A week later, Ye Tiancheng took the fragment of the Fuxi Qin and stood inside the cave. He heard a crack and, to prevent any accidents, immediately ran out of the cave.
Ye Tiancheng then sensed that the formation had begun to operate. His vision blurred, and the scene before him changed drastically.
He no longer saw the mountains and forests. The cave had also vanished. Ye Tiancheng looked around and discovered something that was neither good nor bad.
It seemed the formation had transferred them to a villa district, and a villa was also enveloped within the formation's range.
This was quite problematic. He didn't know if anyone lived in this villa, otherwise, who knew how many more people would be drawn into the illusion.
Ye Tiancheng sighed inwardly. He also felt that he had no choice but to approach the villa, because Ye Tiancheng vaguely sensed that the new fragment of the Fuxi Qin was likely inside this villa.
It was precisely for this reason that this villa was included within the formation's scope.
Ye Tiancheng pondered for a moment, then walked to the villa's main door and pressed the doorbell. After a while, the display screen on the villa's door finally lit up. A girl's face appeared on the screen. She looked at Ye Tiancheng with a look of panic and asked tremblingly, "Who are you? Are you human or a ghost?"
"This... young lady, of course I'm human. Why would you ask such a strange question?" Ye Tiancheng was a bit helpless. As he greeted the girl, he suddenly recalled that certain address terms had been distorted, and saying them directly might be impolite. So, he temporarily changed his address to "young lady."
However, judging by the girl's expression, Ye Tiancheng felt something was not quite right.
When the girl on the screen heard Ye Tiancheng say this, she nodded excitedly and said, "Good, good, good. Wait for me, I'll come out and open the door right away!"
This made it even stranger. Why would the girl ask if he was human or a ghost? And why, after Ye Tiancheng stated he was human, did she become so excited? Without even confirming who Ye Tiancheng was or if he was a bad person, she was rushing out to open the door for him.
Ye Tiancheng stood suspiciously at the main entrance and waited for a while. Then, he saw the girl who had appeared on the screen run out from inside with disheveled hair and open the villa door.
Before, she hadn't seemed particularly striking as he only saw her on the screen. Now that she was standing in front of him, Ye Tiancheng noticed that her eyes were red and swollen, as if she had been crying profusely.
The girl's eyes were filled with terror. She looked at the door she had opened, then at her hands, completely ignoring Ye Tiancheng standing beside her.
She murmured, "The door opened? I'm out? I escaped from inside?"
Before Ye Tiancheng could understand her meaning, the girl bolted and ran towards the outside of the villa. Ye Tiancheng was stunned for a moment when he saw the direction she was running, and then quickly tried to stop her, "Hey! Young lady, don't run that way, you'll hit your head. You can't get out!"
To guard against various situations, the entire formation and illusion were sealed until Ye Tiancheng and Little Fox voluntarily proposed to leave the illusion and the formation's range.
What was even more unfortunate was that the direction the girl was running was not far from the boundary of the formation and the illusion.
As expected, after running only a few steps, the girl ran into an invisible wall, was directly knocked down, bounced back, and fell to the ground.
The girl sat on the ground in a daze for a while, then burst into tears. Ye Tiancheng was speechless and could only walk towards her helplessly, squatting beside her, "Young lady, did you hurt yourself? Do you want me to help you up?"
"I already told you not to run. I just realized I couldn't get out, and then I happened to find your house, so I came to ring your doorbell."
Ye Tiancheng had already thought of an excuse in his mind before pressing the doorbell. In any case, before retrieving the Fuxi Qin fragment that might be in this girl's house, Ye Tiancheng would not let Nuwa Stone release this girl. Therefore, he naturally made some preparations and assumptions in advance.
He had indeed thought that based on previous discoveries, it was highly possible that some people would be let in next. However, Ye Tiancheng hadn't expected this to happen so quickly.
On the very first transfer, someone was actually pulled in, and it was such a young girl. He didn't know what had happened to scare her so much.
Ye Tiancheng couldn't help but glance at the villa where the girl lived, narrowing his eyes slightly. He wondered what was inside. Since there was a fragment of the Fuxi Qin, retrieving it might not be an easy task. It was possible there were also some troublesome things inside.
The girl listened to Ye Tiancheng's words and took a long time to calm herself down. Then, she asked Ye Tiancheng with a choked voice, "What do you mean? What do you mean you can't get out?"
Ye Tiancheng pondered his words and explained to the girl, "It's like this. About three months ago, I took my younger brother out for a trip, and we entered a mountain. We were adventuring in that mountain, and then we discovered that we couldn't get out. There was an invisible wall around us, similar to the one you just hit."
As he spoke, Ye Tiancheng made a gesture of touching the invisible wall. The girl also recalled being knocked down and reached out to touch it. Indeed, she felt an invisible barrier obstructing her.
Fortunately, this invisible wall was not a glass wall; it was not hard but like a very resilient membrane. Otherwise, the girl would not have been bounced back. However, if this invisible wall were hard, the girl would definitely have gotten a large bump on her head from hitting it.
"And then, just now, I was coming out to see if the invisible wall around me had disappeared. But suddenly, I found that the scenery around me had changed. Then I tried to walk again, but found that the invisible wall was still there. And your house happened to be within the range of this invisible wall, accessible. So I came to ring your doorbell."
Ye Tiancheng had rehearsed this explanation with Little Fox beforehand. If the girl were to accompany Ye Tiancheng back to check the situation later, Nuwa Stone would inform Little Fox, and Little Fox would naturally know how to respond.
However, because of the girl's presence, perhaps this transfer would require him to change his statement to Hou Mingzhu.
Fortunately, this was not a very difficult matter, as the girl would also believe that this illusion was truly inescapable. And the girl was not old, appearing to be a high school student.
At this age, Ye Tiancheng didn't have to worry about Hou Mingzhu misunderstanding him. Hou Mingzhu had some trust in Ye Tiancheng; no matter what, Ye Tiancheng wouldn't harm a minor.
The girl heard Ye Tiancheng's words and couldn't help but sob again, "Where is this place? Why has my house become like this? What should I do?"
Ye Tiancheng looked at her and asked, "Young lady, did something happen to you? What happened to your house? What's going on?"
The girl was quite pretty, with a small, delicate face, skin as fair as snow, and tears in her eyes. She looked pitiful and endearing, like a pear blossom in the rain.
Seeing Ye Tiancheng proactively ask her, and perhaps being too scared, she told him her experience, "It's like this. Two nights ago, I was writing homework alone at home, and then suddenly, the power in my room went out."
"I thought the circuit breaker tripped or something, so I called property management, but the phone wouldn't connect. Then, then I saw a dark shadow..."
As the girl spoke, she started crying again, her eyes filled with fear, as if recalling something terrifying. "My house started to be haunted. I wanted to escape, but I found that I couldn't get out at all. Even if I ran to the main door, it wouldn't open."
"For the past two days, I've experienced all sorts of terrifying things at home. I even felt like I was dying. So when you rang the doorbell, I thought you were a ghost too. Later, I thought I could finally run out, but... *sob sob sob*, why is it like this? I didn't do anything, why are you targeting me?"
After listening to the girl's experience, Ye Tiancheng guessed whether it was because of the Fuxi Qin fragment that the girl encountered these terrifying events.
"Look at me, it's all because of that ghost. I don't even know if there's only one. I really, really..."
The girl even broke down and lifted her sleeves, pulling open her collar, letting Ye Tiancheng see the marks on her body. Ye Tiancheng saw that her neck, arms, and even legs were covered in bruises and marks, some of which looked like handprints, as if she had been grabbed forcefully by a hand.
And from the girl's words, it seemed she lived alone in her villa. However, even so, Ye Tiancheng still wanted to confirm later, to see if there were any other people trapped within the entire formation and illusion's range, to avoid any oversights.
Ye Tiancheng comforted the girl's emotions and said to her, "It's okay, you're out now, and there's no danger. I can help you."
"By the way, didn't you just say you couldn't get through to property management? How about this, why don't you try calling your property management number again, and see if the property manager can find your villa?"
Ye Tiancheng suggested. The girl listened to Ye Tiancheng, then fumbled on herself blankly for a while, and then said with a mournful face, "My phone is... at home."
Ye Tiancheng didn't understand the girl's meaning at that moment, so he hesitantly suggested, "Then go in and get it?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Ye Tiancheng looked at the girl's expression and realized. Indeed, he heard the girl say, "I don't want to, I'm scared to go in. I finally escaped, and it's haunted in there!"
Ye Tiancheng was speechless for a while, but he couldn't just stand there. He also couldn't delay too long here. It was still morning, and later, he had to go back to make lunch for Little Fox.
"Then, why don't you tell me where your phone is, and I'll go in and get it for you? Young lady, I can't delay here for too long. My younger brother is waiting for me to go back, and I have to go back to make lunch for him later."
Although saying this meant he wouldn't have to go in, the girl thought about it and still felt very scared, "Uncle, don't leave me, I'm scared!"
Ye Tiancheng was finally a bit speechless, but he couldn't make things difficult for a little girl.