Wang Jue bent down, scooping up Hou Dayong in one swift motion, resting him easily on his shoulders. He murmured gently, "They've gone to report in; I imagine we should follow them." With that, he carried Hou Dayong and veered into the tunnel on the right.

The tunnel on this side was even stranger than the one they had just traversed. Not only were jagged crystals growing from the rock walls, but the surface was also studded with stones the size of eggs, large and small. Wang Jue had suffered from trypophobia since childhood, and seeing the wall littered with these 'eggs' made his scalp prickle instantly, causing sweat to bead on his back. He quickened his pace.

Before long, the two arrived outside a stone door. This time, they hadn't guessed wrong. The door was ajar, as if someone had just slipped inside and forgotten to secure it. The pair concealed themselves behind the heavy slab and peered cautiously through the crack.

The interior was indeed a grand hall, just as Fan Jia had described. The white marble floor was as pure as driven snow, and the uneven crystal pillars still jutted from the hall's four walls. However, the dense scattering of egg-like stones was absent, which brought Wang Jue a massive wave of relief. To be honest, forcing himself to stare at those round stones clustered so densely on the smooth walls had been a profoundly unpleasant experience.

Just as they were about to poke their heads further in, Wang Jue suddenly heard a sigh drift from the hall, though he saw no one. Feeling his hearing had sharpened by a good third compared to before, he made a gesture to Hou Dayong, indicating he could pick up sounds from within. They both retracted their heads and stood silently beside the door, listening intently to the noises emanating from the chamber.

Naturally, Hou Dayong could hear nothing, but Wang Jue strained to capture every nuance of the sounds inside.

He heard an aged female voice speaking slowly and deliberately: "I didn't want things to turn out this way, but circumstances forced my hand. If you would only become one of us, once I find my daughter, you all could live together as you did when you were children—sweethearts from the same village."

"What about Xing'er? I personally went to the Sea of the Dead to save him. Xiaoyu also lost his life because of him. Are you saying we endured all this hardship, suffered all this pain, only for you to break up that couple and have their son killed? If that’s the case, then what was the point of everything we did before?" Wang Jue concentrated, recognizing the replying male voice; it was none other than Li Xiaoshu, the man who had used earplugs to deceive him that night, forcing him to block his own hearing while Xiaoyu was endangered, and then venturing alone to save Xiaoyu.

Listening further, the old woman slammed a table with a sharp bang, retorting angrily, "What do you mean he can't die? Your father and I served your Li family for so many years, and weren't we just as mercilessly killed by your own brother? In the Li family, besides you, no one is irreplaceable!"

"But have you thought about Yingzi? I saw with my own eyes how much she loved Xing'er. After losing the flesh of her own heart, can she truly continue to live?"

Hearing this, the old woman fell silent, and another, equally aged male voice interjected, "If you stay with her, she will slowly start to recover."

Xiaoshu's voice cut in with firm resolution, "I love Xing'er too, very much. I will never accept that outcome."

"Sigh," the old woman sighed again. "The wind is blowing the wrong way today. First came Ming Xiaoyu, claiming the history of the Undying Body would end with him. Then came you, as if brainwashed, vowing to protect the brother who stole your lover and snatched away your mother, along with his child. This world seems unlike the one we knew before."