When Fourth Uncle saw Zhang Xiaohua and Meng being so intimate, a kindly smile appeared in his eyes.
Not long after, Ninth Granny returned, carrying a huge basin of snowy-white meat soup. Its fragrance rushed at their noses from far away, and though Zhang Xiaohua had long since stopped eating ordinary food, his fingers still twitched with appetite.
The people of the little village were exceedingly warm. Although Meng could not recall a single one of their names, they all called her Xiaoya. They cooked the game they had hunted during the day and brought it all, without holding anything back, to Meng's wooden table. Meng had eaten countless delicacies from mountain and sea in the Incense-Passing Cult, yet she was still moved by their affection. She felt that the things in this mountain village were what she truly liked best.
In the wooden house that had been without lamplight for several years, candlelight flickered tonight, and laughter never ceased... Yet once everyone had dispersed and Meng had gone to rest in one room, Zhang Xiaohua sat alone in the main hall. Listening to the silence of the village and spreading out his divine sense to inspect the quiet settlement, he felt a faint sense of something strange. Still, Zhang Xiaohua vaguely felt that he could not put that strangeness into words.
Could it be that mysterious figure never showed up, and I'm just being overly suspicious? Zhang Xiaohua could only mock himself inwardly.
Early the next morning, before Zhang Xiaohua had even awakened, the men of the village had packed up their broadswords, bows, arrows, and other weapons and set out at dawn. Only after the village women had seen the men off did they return to their rooms to sleep again.
When the first ray of morning sunlight