After walking for a while longer, the group was surprised to find that they seemed to have left the bustling market and instead found themselves deep in the mountains and forests.

"Roar—roar—"

Suddenly, the roar of a wild beast came from the distant woods, and one of the girls in the group was so frightened that she burst into tears.

"No, I want to go home—waaaaaah—"

Mu Xiao raised her hand and waved to the guard behind her. The guard immediately took out a blue wooden whistle and blew it.

Amazingly, as soon as the whistle was uttered, all the noise in the woods completely disappeared, as if the scene had never happened.

Wen Jiajia instinctively felt a chill run down her spine. These people were too strange! For the first time, she had the urge to give up halfway.

At the same time, Yan Che and Yue Qi exchanged a silent glance and lowered their heads simultaneously.

The group continued onward, and although they were traversing through dense forest, they didn't see a single mosquito, snake, or rat; the forest was so clean it was as if they didn't exist at all.

Fortunately, the path through the dense forest was less than a kilometer long, and the group, led by Mu Xiao, soon found themselves back on the cobblestone path.

Wen Jiajia noticed that Mu Xiao was leading them towards what appeared to be a massive mountain wall. Two spear-wielding guards stood before the wall, their attire identical to that of the people behind them.

Mu Xiao pulled a wooden plaque from his pocket, waved it in front of the two of them, and said in a deep voice,

"The second batch is complete and they have applied to enter the community."

After carefully examining the wooden plaque, one of the guards turned around and casually pressed a button on the wall behind him.

The next moment, a large gate, just wide enough for one person to pass through, suddenly appeared on the opposite mountain wall.

Mu Xiao breathed a sigh of relief, turned around and smiled at them, "Everyone, follow me. It's easy to get lost ahead, so be careful not to fall behind."

Once inside the mountain wall, Wen Jiajia's mouth dropped open in astonishment.

"My God, has this cave been hollowed out?"

Before her eyes were countless man-made passages, at least a dozen in total, all leading to different places.

These passages are not straight, but winding and overlapping, making them look like a huge maze.

Wen Jiajia felt a little dizzy. Now she finally understood why Mu Xiao had insisted they stay close to her. In this place, if you accidentally got lost, you'd never get out!

"Everyone, stay close to me. This place is full of traps, so make sure you follow my footsteps." Mu Xiao reminded everyone at the right moment, and in doing so, brought everyone back to their senses.

The crowd tensed instantly, mainly because the scene was so shocking. Who could have imagined that the Zhang family could build such a terrifying underground transportation network deep in the mountains! And the scale of the project was simply unimaginable.

Mu Xiao led them through the cave, winding and turning until they finally saw a glimpse of natural light before they were completely disoriented.

"Alright, we're here." Mu Xiao wiped the sweat from his brow; it seemed the walk hadn't been easy for him either. He looked up at the sunlight streaming in from above, and his tone finally became sincere.

"Everyone, welcome to the Zhang family's old residence. This is your courtyard."

Mu Xiao took out a stack of smaller wooden plaques and handed them out to everyone one by one.

"Your room numbers are on the wooden plaques; just find your place. You are free to move around in this courtyard—I need to go pick up the next group of relatives and friends, so I won't keep you company any longer."

After apologizing, Mu Xiao left, leaving the group of eighteen people looking at each other in bewilderment.

Whether intentionally or not, the guards with spears were not taken away either.

Yan Che held a small wooden sign in his hand and tossed it up and down a few times, looking quite interested.

"In that case, let's go and rest first." The journey had indeed been quite tiring, and everyone was feeling a bit exhausted. So, the three of them tacitly dispersed on the spot and went to rest.

As for the others, they came from all sorts of different professions. They couldn't be bothered to care about that.

After watching Yan Che go into the room to rest without hesitation, Yue Qi remained standing in the same spot, carefully surveying the layout of the entire courtyard.

The layout here is not the typical courtyard house, nor is it symmetrical. Instead, all the buildings are arranged in a huge circle, and everyone lives on the same floor, only with different room numbers.

He had never seen a circular building before. Besides that, there was only a small courtyard in the center, with water that was clearly visible and exceptionally clear.

Yue Qi placed his hand on the wall and discovered that these walls, which looked like they were made of stone, were actually made of wood? The wood was dark in color, which inexplicably gave the entire round building a somewhat gloomy feeling.

Looking up at the sky, he felt his own insignificance for the first time.

Before I could even process what was happening, a sharp whistle came from next door.

The whistles grew sharper and sharper, and he could tell they came from next door. Unfortunately, the wooden buildings here were so tall that it took Yue Qi a long time to find a foothold and leap onto the roof.

He chose a very clever angle, and no one noticed that someone had suddenly disappeared. Unfortunately, the rooftop was too open, with nowhere to hide, so he could only carefully lie prone on it.

The commotion indeed came from the wooden building next door, which also had an identical courtyard, and there were a dozen or so people in the courtyard as well.

The fight happened to take place in the courtyard, and she watched from a distance; it appeared to be a girl.

What Yue Qi saw was a group of guards wielding spears, collectively attacking a girl. The girl had her back to him, and although she looked quite petite, she was holding two large hammers and wielding them with such force that they seemed to have the upper hand.

The seven or eight spear-wielding guards who were fighting her couldn't even defeat a girl, forcing their leader to whistle frequently.

"You executioners, I'm not playing along!" The girl fought and retreated, running towards the only exit.

Just as she was about to escape to the door, a plume of red smoke suddenly began to spew out from the pillars of the wooden building.

"Despicable—" The girl was caught off guard and fell to the ground uncontrollably.

The next moment, the spear-wielding guards quickly bound her up and carried her away through the door.

Throughout the entire process, not a single one of the dozen or so people in the same wooden building was willing to come out and help—including her two companions.

Everyone seemed to be deliberately ignoring her, a scene that made Yue Qi's hair stand on end.