“Senior Brother, we’re back!”
Feiyi and Qingmiao trotted over to the two of them. Feiyi peered curiously at Song Lianzhou’s expression and asked, “What’s wrong, Senior Brother? Why are you frowning?”
Song Lianzhou quickly summarized the suspicious points he had just discovered, then asked, “How is it on your end?”
“No abnormalities. The sister sharing a room with me is named Lin Yan; she was also invited here a few days ago… Wait, Senior Brother, what are you doing?”
Song Lianzhou was pulling out handful after handful of talismans and spiritual artifacts from his inventory, stuffing them directly into Feiyi’s storage ring. “Take all of these first, just in case you need them.”
Even after doing that, he still felt uneasy, so he separated a wisp of true qi and looped it around Feiyi’s wrist. “With this wisp of true qi, I can sense your location at any time.”
“Oh, Senior Brother, what could possibly happen to me? You don’t need to worry about me so much.”
Though she said that, Feiyi still reached out to gently touch her wrist: Hehe, Senior Brother’s true qi is so warm and comforting.
“The guest rooms in the village are all clustered together at the tail end of the village,” Qingmiao added, supplementing the information. “There are eight guest rooms in total—four on the inner side and four on the outer side.”
“The inner four seem to be occupied, but the outer four are all locked. With the Village Chief watching me, I wasn’t able to go inside and check. However, the Village Chief claimed that very few guest rooms remain, and whether that statement is true or false still remains to be seen.”
Song Lianzhou cast an appreciative look his way. “Junior Brother observed things very meticulously.”
Qingmiao’s face flushed suspiciously. He gave a cold snort and turned his head away. “It’s just basic training, that’s all.” Don’t think he would be happy just from a bit of casual praise.
“Junior Sister, those locked rooms will be up to you. See if you can search for any belongings left behind by the missing persons.”
“Got it, Senior Brother.”
“I have a premonition that if the final ritual is completed, everything will pass the point of no return.” Song Lianzhou’s brow furrowed once more. “We must find the missing persons before then…”
Ye Xisheng had been leaning against a tree on the side, watching the three of them exchange information. Seeing this, he couldn’t help straightening up, taking a few steps forward to pull the unsuspecting Song Lianzhou toward himself.
With his fingertip resting against Song Lianzhou’s brow, he gently pressed down. “Senior Brother, stop frowning; it doesn’t look good.”
He whispered, “I’ve got you covered.”
Song Lianzhou didn’t quite know what he meant by those words, but he still obediently relaxed his expression and smiled. Just as he was about to speak, a distant wind suddenly carried the sound of chimes.
Jingle, jingle—
Everything around them seemed to have been placed inside a vacuum, falling so deathly still that not a single sound could be produced, as if even a person’s soul was about to be reeled away by the chimes.
The ringing drifted from the village entrance. As the group subconsciously looked over, many villagers suddenly appeared within the village, crowding to the roadside and gazing expectantly outward.
“Song-xiong, Ye-xiong, you’re right here!”
Li Yusheng came running out from among the villagers, herding the group toward the side of the road. “People are coming soon; you mustn’t stand in the middle of the road. Feiyi younger sister, come a bit further over.”
“What’s this setup for? Who is coming?” Song Lianzhou asked with curiosity.
“Look at me, I almost forgot to tell you,” Li Yusheng slapped his forehead. “Today is the day the Holy Maiden returns to the village; you couldn’t have picked a more coincidental time to arrive.”
“Oh? The Holy Maiden wasn’t in the village before? Where was she then?” Feiyi tilted her head and asked.
Prompted by Feiyi’s question, Li Yusheng instantly beamed with radiance, bending down to explain with gentle patience. “Feiyi younger sister, the Holy Maiden isn’t an ordinary mortal like us—she is an immortal maiden, so she cannot consume the common food and drink of the mortal world. Five days before the ritual begins, the Holy Maiden must leave the sacred grounds to absorb the spiritual dew nurtured by the heaven and earth’s essence on Qishan, and she cannot return to the village until two days before the ritual.”
The ritual would begin in two days. Song Lianzhou silently memorized this piece of intelligence—they still had two days.
“Sister Holy Maiden turns out to be an immortal…” Feiyi put on an expression of utter astonishment.
“Hahaha, the Holy Maiden was conceived from the lotus at the center of the Pure Lotus Pond in our village’s sacred grounds, and she is only born once every five hundred years. Since birth, she has absorbed the essence of heaven and earth, so naturally she is an immortal maiden.” Li Yusheng looked extremely excited, rattling off a long string of words.
However, the Holy Maiden didn’t possess divine power yet; only after undergoing the ritual would she become the Holy Maiden who wielded divine power.
Feiyi played along with perfect timing: “So that’s how it is! Big Brother Li, you know so much~”
Though he had mentally prepared himself, Song Lianzhou had never imagined his own junior sister could produce that kind of tone, and he almost failed to control his facial expression. Qingmiao directly turned around, frantically rubbing at the goosebumps breaking out all over his arms.
Only Li Yusheng was praised into a glowing state, blooming like a peach blossom.
The chimes grew increasingly crisp, and in the distance through the mist outside the village, several figures began to materialize.
Li Yusheng hurriedly his expression, holding a finger to his lips to make a hush gesture toward them. “Shh, Holy Maiden is coming.”
The sentence recalled the attention of all four individuals, and Song Lianzhou slightly focused his concentration as he looked toward the village entrance.
Four people emerged from the mist first, with the Village Chief and a shamaness standing at the very front. Following closely behind them were four people carrying a crimson sedan chair, its body carved with lifelike lotus flowers.
The group walked step by step, pausing with every movement, proceeding with extreme caution as if fearful of disturbing the person inside the sedan.
At the very tail end of the procession were four familiar-looking figures. Song Lianzhou recalled that he had seen all of them within the trading caravan.
Accompanied by the chimes, the sedan chair slowly moved into the village.
Although both sides of the main road were packed with people, not a single sound could be heard at that moment. Song Lianzhou could sense gazes converging from all directions, all landing upon that sedan chair.
He stared intently at the sedan chair as well, carefully releasing his divine sense, only for it to be blocked halfway.
Just as the sedan chair was about to pass right in front of the four of them, a sudden gust of wind picked up. The wind instantly grew abnormally fierce, abruptly blowing open the curtains on the windows on both sides.
Song Lianzhou held his breath all at once.
Sitting inside the sedan chair was a person of nearly immaculate whiteness. The Holy Maiden was dressed in a snowy-white robe, her figure appearing exceptionally petite and frail beneath the oversized garments. A cascade of silver-white hair cascaded from her shoulders down to the ground, and her skin was so pale it was nearly transparent, resembling a bas-relief sculpture coated in white lacquer.
She kept her head lowered, gazing at the alluring blue lotus clutched tightly in her hand. The petals trembled slightly with the motion of the sedan chair.
Yuling Chun had said that the Holy Maiden’s lineage had been severed since the previous century.
Then just who was the person sitting in the sedan chair at this moment?
Feiyi was wandering her gaze around nonchalantly when her sight inadvertently drifted into the interior of the sedan chair, and her movements abruptly froze.
—Through the fluttering window curtain, she saw that the Holy Maiden was looking right at her.
Amidst the sea of pure white surrounding them, the Holy Maiden’s pitch-black pupils seemed bottomless.
The exact instant their gazes locked, Feiyi saw something sparkling at the corner of the Holy Maiden’s eye, which in a fraction of a second had already slid down her cheek and dripped onto the lotus petals clutched in her hand.
Feiyi’s eyes widened slightly.
She… was she crying?
The window curtain fell back down, cutting off the line of sight, and the interior of the crimson sedan chair returned to its quiet calm.