Nothing happened.
After those children died in the village's abandoned houses, everything remained utterly quiet.
The Immortal Cultivators who led the village sent some able-bodied young men over to demolish the old houses, then built a new ancestral hall on the site.
They said it was to suppress evil spirits.
Yet Liu Fanyue still had not returned.
Over the past few days, Zhou Yan had spent nearly every moment outside his essential cultivation time searching for the missing Liu Fanyue.
But his search yielded nothing.
Zhou Yan had repeatedly questioned his master, Shen Yunshen, asking him where Junior Sister Liu had gone.
Shen Yunshen gave him no answer either.
In the eyes of both Zhou Yan and the villagers of Willow River Village, this young Qi Condensation Realm cultivator had always set his sights on the great undertaking of saving as many people as possible from being sold as "food" or slaves.
As for what became of his own disciples...
Perhaps Shen Yunshen was not entirely indifferent.
And he had more important things to do.
This led Zhou Yan to a new suspicion—
He Wei.
He remembered what the boy named Chen Yan had told him when he went to find him one night a few days earlier:
"She also saw Immortal Master He this afternoon. Her attitude toward Immortal Master He was a little strange, too."
That had undoubtedly caught Zhou Yan's attention.
And precisely because of that, he took the opportunity to approach He Wei before he left the village.
It was early one morning, before the sky had fully brightened.
The late-autumn morning wind was dry and cold, stinging their faces as it blew.
"Senior He."
Zhou Yan stopped behind He Wei, his entire body unusually tense. Even though he tried his best to keep his voice