The next two days passed…
Almost normally.
Classes.
Training.
Routine.
Nothing out of place.
Li Xian and Zhao Han crossed paths only a few times.
A glance during training.
A brief moment in the corridor.
No real conversation.
No teasing.
Just… distance.
Yet somehow—
It didn't feel the same as before.
The silence between them wasn't empty anymore.
It was… aware.
Li Xian didn't push it.
Because his mind was elsewhere.
Far deeper.
That night, he sat alone, staring at nothing.
Father…
The thought returned again.
Heavy.
Persistent.
He had already confirmed it.
His father was hiding something.
Something big enough to stay perfectly calm… even now.
"…Then where do I start?" Li Xian murmured to himself.
He had no one to ask.
No one he could trust with this.
His mother—
He never even had the chance.
She had died when he was still a baby.
Li Xian exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair.
There has to be something…
Something connected.
Something from the past.
And then—
A memory surfaced.
Clearer than before.
The forest.
The forbidden side.
That wooden house.
Li Xian's eyes sharpened instantly.
"…That place."
The one he had seen when he was five.
The place where everything began.
Where he first saw the symbol.
Where those masked figures gathered in silence.
If the symbol had returned—
Then that place…
"…It might still be there."
His heartbeat quickened slightly.
Not from fear.
But from certainty.
That place held answers.
Answers his father never wanted him to know.
Li Xian stood up slowly.
Decision made.
"I'll go back," he said quietly.
Outside, the night was calm.
But deep within the forest—
Something that should have remained buried…
Was waiting.