After that, no matter what they asked, the village chief said nothing. He simply sat in his seat, eyes closed, resting.
But to Su Jiu and the others, he sat as stiffly as a corpse, utterly motionless, his breathing barely perceptible.
"Let's go." With that, Chu Luohen was the first to step out of the room.
The others followed one after another. Su Jiu was the last to leave, but the instant she crossed the threshold, she suddenly turned back, as though she had sensed something.
Su Jiu's movement was hardly subtle, and the observant Ning Fan immediately noticed her loss of composure.
"What is it?"
Su Jiu bit her lip lightly. "I'm not sure. For a split second just now, I thought I sensed the power of a contract. But it was too brief. It vanished before I could even grasp it..."
Ning Fan folded one arm across his chest and rubbed his chin with his other hand. "That sounds like what I felt when I caught sight of the giant tree just before entering the village."
Su Jiu recalled what Ning Fan had said before. He had said that the giant tree seemed to have come alive, yet she had sensed nothing at all at the time.
So was this another fleeting illusion?
Su Jiu's gaze deepened. Impossible. Once might have been an illusion, but twice? It absolutely couldn't be as simple as that!
She looked back long and hard at the gate, which had already closed, then set off toward the temple.
Chu Luohen, meanwhile, looked up at one of the walls surrounding the village chief's home.
His icy eyes flickered slightly. Ordinarily, the giant tree towered far above the wall, so they should have been able to see it from here...
Yet now, there was nothing...