Chapter 156: Survivor.

From Xiao Fen’s rough observation from the outside earlier, this was a standard large residence with three rows of buildings facing south.

Behind the main gate was a spirit screen. Between the back of the spirit screen and the main house was a large courtyard. The distance from the spirit screen to the main house was at least about 15 meters.

On both sides of the spirit screen, along the walls, was a row of long rooms. These rooms, plus the wing rooms on the left and right sides, as well as the main house and side rooms in the front, now cast short shadows on the blood pool under the sunlight. It looked incredibly desolate and dilapidated.

Originally, these wing rooms were places where guests or dependents lived. But now, most of the doors of these rooms were wide open. A few corpses were floating in the blood pool on the thresholds, bobbing up and down. On the walls inside the rooms, the reflection of the blood pool was projected. There was no sound, it was extremely quiet.

There was a wooden door between the main house with the “Third Under Heaven” plaque hanging and the right side room. This was usually a place for servants to walk.

Bypassing from this wooden door, there was another courtyard behind. Surrounding this courtyard, which was about the same size as the front, was a circle of wing rooms of different sizes. According to the rules, males usually lived here. Guards and servants mainly lived here. On the right side of the courtyard were the firewood room and the kitchen.

These rooms were connected by corridors. The so-called “Copy Hand Veranda” referred to corridors like this, where even if it rained, one didn’t need an umbrella. One could walk to any place along the corridor with hands tucked in.

Then, behind this second courtyard, there was another wooden door. That led to the place where female relatives lived. The elderly in the family usually lived in the back as well.

Although it was a large residence, the layout of the entire yard was very simple. It could be seen that the owner of this house was not someone who liked Jiangnan garden layouts. On the other hand, this yard had not been divided into small courtyards. This often represented that the host family had not yet divided the family, so there wouldn’t be a pattern of small yards within the yard.

In fact, these situations themselves were very strange.

The land price in the Capital City was expensive. To have such a grand residence with big gates, not to mention being as wealthy as a country, the owner was at least a person with immense wealth. And a Main Quest being activated here meant that this residence had a plug buried ten years ago. In other words, this residence had at least ten years of history.

A person with immense wealth, unknown for ten years, and not even suspected or alerted by the Eastern Depot, this situation itself didn’t make sense. Unless there was a possibility: this residence was related to a high-ranking official. These officials mostly operated through such residences outside, earning some money to fill the losses of their own homes and the like.

Because of this, they kept such a low profile during these ten years, and the Eastern Depot and Imperial Guard didn’t come to cause trouble.

When entering the second courtyard from the side door next to the side room, Xiao Fen already understood why the Eastern Depot knew how many people had died inside in such a short time without even entering. That was because such residences mostly had records in the Eastern Depot. Details like the number of people were all recorded.

However, this kind of thing couldn’t explain the “Third Under Heaven” plaque. No matter who in the palace, absolutely no one would have the guts to hang that in this residence.

Therefore, if one just listened to the Eastern Depot regarding this matter, one wouldn’t feel any abnormality at all. Only by personally visiting this residence would one discover that there were too many suspicious points that couldn’t be explained.

“We need to find survivors. If these people exist, we can at least have some clues about what happened in the early morning. Where those Hell Creatures appeared from, how they spread, what the final situation was. Even if we can’t complete this Main Quest, it can at least give us some inspiration.”

Lycaon stood at the wooden door of the second courtyard, looking at the black smoke densely distributed in the entire Copy Hand Veranda, and spoke like this.

Below the veranda was the scarlet blood pool. In the veranda, those black smoke wisps seemed to have life, slowly spreading and circling. The color contrast was extremely sharp, as if telling something to everyone who came here.

The two looked at each other and nodded. Without saying much, Lycaon jumped high and punched the top of the veranda. Then his left arm reached out like lightning, grabbed the broken hole, and suddenly exerted force to pull himself out of that big hole. While the entire top of the veranda made a loud noise and sank slightly toward the ground, Lycaon’s huge body had already landed on the top of the veranda.

“Any new discoveries?”

Xiao Fen stood on the ground and asked. He didn’t follow Lycaon up.

That burly Trialist’s body was too heavy, plus the armor that looked incredibly thick. Just standing on the top of the veranda made the entire roof make terrible noises. If Xiao Fen was added to it, it would likely collapse completely before long.

“The courtyard behind is still blood. Compared to the front, there’s no difference. And it’s fogging up. I can’t see too far.”

Lycaon didn’t stay on the roof for long before jumping down suddenly. Even though he stirred up a large amount of black smoke, he didn’t care at all. It seemed that looking at the blood from above the veranda had caused quite an impact on his eyes.

His eyes were already tightly closed. The metal shells outside his eyelids made slight noises. Tears rolled down from both sides of Lycaon’s cheeks. After quite a long time, the tall Trialist said: “Damn it, this situation is worse than I imagined. These bloodstains seem to have a reflective film. Be careful, that kind of reflection causes great damage to you.”

Xiao Fen was stunned for a moment, then asked, “Like snow blindness?”

“That’s right, snow blindness. The difference in light between below and above is huge too. It’s best not to go up unless necessary.”

Lycaon shook his head vigorously to pull his eyes out of the severe dizziness, then continued, “We must split up. This courtyard is too big. If the two of us search room by room, we won’t have any results even by tonight.”

Xiao Fen nodded and said, “Okay, which side will you search?”

“I’ll go to the courtyard in the back. You’re responsible for the front courtyard. If I’m not mistaken, the back courtyard might be the source of all the blood in this yard. I’ll go there and take a look.”

Xiao Fen did not refuse. He looked up and glanced at this courtyard, which had at least dozens of houses, let out a long breath, and said, “I hope there really are survivors.”

Lycaon nodded. Clad in his heavy armor, he quickly crossed the blood pool and strode directly toward the small door leading to the third courtyard in the back. After a few minutes, he vanished from sight.

With Lycaon’s disappearance, the entire courtyard returned to its previous state of dead silence. The blood water continued to ripple quietly on the ground, and the black mist also swirled silently at Xiao Fen’s feet.