Qiao Family Village, the Soul Return Realm.
There was no way out...
Qiao Ziruo had tried many methods, but none let her leave the area around her courtyard. The village was plainly within sight, yet she always found herself circling back to the courtyard gate in some uncanny way.
She was trapped here...
Qiao Ziruo leaned against the courtyard entrance, her eyes vacant.
She rubbed her temples in pain, vaguely remembering... that she had forgotten something. But what was it?
Try as she might, she could not remember.
But this place... this Qiao Family Village felt so strange to her.
Its silence made her tremble.
She glanced back. Grandma had vanished again. Grandma always appeared so suddenly, and disappeared just as suddenly.
Qiao Ziruo took out her phone and checked the time. It showed nine in the morning.
Was it already nine...?
She looked blankly up at the sky.
Thick clouds blocked most of the sunlight. On closer inspection, a layer of red light rimmed the clouds. The sun was very red, but... it did not hurt her eyes.
The village... perhaps because she had not returned in so long, Qiao Ziruo found it both familiar and unfamiliar. She had even begun to find it eerie and frightening, especially with someone having died recently, which made her even more afraid.
But now that she had calmed down a little, although she still felt she had forgotten something, her basic ability to think had returned.
Could I be unable to leave the village because... something is interfering from the shadows?
But what could it be...?
I came back so suddenly because I received a call saying a relative had passed away. Before I got that call, I was still attending classes at university...
Wait!
She picked up her phone, opened the