In the dimness, a building with layered eaves and a hip-and-gable roof stood silent, like a beast crouching low.
Its dougong brackets wove together like embroidery, and coiling clouds adorned its beams and pillars. Intricate painted decorations and swirling algae patterns surrounded them. Between the blue latticework and vermilion pillars, indistinct murals depicted clouds billowing and rosy clouds glowing.
It was an ancestral hall.
A broad courtyard stretched before its entrance. An ancient pine stood there, its crown spreading like a canopy, its rugged, uneven branches shading more than half the courtyard.
At that moment, the grounds lay utterly deserted.
Only inside the ancestral hall did a faint glimmer show through the lattice doors, decorated with the Five Sons Passing the Imperial Examinations and the Generations of Prosperity motifs.
The glimmer came from the altar table.
The tall table of golden-thread nanmu, carved through with chi-dragon designs and topped with curling cloud patterns, had lost its fresh wood color to the passage of time. In its place was a slightly dusky softness, lending it an even more dignified and stately appearance.
Two melon-shaped Green Gauze Palace Lanterns burned quietly.
Their yellowish light revealed a simple shrine at the head of the hall.
The beaded curtain had been drawn up. Behind it sat a human statue with no features, its face smooth as a mirror.
Yin winds howled in from every direction. As they swept through the courtyard and past the doors, their mournful cries rose and fell.
"Yu" abruptly opened his eyes. The moment he tried to move, he realized his forehead was pressed against the floor. Its icy touch seemed to seep into his bones, and his legs were numb, completely without sensation.
He was kneeling on the ground!
"Yu" furrowed his brow. His face was already tinged with