Early next morning, Lu Sheng flipped out of his bed. He brought the long sword he received from the sect, and circled behind his house.

He bought a minced meat pancake on the way, and ate it as he slowly walked through the alleys. Finally, he stood in front of a mansion.

Standing in front of the door, Lu Sheng stared at the tightly shut gate, and glanced at the plaque on top.

“Fei Mansion?” Lu Sheng read the words out loud.

Two wolf heads were drawn on the gray wooden gates. A third eye could be seen on the brow of the wolves, whose expressions were regal and solemn.

Lu Sheng walked up to knock.

“Boom, boom, boom.”

The noise echoed back.

“Boom, boom, boom.”

“Who is it?” The mild voice of an old man came from his side.

Surprised, Lu Sheng looked toward the voice. He saw a wrinkly old man dressed in white walk out from an alley beside him.

“Elder, do you work for the Fei Mansion?” he asked.

“Ha. This little brother jests. The Fei Family is huge and wealthy, this old man is only here to guard their gates.

“And no need for you to waste time here, either. No one has come out nor entered the mansion for a couple of days now. Something happened inside a while back, and many people have never come back after they left. Not a single maid or guard is there now.”

“Is that so?” Lu Sheng frowned, and looked around carefully, especially at the floor. He noticed that there were a few other footprints, and, upon more careful inspection, he noticed that there was only one set other than his. Everywhere else was covered in a thick layer of dust.

‘There shouldn’t be this much dust in such a short amount of time.’ Lu Sheng had his doubts. He looked at the old man, who was waving a big fan on the side.

“Don’t look at me. I don’t know anything. After those people left, there weren’t even guards or servants taking out manure left. I was confused too; the Fei Family is so huge that it should have taken them longer to move out.”

“Alright. Thank you for your warning.” Lu Sheng nodded. He watched the old man gradually walk out of the alley, all the while waving his fan. Soon, he walked to a meat bun vendor on the street.

Lu Sheng snapped his attention back to the gate.

It truly seemed that there was no one inside, since there hadn’t been a response for so long. He reached out and touched the lock, and then used his True Qi.

“Crack.”

The lock instantly snapped.

The gate opened silently, and a cold, damp scent greeted him.

Behind the gate was a pond, while two buildings even a bit taller than the gate stood on its two sides. The shadows cast by both buildings in the morning covered the fountain, and only a sliver of light shined onto the pond.

The whole courtyard was damp and dark.

“This place…” Lu Sheng narrowed his eyes, and became quite intrigued. He strode past the entrance, slowly closed it behind him, and barred it.

“Tap.”

The wooden door wrapped in iron made a crisp sound as it closed, echoing throughout the courtyard.

The whole courtyard was covered in a thick layer of dust.

The ground, the wall, the windows, the hall, all of them looked like no one had lived here for many years. The window a few rooms down the hall was open, and it swayed back and forth in the wind.

Lu Sheng slowly walked around the courtyard. He passed by the pond, and glanced at the long dead koi fish in it. He moved his gaze back, and listened carefully for any noises around him.

“Tap.”

Suddenly, a shape flashed across a dark corner. A faint scurry of footsteps followed, quickly disappearing into the distance.

Lu Sheng immediately darted into the passage like lightning and looked around. He arrived just in time to catch a glimpse of white cloth disappearing behind the corner.

He was about to follow, but abruptly stopped, staring at the ground.

The whole passage was still covered in dust, without even a single footprint.

‘No footprints… even if it was someone powerful in the Fei Family, they wouldn’t be using movement techniques every second of the day, right?’ Even he wouldn’t use movement techniques just to move around in his house.

“Interesting…” Lu Sheng cracked a smile. He clearly heard footsteps and saw the corner of someone’s cloth, but he still couldn’t sense anything. He strangely couldn’t sense anything past that corner.

No humans, not even a living being. Nothing.

There was no Yin Qi and no Devil Qi, but something had clearly happened to the Fei Family. Yet, no one had noticed in the huge county capital. How interesting.

He stood on the hall, and decided to walk deeper still after some thought.

***

Fei Bailing opened her eyes, a sliver of light shining onto her face through the window, blinding her a little.

She slowly propped up her body, and noticed her hand was touching the cold ground.

“I… I…?” She just noticed that she had been sleeping on the ground.

Fei Bailing tried to sit up, but a whole night of sleep on the cold floor made her body sore, while a dull, cold pain came from her waist.

‘I remember someone was knocking on the door. Then… Then…’ Fei Bailing held her head, but couldn’t remember what had happened after no matter how hard she tried.

She lowered her head and rubbed her eyes. Suddenly she noticed that the floor around her was covered in a thick layer of dust.

The gray dust seemed like it had accumulated due to a long, long time of neglect.

“What… How did this happen?” She lightly swiped her finger across the floor. A clear mark appeared on the ground.

She also abruptly noticed a clear pair of footprints not far from where she lay.

The footprints pointed towards her, and were not big. It was as if someone not very tall had watched her sleep.

“What…?!” Fei Bailing’s hand was shaking; her fingers unconsciously touched the footprints.

Again, she started to panic.

Her sister had disappeared while everyone else, and, along with her father, started to act strange. Then, the whole Fei Family Mansion underwent a weird change.

Even she herself would lose consciousness sometimes.

She could imagine someone who wasn’t very tall standing next to her, watching her sleep with a lowered head. And judging by the thickness of the footprint, the person probably watched her for the whole night!

Fei Bailing’s hair rose all over her body. She swallowed, and a chill ran across her body while goosebumps appeared on her skin.

She slowly climbed up, and put her back to the wall.

Abruptly, she turned, opened the door, and dashed out.

“Bam.”

She moved too fast, and fell on the bamboos in front of the door. Blood dripped out of her knee, but that didn’t stop her at all as she climbed up and ran toward the courtyard gate.

The empty courtyards, deathly silent, were also covered in dust. Fei Bailing hurriedly crossed the archway between the courtyards, and walked out onto the connecting passage.

The Fei Family Mansion was big, and many little courtyards were included in the big courtyards. Gray passages formed by walls connected them.

The passages were very wide, more than enough for three big horses to walk alongside each other.

After Fei Bailing darted out of the archway, she looked left and right. Doors into the dark and quiet building stood on both ends of the passage. Cold wind blew in from both sides, making her unconsciously hug herself.

“The way out… The way out…” She tried her best to remember, and then charged toward the right.

She would leave! Leave this increasingly dangerous and strange place!

“Bam!”

She carelessly slammed into a tall and sturdy body.

“Huh? There are still people here?” Inspector Sima Xiu let out a long sigh of relief. He looked at the deathly pale Fei Bailing, who had fallen on her back from the impact.

***

“Bam!”

Lu Sheng slammed the wooden door in front of him to pieces, and walked in pompously.

The bedroom was filled with dust, which flew everywhere from the air he brought in, making the whole place gray and hard to breath in.

Lu Sheng released a sliver of True Qi to insulate his body, and looked around the room.

The wooden bed, cabinet, dressing table, and window were all a faint yellow. A paper with half-finished calligraphy piece written on it sat on the table. The ground ink to the side had long since dried up.

Lu Sheng went near the table, and stared at the symbols on it.

‘Ocean, sky, wide, meaning.’ Four symbols quietly sat on the white paper. The last symbol for meaning was only half finished. [ED/N: The 4th one has a lot of meanings, and they include “thought”, “intent”, and so on. It’s really hard to say without context, so… be aware of at least those two additional meanings]

A little white notebook sat on the side, as big as a person’s palm. Delicate wheat ears and small red flowers were embroidered onto the cover.

Lu Sheng flipped around a few pages. The majority of the contents in the front were ordinary records of everyday life. He could tell the owner was a woman from the fine and delicate print.

Lu Sheng lost his patience after a few pages, and flipped straight to the last one.

“…I don’t want to go on like this. The family head has been calling in meetings more frequently as of late, and everyone is panicking, hoping to find a cure to the sickness. But doctors came and went, and yet no hope is in sight. Do we really have to take the last step?”

Judging by the messy handwriting, whoever was writing it was very flustered.

‘Sickness?’ Lu SHeng narrowed his eyes. ‘Every sect has their own knowledgeable doctors and medicine men, and their counterparts from the outside are usually not as good as the ones that are part of a sect. This Fei Family didn’t use their connections to find someone from within sects, and instead tried to get help from freelancers?’ Lu Sheng had some speculations as he saw the note.

Lu Sheng circled the room a few more times, and left after he failed to find any other clues.

He walked slowly along the hall. The darkness felt like a slight dimness for Lu Sheng, who had lived in the Prime Devil Sect for so long.

He was even more interested after he read the diary. Unfortunately, he didn’t find anything else similar in the next few rooms he checked.

He gave up, and walked out of the passage into a small garden. A swing swayed in the wind. Red knots for warding off evil hung on the wall.

According to the tradition of the Autumn Moon County, tying 99 knots on a red rope and combining nine of them into a bundle and hanging them on the wall could ward off evil and bring about happiness. If you wrote down your wish and hung it along the ropes, your wish would be granted the next year as well.

Lu Sheng walked up, and saw the many pieces of paper hanging from it.

He picked one at random.

“I wish that dad would have a healthy body and continue his successes in business.”

He picked another.

“Mom, I love you.”

“I want a wooden horse as tall as a person.”

All of them were filled with scribbles from little kids.

“Hehehehe…” Suddenly, Lu Sheng heard laugher behind him, like there were children laughing.

He abruptly turned, and saw that a little kid had unknowingly appeared behind him.

It was a little boy.

His face was ashen, but had a big smile. His eyes stared straight at Lu Sheng.

“You…” Lu Sheng was about to ask a question, but then stopped—the boy in front of his face disappeared as soon as he blinked.