Su Ziji was slowly descending, surrounded by darkness—boundless, endless darkness.
Only a single point of light was gradually expanding.
Besides that, there was the sound of water, though no water could be seen—only the sound of flowing.
"Yellow Springs?" Su Ziji frowned. Then, without warning, he dropped, but he had already landed. He abruptly looked up to see dimness all around, no daylight anywhere, gray mist curling through the air, visibility extremely low. Farther off, there were lights.
Su Ziji stamped on the ground and found solid earth beneath his feet, dusty soil. A road slowly emerged underfoot, then suddenly brightened, revealing a residence.
Calling it a residence was not quite right. It ought to have been called a palace.
"So it is here again." Su Ziji glanced at the Crown Prince's Residence and silently pushed open the gates.
The moment the gates opened, a wave of blood stench rushed straight at him. Su Ziji's expression did not change. His gaze swept over the scene: outside the gates lay quiet desolation, while inside was a hell on earth.
Starting scarcely a meter beyond the gate, there was a horribly mangled corpse every few steps, strewn in every direction. Most were servants and maidservants, though the occasional warrior had also fallen dead where he stood.
Yet the instant Su Ziji appeared at the entrance, the corpses in their various poses seemed to undergo a subtle change.
The corpses whose faces could be seen were horribly disfigured and utterly motionless, but their eyes moved.
As Su Ziji walked past, their gazes turned to follow him.
In a place already terrifying enough, being watched by a crowd of corpses was truly eerie.
A trace of distaste curled at Su Ziji's lips as he strode onward.
The clothes he wore were clearly not the