Landlord flapped his wings and cooed twice, as though saying, "Figure it out yourself," then took flight. His enormous silver-white figure disappeared into the thick fog within a few blinks.
Bai Zhu stood where he was, looking around.
He first glanced at the solitary lighthouse, then turned to look at the metal plate Landlord had pointed out earlier, bearing the "Court" emblem.
A bold guess, one that even he found absurd, took root in his mind.
If the structures aboveground had been built by the "Court"...
Then the lighthouse's purpose probably wasn't to suppress the underwater seal.
It was to keep watch.
To watch the seal Zhang Ye had left behind, and the thing sealed at the bottom of the lake.
Or even... to open that seal when the time was right!
Bai Zhu wandered around for a while, trying to find more clues among the crumbling walls, but he couldn't understand a single symbol or word on them. They were even harder to decipher than illegible scrawls.
He simply gave up and headed back toward camp.
The situation had already gone beyond the scope of his knowledge alone.
By the time he returned to camp, the atmosphere had returned to normal.
Morel was directing several crew members as they reinforced the camp's windbreaks, with Knuckle and Shuto helping nearby, while Gela Jiang helped Milluki organize the precision instruments.
The aroma of grilled fish drifted through the air. Xiao Ba was crouched beside the grill, furtively trying to steal a bite, but after a glare from Knuckle, he flew back to Bai Zhu's shoulder in a huff.
"Coo, coo! Master Bai, that brat glared at me!" Xiao Ba accused first despite being the guilty party.
Bai Zhu wasn't in the mood to banter with him and walked straight up to