wei Jin from Wind Snow Temple exited seclusion... Why would I have cared? After all, you would have died sooner or later. Caring about you would have been wasting my emotions."

A'Liang continued to recall the details and recount the tests that he had given Chen Ping'an, leaving the young boy completely dumbstruck. He had never imagined that A'Liang was such a careful and scrupulous person. Even more than this, he had never imagined that he had encountered so many strange and mysterious tests in his life.

"The third-last test was during the battle on Go Table Mountain. If it weren't for my purposeful provocation,...