After pondering for a moment, Feng Yang followed the scene he had seen in the illusion and walked to an old locust tree in the village.
If he remembered correctly, this was where the village chief had kept the parchment scroll.
Based on what happened in the illusion, it wasn't hard to guess that the parchment scroll was the cause of the entire village's massacre.
In other words, if he found the parchment scroll, he might be able to figure out why the man had wiped out the entire Linjiang Village.
Feng Yang picked up a hoe and began digging. Before long, He unearthed a tattered parchment scroll covered in dust and dirt.
It seemed that what happened in the illusion was real.
Feng Yang picked up the parchment scroll and examined it carefully.
There was a map drawn on the parchment scroll.
The parchment scroll itself wasn't very large, but the map drawn on it was very detailed.
Feng Yang could even find the exact locations of Linjiang Village and Immortal Sect City on the map.
However…
The villages and the Immortal Sect City on this map were shrunken into the upper right corner, occupying only a quarter of the map's size.
The rest of the map depicted vast stretches of sea. This was likely a map specifically for navigation.
Feng Yang looked at the parchment scroll, feeling somewhat puzzled.
"If it was just for a map, the man shouldn't have gone so far as to slaughter the entire village."
"Even if the map was important to him, with his strength, he could easily have taken it by force; why would he have to harm innocent people?"
Thinking this, Feng Yang quickly came to a guess.
Generally, the massacre of an entire family was either to eliminate any potential threats or to silence witnesses.
In the illusion, the man merely flicked his finger and killed two children in the village.
Clearly, he wasn't afraid of retaliation from the villagers.
Therefore, the man's reason for wiping out the entire family was only one, to silence them.
This parchment scroll likely held a very important secret.
Feng Yang carefully studied the parchment scroll in his hand.
His eyes quickly settled on a spot on the parchment scroll.
There, Feng Yang saw an island, a small, isolated island.
It's normal to see islands drawn in the sea. But this island was different; it was circled with a brush.
Moreover…
Feng Yang noticed that the island's shape was exactly the same as the Leek Island he had left by carriage.
No, this was the very island Feng Yang had stayed on!
Realizing this, Feng Yang understood why the entire Linjiang Village had been massacred by that man.
Clearly, the parchment scroll the woman in white had obtained contained the exact location of Leek Island in the sea.
After she brought this information back to her village, the man in the robe with the character for "Immortal" followed closely behind.
However, he apparently hadn't found the scroll.
To preserve this secret forever, the man slaughtered the entire village of Linjiang to silence them.
In this way, as long as the man still had a backup map, whether the parchment scroll could be found or not was not very important.
Feng Yang guessed that Leek Island, which treated people like livestock, definitely hid some kind of unspeakable secret.
…
Three days later.
The rain stopped and the sky cleared. Three carriages were lined up and traveling on the muddy official road.
Because the road surface was so bad after the rain, the wheels of these carriages would occasionally kick up mud and water as they moved forward.
After being splashed with mud and water, Chen Xingwu grabbed a handful of grass from the roadside and wiped it on his legs with a disgusted expression.
As a bodyguard, what he hated most was encountering rainy days when he was on a delivery mission.
Not only did the caravan move slowly, but the bodyguards following behind the carriages would inevitably get splashed with mud and water.
Chen Xingwu patted the carriage in front of him and asked the man driving it, "Head bodyguard, how much longer until we reach the city?"
Hearing Chen Xingwu's question, the head bodyguard in the carriage did not turn around.
He gazed ahead, replying to Chen Xingwu,
"At our current speed, we should reach Immortal Sect City in four days at most, but with the rain, it'll take at least six or seven days."
As they chatted, a scream suddenly came from behind the convoy.
The scream wasn't very loud; clearly, the person making it was consciously suppressing it.
Even so, Chen Xingwu and the others could still tell that the owner of the voice seemed to be enduring some kind of immense pain.
Hearing the screams coming from behind, Chen Xingwu felt a chill run down his spine.
He sighed and said to the head bodyguard beside him, "Sigh, I guess the guy in the back has another headache."
"Don't worry about him. He paid anyway."
Inside the carriage.
About ten minutes later, the throbbing headache in Feng Yang's mind began to gradually dissipate.
He leaned against the carriage, feeling somewhat helpless.
Since Feng Yang absorbed the resentment of Linjiang Village, he wouldn't be teleported back to the vicinity of Linjiang Village when he rested.
Not only that, but under the enhancement of that resentment, Feng Yang's overall strength had increased by about three times.
When Feng Yang left Leek Village, his combat power was already three times that of an ordinary person.
Now, with the two combined, his combat power had increased to about ten times that of an ordinary person.
But he also encountered a new problem, a headache.
The resentment granted Feng Yang immense fighting power.
However, it also constantly urged him on, compelling him to find the man in the "Immortal" robe and kill him.
The most direct manifestation of this urging was a headache.
For the past three days, Feng Yang had experienced a headache almost daily, and the duration of these headaches had increased each day.
This headache was like a death knell.
If Feng Yang didn't find the man quickly and kill him to appease the resentment, he would eventually be tormented to death by the headache.
Judging from the "Immortal" robe the man wore, he likely had some connection to the Immortal Sect.
Moreover, Immortal Sect City had a large population, a diverse mix of people from all walks of life, making it easier to gather intelligence.
Therefore, after paying a small amount of money, Feng Yang boarded the caravan heading to Immortal Sect City.
…
Suddenly, Feng Yang felt the carriage stop abruptly, and at the same time, he heard the neighing of horses ahead.
He leaned out and asked the bodyguard beside him, "What's going on up ahead?"
"Shh," The bodyguard gestured for silence, pointing directly ahead of the caravan and whispering, "It's a Bronze Demon."
"A Bronze Demon? What was that?"
Feng Yang looked in the direction the bodyguard was pointing.
Ahead of the caravan, a bizarrely shaped creature was frantically devouring a horse.
The monster looked like a human whose skin had been peeled off.
However, it was more than twice the size of a human. Its flesh was a strange dark red, looking utterly disgusting.
The Bronze Demon ate very quickly.
In just a few minutes, the horse was completely devoured, leaving not even bones.
After finishing the horse, the monster turned around and stared intently at Feng Yang and the others.