I keep seeing tweets lately about SL finding XXC in Yi City after 3 years. Since CQL sucks at providing neat timelines, it's understandable that we all make this assumption. But it wasn't just 3 years; SL looked for XXC for about a decade before he found him in Yi City.

After the Yunmeng Jiang massacre, WWX found SL in Yiling, and we can assume that SL looked for XXC right after escorting JYL to Lanling Jin. That was about 2 years before WWX's death.

Then, 16 years after his death, WWX was summoned back to life. AQ's empathy started with 10 years prior, which means when AQ met XXC, XXC had been traveling blind and alone for about 8 years since parting ways with SL—about 2 years before WWX's death + 6 years before XXC met AQ.

They then settled in Yi City with XY for 3 years before SL found them. By the time SL arrived in Yi City, it had been about 11 years since SL and XXC parted ways—about 2 years before WWX's death + 9 years before SL met AQ.

When WWX and LWJ arrived in Yi City, it had been 7 years since XXC's death, since XY turned SL into a fierce corpse, and since XY blinded and muted AQ.

(Of course, XXC and SL could have been busy night hunting and helping the common people on their own while the largest cultivation clans were preoccupied with their own wars. Still, the time they were separated was longer than the time they were together.)