"What's going on? How did we lose two grown men?" Li Bai couldn't hide his alarm when he heard that the Fatty and Yao Shunyu had gone missing.
The door stood open, and Jiang Cheng stood behind it with a grim expression, staring into the darkness outside. Not long ago, he had been following the Fatty and the others from a distance. The maid's lantern had stood out clearly in the night, so he hadn't dared get too close, in case they noticed him. But who could have guessed that after one turn, by the time he caught up, the lantern light had vanished, and the Fatty and the others had disappeared.
He naturally hadn't given up easily. He had followed the road for a while longer, but the seemingly gentle courtyard concealed something sinister. Its covered corridors branched off in every direction, and many places were no longer lit by white lanterns. Under the cover of night, everything around him seemed to change. The trees and the piles of rocks had all melted into blurry, dark silhouettes. They loomed indistinctly, as if they had grown limbs—or as if something were hiding behind them.
If he kept going, he wouldn't find the Fatty and the others; he'd only get himself trapped as well. Jiang Cheng had no choice but to retreat for now and look for another way.
Sitting beside the table, Shao Tong gathered his military overcoat around himself and grumbled with evident displeasure, "Didn't I tell you? There's clearly something wrong with this residence. I said someone had planted living stakes here, but none of you believed me. Your Daoist Master here has real powers, you know. If you ask me, we should fight our way out right now, capture Zhennan Hou, and use a few harsh methods