Inside Wushan Prefecture.

Zhang Rongfang walked slowly toward the direction of the voice.

He passed through neighborhoods, through large, desolate residential houses.

Then he arrived at a white two-story building that seemed abandoned for a long time.

The building here seemed to have some kind of special style.

Between the floors, in the center position, there was a railing with a crescent-shaped arc.

On the rooftop, there was an incense burner taller than a person, on which crowded black birds stood densely.

The eyes of these birds were blood red, quite strange. They stood together silently, like scattered sesame seeds.

"Come...."

The voice emanated from inside the building.

Zhang Rongfang looked up at the nameplate outside the building.

On the right side of the entrance, there was a hanging iron plaque, with a deep blue monochrome butterfly fixed with iron nails.

Below, written in spiritual text: Wishes.

"Here...." Zhang Rongfang took a deep breath, his eyes suddenly became clear.

He felt a chill all over, realizing the temperature around was completely different from the whole of Wushan Prefecture.

He distinctly remembered, at home, the temperature was at most over thirty degrees, but now...

The temperature here actually made him feel cold....

He retreated a step, completely unaware of how and when he came here?

He didn't remember, beside his home, there existed such a house.

He distinctly felt, when he left home, his pace wasn't fast, but now....

Zhang Rongfang retreated two steps, looking left and right.

On both sides of this House of Wishes, it was enveloped in a mist.

Only from afar, he could barely see the same structure on both sides.

"Here...." Zhang Rongfang felt a bit uneasy in his heart.

Immediately, he quickly closed his eyes, then opened them again.

The expected attribute panel suddenly emerged.

What made his heart shudder was.

On the attribute panel, the intuition alert that had been silent for a long time reappeared.

'Intuition Alert: Something is approaching... approaching....'

The content of the alert wasn't much, but the handwriting had completely turned blood red, as if it could drip blood at any moment.

'Trouble...' Zhang Rongfang quickly steadied himself.

If he had known earlier, enhancing the Cultivation of Literature would increase his sensitivity and directly expose him to such troubles, he might have hesitated to increase it so soon.

But now it's too late to regret....

Since achieving Refining God is what Yue Shi initially asked for, it indicates this realm definitely has some special properties.

'Whether it's human or ghost! Let's find out!'

Zhang Rongfang raised his head and slowly placed his hands on the house's gate, gently pushing.

Squeak...

The metal gate opened slowly, sliding open like black, hollow wings.

Zhang Rongfang stepped into the courtyard.

The courtyard was empty, without any furnishings.

But the ground was littered with various dead butterflies.

All these butterflies shared one color—blue.

A sky-like clear blue.

Squeak.

The main door of the building, likewise not locked, was gently pushed open by Zhang Rongfang.

Inside was a large expanse of misty white cobwebs.

The thick cobwebs were like white gauze, almost covering the entire hall, engulfing it.

Through the gaps in the cobwebs, Zhang Rongfang vaguely saw a white-skirted woman standing at the deepest point near the wooden staircase.

She wore palace-style attire, had a slender waist, hands folded across her abdomen, her face white as powder, smiling.

Her long, black hair was neatly combed and bound, giving an impression of composure and elegance.

Through layers of cobwebs, the woman smiled distantly at Zhang Rongfang.

"Come...."

She softly opened her mouth, uttering a sound.

Hee hee hee.

Suddenly, a faint laughter swept past behind Zhang Rongfang.

He turned around abruptly.

There was nothing behind him.

Then he quickly turned back, looking toward the woman.

There was nothing at the staircase anymore.

Zhang Rongfang took a deep breath, picked up a broken chair leg from the ground, and began clearing the cobwebs, moving forward.

Cobwebs carried a lot of white dust, which dispersed slowly against the air currents as he swung, drifting.

The air also turned misty.

Soon, he arrived at the wooden stairs, looking up.

The woman was at the staircase entrance on the second floor, back to him, walking deep into the upper floor.

Zhang Rongfang quickly ascended, in a blink, flipping himself to follow.

In the small hall on the second floor, there were rotating clocks placed on the ground, continuously ticking.

These clocks seemed old, entirely black and brown, making a creaky rusty sound with each tick.

The white-skirted woman stood at the deepest part amongst the clocks, leaning against the window, smiling at him.

"Come..."

She spoke softly.

"Who are you!?" Zhang Rongfang did not move closer.

It wasn't that he didn't want to.

But he felt something was amiss.

At this moment, the intuition alert on the attribute panel had turned a nearly solid dark blood color.

The handwriting was still the same, unchanged, but a chilling atmosphere made Zhang Rongfang increasingly cold.

"Come...." The woman smiled, calling him again.

".....Why did you bring me here, what do you want to do?" Zhang Rongfang asked again.

He believed that the woman wouldn't bring him here for no reason.

"Aren't you coming over?" The woman's words finally changed.

"What's your purpose!? And where is this place?" Zhang Rongfang's face was as calm as water, staring intently at her.

"You don't come over...."

"Then I'll come over!!"

Suddenly, the woman's voice came from behind Zhang Rongfang.

The woman in a white dress in his view vanished instantly, and from behind him, a spine-chilling coldness emerged sharply.

Without thinking, Zhang Rongfang swung his hand backward to strike.

But before he could hit anything.

A veil of fuzzy white webs descended from above, enveloping him completely.

An intense drowsiness surged in his heart.

"Playing tricks!" Zhang Rongfang's back immediately surged with a blood lotus that blossomed open.

His raging Qi and blood burned and boiled within him like flames.

At the same time, it seemed there was a deep roar akin to a fierce beast.

Numerous webs were torn apart, scattering away.

Zhang Rongfang's vision cleared abruptly.

His pupils trembled sharply, and his mind felt like a whirlpool spinning, swinging, with a deep sense of dizziness rapidly fading away.

Everything around him began to regain clarity. From blurry to gradually drawing close, then clear.

"Where am I....!?"

When he saw everything clearly, Zhang Rongfang was suddenly shocked.

He wasn't in any building, but was still sitting cross-legged in his own home.

There were no webs around, just a strand of sunlight streaming in through the window, falling on him.

Zhang Rongfang blinked and quickly looked at the intuition alert in the attributes panel.

'Intuition Alert: Danger has been eliminated, some unknown presence has left.'

"Indeed!"

Zhang Rongfang's heart jolted with a start.

If he were an ordinary person, perhaps he would think it was just a dream, a hallucination.

Without the ability of the attributes panel, he might also have thought it was just a dream.

But now....

The intuition alert clearly told him, it wasn't a dream just now...

Standing up, Zhang Rongfang looked around to ensure he was indeed still at home.

Not much time had even passed around him.

Still about the same as when he entered meditation earlier.

And that little tennis ball in his mind was no longer as active as before.

"Indeed....From the beginning of the Refining God state, one would start to encounter things beyond common sense.... Spiritual General.... really is different from ordinary people now..."

Standing up, Zhang Rongfang stretched his legs and was about to go out to investigate, to see if the small building he just saw really existed in Wushan Prefecture.

But just as he stood up, he suddenly paused, quickly turning his head.

"This.... I clearly remember storing it away?"

He looked at the Blood God Statue behind him, bewildered and uncertain.

At this moment, the statue was placed properly behind him, looking at him with a benevolent expression.

And on the ground in front of it, there was a very faint, almost invisible bit of white ash.

Zhang Rongfang silently looked at the bit of white ash, paused, and carefully observed the Blood God Statue.

He found no abnormalities in it.

Then, he walked closer, reaching out to gently dab the bit of white ash with his fingertip, picking it up to examine.

The ash faintly carried the scent of webs he encountered in that small building earlier.

"Could it be...."

Zhang Rongfang's expression changed, unsure.

He quickly stood up, heading out towards Qingsu.

In Wushan Prefecture, he had plenty of people, just the opportunity to thoroughly investigate the origins of the woman in a white dress he saw earlier.

Whether it's the anomaly of the Blood God Statue or the reminder from the attributes panel, it was clear to him.

It wasn't a dream just now!

*

*

*

Ding Yu awoke groggily from his slumber.

He remembered being drugged by someone.

And it seemed those who drugged him were local people of Dan Province.

His head felt like it had been hit by something heavy, the pain at the back was unbearable.

Opening his eyes, he was lying in a dry pile of hay, in a woodshed storing hay.

Dim sunlight filtered through the fog, landing on the ground near his feet.

The air was filled with the smell of cow dung.

Outside, faint giggles of girls drifted in from afar.

They spoke in dialects that were completely incomprehensible, seeming to joke and play, quite happy.

Ding Yu lifted his hand, looking at his wrist. It was tightly bound with several layers of coarse hemp rope.

These ropes might be formidable to ordinary warriors, hard to break free from.

But to him, they were just that.

However... at this moment, his whole body was weak, as if the drug hadn't worn off completely. He couldn't muster strength.

Creek.

The door of the woodshed opened.

A fair-skinned woman wearing a navy blue round hat walked in with a smile.

"You're awake? Are you hungry? Want something to eat?" The woman looked at Ding Yu with bright eyes, asking.

"Who are you? Why did you drug me?" Ding Yu asked in a deep voice.

"I'm Xiaojing, my family lacks a strong laborer, and I want to have a son. You look so strong, you can surely father a good son." The woman answered earnestly.

"..." Ding Yu was stunned, "You randomly grab someone from the road to father a son??"

"Why wouldn't I dare? You're now my property; everyone in the village already knows. You can't escape." Xiaojing replied with a smile.