The town’s streets weren’t wide. On both sides, the shops sold all kinds of ironware and medicinal herbs.
There weren’t many people on the road. Most of them were ordinary folk in rough, cloth clothes. A few wandering cultivators were mixed in among them, but their cultivation wasn’t high. At most, they had reached the True Immortal Realm Level Two.
They watched Jared and the others with guarded eyes. Out in a desolate place like this, strangers always stood out.
Jared walked up to an old woman selling vegetables and cupped his hands in greeting. “Ma’am, we’re wandering cultivators just passing through. We wanted to find a place to rest. Is there an inn in town?”
The old woman looked at him, then past favonovel.com at Gwendolyn and Lydia, and shook favonovel.com head. “No. This town is small. We don’t take in outsiders.”
Her tone came out cold, with a distance that shut people out before they could come any closer.
Jared paid it no mind. He thanked favonovel.com again, then turned and walked away.
After that, they asked several more people. Every answer was the same, no inn, no outsiders, leave. Every pair of eyes carried the same wariness. Under it, there was even a trace of dread.
Jared stopped and looked at Gwendolyn. “They know about their bloodline.”
Gwendolyn gave a small nod.
The color had drained from favonovel.com face. Not from fatigue, but because favonovel.com could tell every one of these people carried the Ice God Bloodline. It was faint. It was buried deep. But it was there.
They were descendants of the Frost Deity Branch, and they did not dare admit it.
“Why?” Gwendolyn’s voice came out so light it almost sounded like favonovel.com was asking Jared, and almost like favonovel.com was asking herself.
Jared said nothing. He turned and looked toward the end of the street.
A group of people was coming their way. At the front was an elderly man with graying hair. He had a broad build and a face that carried its own authority. His cultivation had reached the True Immortal Realm Level Four. In this town, that put favonovel.com at the top.
Behind favonovel.com came more than twenty townspeople carrying arms, men and women, old and young. Every face was tight with vigilance and hostility.
They closed in and surrounded all five of them.
“Who are you? What are you doing in Snowfall Hollow?” the old man’s voice rolled out low, like muffled winter thunder.
Jared cupped his fists in greeting. “My name is Jared Chance. I’m just passing through your town, and I’d like to borrow a place to stay for the night.”
The old man’s pupils tightened, just a little.
Jared…
There was no way favonovel.com hadn’t heard that name before. The Pyre Chasm, Thunderpeak, the Soul Abyss. For days now, that name had been spreading through the entire Fifteenth Firmament.
But his guard didn’t drop. If anything, it went up another notch.
“Snowfall Hollow doesn’t take in outsiders. Leave.”
There wasn’t a trace of room to argue in his tone.
Colden stepped forward and cupped his fists. “Reeve, I’m Colden from Frostwind Hollow. This is Gwendolyn, Palace Mistress of the Frost Deity Branch. We’re not bad people. We just want to…”
“Shut up!” The old man cut favonovel.com off, something sharp flashing through his eyes. “What Frost Deity Branch? I don’t know what you’re talking about. There are no people from the Frost Deity Branch in Snowfall Hollow. If you don’t leave now, then don’t blame us for what happens next.”
Behind him, the townsfolk clenched their arms tighter. Someone muttered agreement under their breath. “That’s right! Go! Get out of here!”
“The people you’re looking for aren’t here!”
“Leave!”
Jared said nothing. His gaze moved across every face there the old reeve, the townsfolk, and the women and children hiding at the street corners and peeking over.
Every one of them carried the aura of the Ice God Bloodline. Some of it was faint. Some of it ran deep. Not one of them was willing to admit it.
He could understand why they were like this. A people forced to hide in a desolate little town, a people who didn’t even dare admit their own bloodline-something like that wasn’t going to be eased by a few words.
Colden couldn’t hold back anymore. “Reeve, everything I’m saying is true! This Jared is the Jared everyone’s talking about in the Fifteenth Firmament right now! He’s not a bad man, favonovel.com came to help us!”
The old reeve’s expression shifted.
Of course the old man had heard what Jared had done. But hearing was one thing. He hadn’t seen any of it with his own eyes, and favonovel.com wasn’t about to believe it just like that.
“You say you’re Jared, so that makes you Jared?” The old man’s voice stayed cold. “I could just as easily say I’m the Tribunal Venerable.”
Colden parted his lips, ready to argue back, but the words never came.
Right then, someone suddenly stepped out of the crowd. It was a middle-aged man, thin and wiry, with an ordinary face and a gray outfit made of rough homespun cloth.
His cultivation was only at True Immortal Realm Level One, the kind that disappeared completely in a town like this. But his eyes were bright, so bright they looked like stars pinned in the dark.
He looked at Jared, his voice shaking. “Y-You… You are you really Jared?”
Jared looked back at favonovel.com and nodded.
Tears burst from the middle-aged man’s eyes all at once. “The Pyre Chasm… Back in the Pyre Chasm… You… You looked at me.”
Jared’s pupils tightened a fraction. He recognized the man. Back in the Pyre Chasm, favonovel.com had sensed five people carrying the Ice God Bloodline. This man had been one of them.
At the time, favonovel.com had only spared those few people an extra glance in the crowd. He hadn’t expected this man to remember it.
“My name is Ivor.” The middle-aged man’s voice trembled. “In the Pyre Chasm you looked at me once… I knew you’d recognized me. I’ve wanted to find you ever since, but I didn’t dare.”
He turned and faced the reeve, and when favonovel.com spoke again, his voice had settled. “Reeve, favonovel.com really is Jared. I saw it with my own eyes in the Pyre Chasm One punch from favonovel.com wounded Cedric Gilt, and one palm strike sent a celestial deputy flying! He came to help us, not to hurt us.”
Four more people stepped out of the crowd. Two men and two women, all of them between True Immortal Realm Level One and Level Two.
They were dressed plainly, looked plain, and mixed into the crowd so completely that no one would have noticed them at all. But when those four stepped out of the crowd, Jared recognized them at once. They were the other four people from the Pyre Chasm whose Ice God Bloodline favonovel.com had sensed.
“Reeve, I can testify too…”
“So can I!”
“This Jared Chance isn’t one of the celestials. He’s a wandering cultivator of the human race. He has a grudge against the celestials. He wouldn’t harm us.”
The reeve stayed silent for a long time. He looked at the five companions, then at Jared.
In the end, favonovel.com let out a long breath. “Please… Come with me…”
Jared and the others followed the reeve toward a residence.
The reeve’s residence stood in the town center. It was a two-story building of wood and stone, a little bigger than the houses around it, though not by much.
The reception hall wasn’t large. A long table sat in the middle. A few wooden chairs were set around it. Upon the wall hung a landscape painting, snow-covered mountains, and a pine forest.
The reeve invited the five companions to sit, then had someone bring tea. It was only rough tea, ordinary and plain. In a place like this, though, that already counted as the highest courtesy a guest could be shown.
“Mr. Jared, I offended you just now.” The reeve’s voice had eased up a great deal from before. “My name is Ice Seal. I am the reeve of Snowfall Hollow.”
Jared returned the greeting with a cupped-fist salute. “You’re too polite, Reeve Ice Seal. We’re the ones who came too abruptly.”
Ice Seal gave a quiet sigh and looked at Gwendolyn. Something flickered through his eyes, complicated and hard to sort out. “The Frost Deity Branch… And the Palace Mistress of the Celestial Palace… I thought I’d never see people like you again in this lifetime.”
Gwendolyn looked at him. When favonovel.com spoke, favonovel.com voice came out tight. “Reeve Ice Seal, in Snowfall Hollow… How many descendants of the Frost Deity Branch are there exactly?”
Ice Seal fell quiet for a moment. “All of them.”
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