Bamboo Mound

Finding nothing, he promptly left the room.

Then we went to the second room next to it, opened the wooden door, and tiptoed inside.

The room was the same as the first one, with the same layout. I opened the large wardrobe, but there were no clothes inside.

However, after opening the bedside table, Ning Chang found a small booklet with the outer skin of some plant root as pages.

The booklet contains seven pages, each cut to the same size.

But when he opened the booklet, he immediately lost interest.

The gray page was neatly arranged with dark green text, with a few dots here and there, like punctuation marks.

However, of these seven pages, only the front and back were blank; the other twelve pages contained text that was similar to the text on the archway, which he couldn't understand at all!

"This...keep it, go out and ask Master."

He put away the booklet and left the room.

However, no other special discoveries were made in the third, fourth, and fifth rooms, so Ning Chang returned to the square and planned to explore the two large buildings on the other side.

While it's described as large, it's only relative to the dormitories. These two side-by-side stone halls combined are still less than half the size of the Qingyun Sect's resource hall!

Because the entire structure is made of stone, these two halls are not covered by plants; only a ring of weeds grows around them.

Ning Chang first entered the hall on the left.

Upon entering, one sees several stone platforms, arranged in a ring around the central second-tier stone platform, and further outwards, a ring of stone steps encircles the inner edge of the hall.

Apart from that, there was nothing else in the entire hall; not even murals were visible.

After circling around a few times and confirming that there was nothing there, Ning Chang arrived at the second hall.

However, this hall is even more spacious!

Apart from a stone wall full of holes on the right side of the entrance, there wasn't a single stone!

"No way? How many times have the bandits crossed this passage?"

He stood in front of the wall, frowning as he complained.

There are no murals here either. The only remaining stone wall has countless holes worn smooth, with only faint traces of plant roots remaining in the corners.

Shaking his head, he left the hall, stood on the top of the hall and looked around, then focused his gaze on the few independent courtyards on the mountain.

"Now that's the only place left to look, hopefully we can find something, even if it's useless."

But after a pause, he realized what was happening.

"No, let's not talk about anything. I can't understand the broken characters here either."

He took a few steps and arrived at the lowest courtyard on the hillside.

The courtyard walls here are made of thick wooden planks, tightly bound together to prevent drafts.

The house is also made of wood, and the roof is a combination of withered grass and leaves, making it hard not to doubt the house's waterproofness.

However, unlike the disciples' dormitories, the courtyard was not overrun by plants.

There are many trees on the hill, but most of them grow by relying on these small courtyards. There are basically no more than two trees in places further away from the courtyards.

There were plenty of weeds, basically covering the entire hill, but there wasn't a single one around the small courtyard!

Or rather, around the courtyard, there are only grass stems that have spread in from outside, but once they enter a certain area outside the courtyard, they appear to be dried out in a discontinuous manner!

The scene inside the courtyard was similar to his courtyard when it first opened; there was nothing there, except that there was some withered grass.

The door was half-open, and it was impossible to tell what was behind it through the crack.

Pushing open the wooden door, the interior was just as simple as I had imagined, even somewhat unusual.

It's true that the furniture inside is made of wood, but it's actually made of various dried branches and roots intertwined together!

In the center is a round table surrounded by three chairs. To the left is a large bed, but there are no bedding or anything like that. Only the bed frame tells you that it is a bed and not something else. To the right are two large cabinets with a rectangular table sandwiched in between.

At first glance, apart from a small booklet on a rectangular table, there was nothing particularly special about the room.

He picked up the booklet and felt it was somewhat familiar. The booklet was also made from the bark of the rootstock and also had seven pages.

He immediately took out the booklet he had just found in the second dormitory room and began to compare it with the one in his hand.

Although he couldn't read the text, comparing the shapes of the characters was still easy.

Within minutes, Ning Chang confirmed that the two booklets contained the same information; apart from slight variations in the font, they were completely identical!

So he left the newly found book where it was, but then he thought better of it and put both of them away.

"One book might be lost during the later interpretation process, but two books will be safe."

He then opened two cabinets, found them empty, and turned to leave the courtyard.

Afterwards, Ning Chang explored all the other courtyards. The decorations inside were all similar, with furniture made of vines, branches, and roots.

But there was nothing else, not even a brochure.

"The things are all packed up so cleanly, did the people here migrate? What was the reason? Or was there some other change?"

Ning Chang stood in front of the last courtyard, stroking his chin in thought.

"Or has it already been explored by the disciples of the previous three sects?"

"That's not quite right either. If that were the case, then some techniques would have been passed down. Even if there was a language barrier, someone would still be able to figure it out from the effects."

However, when he was looking for cultivation techniques at the Qingyun Sect, he did not find any similar techniques related to plants.

Looking down at the cramped dormitory huts below the mountain, he figured there might be a few more of the same booklets, or other things, in the rooms he hadn't explored.

However, there wouldn't be any treasures in the rooms of ordinary disciples within a sect, let alone in the case of everyone disappearing.

After finishing his thoughts, he decided to stand on the mountaintop and look around to see if there were any other interesting places to go.

But when he reached the top of the mountain, he found a stone platform lying in the center of the mountain, occupying half of the mountain's space.

The platform is irregular, but it has a pattern engraved on it.

The overall shape of the pattern is oval, with pointed ends, and some parts on the sides are not carved as if they are connected.

Inside, several irregular circles are engraved, with winding lines extending outward to form the entire pattern.

"Is this a formation?"

Ning Chang looked at the structure of the circles and lines, pondering the possibility that the pattern in front of him was an array.

In his opinion, compared to the Five Elements Dragon Trapping Formation, if the pattern in front of him were a formation, it would be too chaotic and without any discernible pattern!

Not only were the points where spiritual energy was input unevenly placed, but the array patterns were also broken and disconnected in several places.

But having finally discovered something, he still wanted to give it a try. If it could really form a formation, it would also resolve some of his other questions.