"If you want to know, then you deserve to know." The old man paused before continuing.
"Three years ago, she entered the Dead Domain alone. She stayed for seven full days, and when she came out, she took something with her."
"Since then, the Dead Domain hasn't settled down. The darkness used to seep outward an inch every ten years. In just three years, it's spread three feet."
"What did she take?" Shen Yi frowned.
The old man gave him a long look.
"I don't know."
"Or rather, no one but her can know."
"All I know is that she took something from that place that should never have been taken. As for what it was, she won't say, and I have no way to dig the answer out of the Dead Domain."
"You asked me why I'm after Feng Qingyao..." the old man said. "That's why."
"She touched things no one else dared to touch, and not just in one place."
Shen Yi's hand slowly clenched inside his sleeve.
The ancient bronze sword Feng Qingyao had entrusted to him bore the inscription "No beginning is the beginning; no end is the end." It was two sides of the same coin as the Black Fog.
If she had taken anything from the Dead Domain three years ago, it was most likely that sword.
But that did not quite fit what he had expected.
The sword had grievously wounded Feng Qingyao as she left the Dead Domain, yet the master of Cangwu Hall said it had happened three years ago...
Shen Yi had no intention of saying any of that aloud.
After a pause, he spoke evenly.
"You've chased this for three years without getting anywhere, Hall Master. Now you're using it to shut me up."
"I'm not shutting you up."