Return Countdown 04:00:00.
The bonfires in the village gradually dimmed, making the silvery moonlight overhead seem especially dazzling.
Zard stared covetously at Zhong Yu, waiting for an opportunity to strike him down in one blow.
But Zhong Yu did not spare him a single glance. Instead, his black eyes fixed on the deepest part of the village, as though a black hole there had drawn in all his attention.
From the darkness, Li Shentan, dressed in a tailcoat, emerged from the shadows with a smile. He removed his black top hat, gave a slight bow, and bowed to everyone, like the elegant entrance of a magician.
"Good evening, everyone. It has truly been a long time since I returned here. How nostalgic," Li Shentan said. His silver hair seemed plated with light beneath the moon, even carrying a brilliant radiance. "When was the last time I came here? A thousand years ago."
The Lian Clan members stared blankly at him. They did not know where he had come from or who he was, but Lian Peng and Lian Xin, from the clan chief's branch, knew of Li Shentan.
When they had played behind the village as children and seen the wooden statue, they would ask their mothers, "Mom, who is this person?"
Then Lian Peng's mother would tell Lian Peng, and Lian Peng would tell Lian Xin: this was the man Clan Chief Lian Yi had deeply loved, an exceptionally formidable figure.
They knew whom the wooden statue depicted, but they did not know that it held another mystery within.
Now that the great flower pythons that had often accompanied the wooden statue were following behind Li Shentan, Lian Peng immediately realized it: the person inside the wooden statue had come out!
He had been in this village