After finishing lunch, the group strolled together through the Spirit Ice Plaza.
Jiang Mingyuan's pace was unhurried as he hummed a little tune whose name he had long forgotten. The melody was intermittent, yet it carried an ineffable lightness to it.
He gently patted his belly, clearly satisfied with the meal.
"Hey, look over there."
Xie Xie had sharp eyes, and through a small grove outside the Spirit Ice Plaza, he spotted a few wooden houses nestled in the trees.
"Oh, right, there really are houses. Let's go check it out." Jiang Mingyuan waved his hand and broke into a run heading that way. Since it was just about noon, they could also use the woods to escape the blazing sun.
As the group drew closer, the appearance of the small cabins in the forest gradually revealed itself.
In a clearing within the woods stood three dilapidated wooden houses that looked quite aged. The eaves of one cabin were draped in spiderwebs, clearly showing a lack of care.
"Huh? How can there be such rundown architecture inside Shrek Academy?"
Tang Wulin pressed against the glass of one of the houses and peered inside. Aside from a few beds and battered wooden tables, there was nothing else, and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust-obviously uninhabited for a long time.
Xie Xie walked up to the door of another wooden house and gave the planks a restless kick. He figured a little bit of force on his part would shatter this rickety shack into pieces.
"Tsk, and here I thought we discovered something cool. Turns out it's just an abandoned old shack for years. Let's go, let's go, nothing to see here," Xie Xie muttered with the air of someone whose excitement had been dashed, turning to leave. Yet