Mark

"What's wrong?" Carter noticed something was off about Lai Er.

"No... it's nothing." Lai Er instinctively shook his head, trying to suppress the emotion rising within him.

But... he did not succeed very well.

Carter looked at Lai Er's suddenly pale face and frowned slightly. "If something is bothering you, you might as well say it. There's no need to hide it."

"It really is nothing." Lai Er forced out a smile. "The sight just now made me a little uncomfortable."

As if afraid Carter would notice something strange, Lai Er added another sentence.

"Physically."

Naturally, Carter did not believe such nonsense.

A Black Market Merchant had seen all sorts of things. Carter knew that when they traded people, they even sold the bodies and brains separately. Wasn't that far more disturbing than what they had just seen?

There had to be something behind this, and it was certainly no small matter. After all, Lai Er was lying while wearing the necklace.

What could be the reason?

Carter glanced again at the tentacle that had vomited up corpses and bones earlier, but he could not think of an explanation for the moment.

As for Lai Er, although he was still forcing himself to remain calm, the hand beneath his sleeve would not stop trembling.

Because he had thought of something terrifying—this was No Man's Land.

Then the people that tentacle had eaten just now...

Lai Er did not dare think any further. The moment his thoughts extended even a little, cold sweat began pouring down his body.

"I'm feeling a little unwell," Lai Er said to Carter. "Can I rest for a while?"

Carter looked into Lai Er's eyes.

This was not part of his plan. What he wanted now was to cut through the mess quickly, make Lai Er swear loyalty to his master as soon as possible, and then...

"Agree to it." Diana's voice suddenly sounded in Carter's mind. "See what he wants to do."

Having received the order, Carter naturally nodded at Lai Er. "You can walk around nearby, as long as you don't expose your identity. I'll wait for you here."

Lai Er thanked him instinctively, then turned and left in a daze.

But he did not know where he was going, nor did he know what he was supposed to do. His mind was completely blank.

He could be certain that the bones he had seen just now belonged to humans. In other words, this Obedience of Heavenly Voice ate people.

Then what kind of people did it eat? The living or the dead? If it ate living people, what sort of people were they, and where did they come from?

Although Lai Er desperately wanted to reassure himself that those it had eaten might not necessarily have been alive, that they could have been corpses instead—after all, with such a massive body, if it truly fed on living people, how many would it have to eat? It was simply impossible to imagine...

No, it was not impossible to imagine.

His experiences as a black market dealer surged into his mind at that moment. He remembered the prison cells he had seen that night, remembered the young faces inside them.

He had seen darkness beyond the imagination of ordinary people. He had also witnessed the filthy deeds committed by those prestigious orthodox sects, by those high and mighty Fathers and Knights... No, not merely witnessed them. He had taken part in them himself.

And it was precisely because of this that Lai Er was in such agony now. He did not dare think too deeply, did not even have the courage to directly question Carter, and could only keep comforting himself in his heart.

It was fine. His village had been lost. Carter had said so himself—it was one of those villages whose whereabouts could not be found.

So they had to be fine. And hadn't Ha Luo always been delivering things to the village at his request? If something had really happened, Ha Luo would surely have told him.

That faint hope gradually eased Lai Er's taut nerves.

But at that very moment, a familiar voice that had not appeared for a long time sounded in his mind.

"Head south."

Lai Er shuddered in fright and nearly cried out.

"V-Visas-sama?!"

Lai Er instinctively glanced at the necklace on his chest.

It was still intact. It had not been damaged.

Lai Er was confused.

If that was the case, why could he hear Visas-sama's voice? Hadn't Carter said the necklace could...

Lai Er's pupils suddenly contracted.

Carter had only said that the necklace could block Tongue-sensei.

Which meant...

Lai Er's lips went dry. "Visas-sama, I..."

"If you wish to apologize for ever considering betraying me, there is no need." Bai Wei spoke calmly. "Betrayal and loyalty are equally boring to me. They are merely dances performed while wearing masks. What I want to see is the true face beneath the mask."

"I... don't understand."

"Walk south for about two hours," Bai Wei said. "You will understand."

"What is there?"

"An insignificant little village."

Lai Er's eyes widened instantly. He guessed what Bai Wei meant, but he did not dare be certain.

"Visas-sama..." There was still a final shred of hope in his heart. "What place is that?"

"You already have the answer in your heart, so why ask?" Bai Wei said. "I have told you the location. What choice you make is your own matter."

Lai Er opened his mouth.

The fear from earlier surged into his heart again.

Ten minutes later.

Carter watched Lai Er sprint away from the gathering point toward the south and asked in his heart, "Master, are we just letting him leave?"

"Of course not," Diana said. "Send someone after him, but do not show yourselves. Just follow him and see what he intends to do."

With that necklace serving as a marker, tracking Lai Er was not difficult. Still, Carter was somewhat puzzled. "But your deal with him has not been concluded yet. Is it really alright to let him leave like this?"

"He has already seen the Obedience of Heavenly Voice, so half the deal is complete." Diana spoke calmly. "Next, we'll see whether he truly wants to keep living."

Diana knew she was the one with the least reason to panic. As long as she herself did not leave the Contract Land and continued holding the Obedience of Heavenly Voice, even if her identity was exposed, things would not become too bad.

The Contract Land could seal even Visas's largest body. Would it fear a few insignificant chunks of flesh?

She believed Tongue would return, but before then, she also wanted to know what Lai Er intended to do and why his expression had suddenly changed.

"What is south of here?" Diana asked.

Carter thought for a moment before answering, "A village that was once lost."

Diana understood.

A village that was once lost—the reason it was described as once lost...

Was because it had now been found.

A village near the gathering point?

Diana roughly guessed what had happened, then curled the corner of her lips slightly. "This seems a little interesting."

She paused before giving an order.

"Catch up to him. Now."

"Why must you leave?"

"Didn't you hear what that man said? There's a huge world outside!"

"He's lying to you!"

"How could he be lying? Which of us has ever seen an outsider like him?"

"Even if he isn't lying, even if what he said is true, so what?"

"What do you mean, 'so what'? Isn't that enough? Why should we keep guarding this tiny place, breathing in yellow sand every day?"

"Our ancestors lived this way."

"Does that make it right just because our ancestors lived this way? Did you see that man? He's older than my father, but he looks younger than me! Have you forgotten what he said? In the outside world, people can live to fifty! Here, in another ten years, I'll be the one who has to die. I don't want to die like this!"

"But you still have a child..."

"So what? No one can stop me! No one can stop me!"

"Waaah, waaah..."

The prematurely aged young man flung away his wife's hand, ignored his son wailing in his swaddling clothes, shoved open the door, and strode forward.

The merchant in a black cloak eyed him sidelong.

"Oh, you've decided?"

"I've decided. Take me with you!" the young man said through gritted teeth. "We leave now!"

"You do have courage," the merchant said with a smile. "I hope you can keep that courage once you're outside."

"Of course!"

"Then come with me."

The young man followed the merchant. The cries of his wife and child, the sighs of his parents, and the strange looks from the villagers still tortured him.

So he abruptly turned back and roared at them all.

"Just you wait! I'll be back soon, and I'll prove every last one of you wrong! All of you!"

Then he walked into the boundless yellow sand, engraving the village's outline amid the sand deep into his heart.

Looking at that outline within the yellow sand, Lai Er's hands trembled.

That also confirmed for Bai Wei that he had found the right place.

Bai Wei had never been to the Contract Land, but based on the image of the village in Lai Er's memories, along with the gaze of his left eye piercing through the endless yellow sand, he had found this place.

He did not urge Lai Er, because once Lai Er had returned here, the outcome was already decided.

Lai Er stood in the yellow sand like a statue for a long time. At last, when he was nearly buried by the sand, he lifted his trembling legs and walked step by step toward the place called "home."

Five years ago, he did not know what hometown meant, because he had never left his hometown.

Only after leaving No Man's Land and entering the outside world did he understand the meaning of hometown.

Over the past five years, he had imagined returning home countless times, yet he had never imagined it would be like this.

The haze was thick, so once he could see the village's outline through it, it meant he was very, very close to the village.

Yet despite that tiny distance, he walked for a very, very long time, so long that even he could no longer remember.

Had it been minutes, hours, or... years?

When the village finally ceased to be merely an outline in his eyes, when the endless yellow sand could no longer block his view, Lai Er's knees gave out and he collapsed to the ground.

Because he saw it.

The village was empty, like a silent gravestone.

Yet it had already explained everything.

"As expected." This scene naturally fell into Diana's eyes, as she had Carter follow closely behind. "So it really is like this."

There was no need for much explanation to understand this scene. Lai Er was from this village.

"So he's from No Man's Land," Carter said. "And he even went outside to become a black market dealer."

But that was not particularly strange. Black market dealers had always searched No Man's Land for suitable people to expand their ranks. However, due to the constraints of their way of thinking, there were not many people they could take out, so Carter and Diana had not considered that possibility at first.

Now that they knew Lai Er's identity, all of Lai Er's previously puzzling behavior could be explained.

"How interesting. Tongue chose someone like this to work for him. Was it coincidence or calculation?" Diana said with a light laugh. "Was he certain this person would not be of use to us?"

Diana paused, and a trace of thought entered her tone.

"But how could he know the affairs of No Man's Land so thoroughly?"

Carter listened quietly and did not speak, unwilling to interrupt Diana's thoughts.

Until Diana asked, "What happened to this village?"

Carter was about to answer when he saw Lai Er suddenly rise in the distance and rush into the village like a mad dog.

Lai Er did not accept fate. Otherwise, he would not have abandoned his wife and child to leave his hometown five years ago.

And it was the same now. Even if his family was truly gone, he needed to know how they had died. If they were alive, he had to see them; if dead, he had to see their bodies.

After all... what if?

What if they were not dead? What if they had escaped?

Just like five years ago, when everyone believed Ha Luo was a liar, while Lai Er alone still held onto a sliver of hope.

What if he wasn't?

So now, he ran into the village because he needed to see it with his own eyes.

The village was empty, and it looked as though it had been abandoned for quite some time. This naturally made Lai Er's heart sink again.

But he forced himself not to think too much and returned to his own house in the shortest possible time.

Naturally, there was no one inside the house either. All he saw was a mess.

An unmade bed covered in dust, food so rotten its original form could no longer be discerned, and shards of jars and bottles scattered across the floor.

This filled Lai Er with even greater despair.

Because all of it showed that the people in the house had not left normally. They had been taken away suddenly.

Where could they have been taken?

The answer was self-evident.

Lai Er gritted his teeth tightly and still refused to give up. He wanted to call his son's name, but the instant he opened his mouth, he froze.

Because he had left before naming his son.

So he could only call for his wife and parents, but there was no response.

He searched the entire house. Other than two pieces of children's clothing, he found nothing.

In the end, he sat on the floor in despair and dejection, his eyes reddened as he stared at the clothes in his hands.

Judging by the clothes, the child had already grown into a strapping young man.

But...

Lai Er remembered the sight he had seen beside the Obedience of Heavenly Voice, and his body began trembling uncontrollably. He clenched his teeth so hard they were nearly shattered.

Why did it have to be him? Why...

At that moment, Bai Wei spoke again. "There's something on the doorframe."

There was something on the doorframe?

Lai Er instinctively raised his head and looked at the doorframe.

He saw a carved mark.

The mark looked somewhat familiar.

After a brief moment of stunned silence, Lai Er suddenly remembered.

That was... the Black Merchant's mark!