Xiao returned to the village with quickened steps, heading straight to the outer edges of the festival. As he drew nearer, he noticed an unsettling silence.
'Is everyone sleeping?' Xiao guessed, moving closer. But when he reached the outskirts, he found no one in sight. This confused him; typically, there were always a few people who would skip such festivities.
His heart quickened as he scanned the edge of the festival. Not a single person was around. Spooked, Xiao decided to check the surrounding area.
The village was completely deserted. Finding this strange, Xiao chose not to approach the festival directly. Instead, he made his way toward the Zhu family house.
A sense of urgency welled up inside him. Xiao now felt that leaving this village might be the wisest course of action. Yet, despite his instincts telling him to flee, something about the Zhu family house tugged at him. He felt as if something he needed was in there, and he was willing to sacrifice the village if necessary.
With hastened steps, Xiao advanced toward the house, determined to leave the village by nightfall if possible. He no longer cared about the carriage the Zhu patriarch had promised plus it had seemed suspicious anyway.
As Xiao neared the house, his senses warned him to back away, but for the first time in a long while, he ignored them.
Approaching the house, Xiao suddenly sensed movement. He quickly hid himself behind a stone wall, an old relic near the house's edge. From his vantage point, he saw something leaving the house.
'Am I caught?' Xiao wondered as the figure—a dark silhouette—emerged. The figure moved slowly, its form too vague to identify from a distance. As it approached, Xiao's heart raced, and he held his breath, preparing to attack.
The dark figure moved toward him at a steady, almost ghostly pace, without uttering a sound. Xiao tightened his grip, ready to spring into action.
'Patience, Xiao, patience,' he reminded himself. 'Attacking now will only ruin any chance I have of getting into the house.'
The figure drew nearer, but instead of attacking, it walked right past Xiao. Only then did he catch a glimpse of its identity.
'Zhu Yan?' Xiao thought, recognizing the 2nd eldest son of the Zhu family. 'Wasn't he at the anniversary? And where is he going?'
Xiao watched as Yan moved further away, heading in the direction Xiao had come from.
'The anniversary...' Xiao's mind raced. Something suspicious was happening, but what could it be? Realizing he wouldn't get answers by following Yan, Xiao decided to proceed inside the Zhu family house.
He waited patiently until Zhu Yan disappeared from view, then made his move.
Xiao approached the house with extreme caution, his steps deliberate and quiet, ready to retreat at the slightest sign of danger. Upon reaching the door, he placed a thin layer of qi over the knob, testing it as he slowly turned it. Xiao knew enough to be wary of traps or alarms, but no mechanisms seemed to trigger.
The door opened without a sound.
Xiao slipped inside, closing the door behind him just as carefully. Inside, the house appeared unchanged from his last visit, ordinary, as if nothing had been touched or moved.
Xiao began by revisiting the areas he had seen before. The dining room still held only two chairs, which struck him as odd.
'What happened to the third one?' Xiao wondered, but he didn't dwell on it. He moved on to the kitchen and the bathroom, both of which appeared similarly untouched.
The one place Xiao hesitated to enter was the Zhu family head's room. He knew that if there were any answers to be found, they would be there.
That was when Xiao decided to check the other rooms, including those of the other residents, before heading into the Zhu family head's room. He wanted to be 100 percent certain he didn't miss anything.
When he entered the first hallway on the left, he found nothing inside—no bed, nothing, just an empty room. But as he walked closer, he noticed a formation.
'Is this a soul-siphoning array?' Xiao thought as he examined the demonic-looking formation. He guessed it might have something to do with how Zhao and the other members of the Zhu family gained their cultivation.
'But how does it connect to the infinite hallway?' Xiao wondered. It would make more sense for the array to be placed inside the infinity hallway, to make the process of transferring qi or life force into a body smoother, allowing it to handle more energy.
Wanting to ignore this part of the house, Xiao left the room and proceeded down the hall to another. There, he found an altar with a headless man lying atop it. The man's body had been stabbed by seven different swords, and he held a book in his hand that looked very weird and mysterious.
Xiao, completely confused as to why there would be an altar in this house, initially ignored it. But his instincts drew him back to it, reminding him why he was here in the first place.
The Altar then glowed brightly when it sensed Xiao.
Then something seemed to take control of Xiao as he reached out, grabbed the book from the man's hand, and placed it in his inventory. The moment he did so, the altar disappeared and not even put into ashes like it's only purpose was to give away the book.
Now even more confused about what had just happened, Xiao made a mental note to check the book later.
He then glanced around the area where the altar had been and saw objects that looked disturbingly demonic: a human head, and next to it, the tail of a demonic beast.
Baffled by what he was seeing, Xiao decided to return here later to get answers. But first, he needed to check the patriarch's room. Time was running out, and Xiao felt something bad would happen if the clock ran out.
Knowing there was little time left, Xiao rushed out of the altar room and headed toward the last room in the hallway.
'The patriarch's room'