194: Chapter 194 Let's Go Take a Look

Hearing Lin Qing's voice, the two of them quickly walked forward.

“How come you're here?”

His mother gently patted Lin Qing's shoulder. Her voice held joy but also a trace of complaint, as if blaming him for running around for no reason and wasting money, or perhaps blaming him for not calling before coming over.

His father, on the other hand, frowned slightly.

“Did something happen?”

“Nothing happened. The project finished up these past few days, so I have a few days off and came to see you.”

The elderly couple still didn't know that the college student they had worked so hard to support was delivering food in the city; they had always assumed Lin Qing worked in a high-end office.

Country folk express their emotions subtly, especially among family members. They wouldn't say, 'I miss you.'

They would only make a sudden visit and then say casually, 'I just came to take a look.'

This was a two-story self-built house. Lin Qing's parents weren't the only residents here; they only rented a single room on the second floor.

The entrance to the second floor wasn't at the front of the house. Lin Qing followed his parents through a small side door into the building. The entrance was a space of about ten square meters, where several old electric scooters were parked.

Lin Qing's parents also had their own electric scooter, but lately, their construction site was quite far, so they commuted by a shuttle van. Right now, their electric scooter was parked here.

Squeezing sideways through the gaps between the electric scooters, Lin Qing followed his parents up the stairs and into the second-floor corridor.

At the end of the corridor was a restroom; the toilet didn't even have a lid or a seat. His parents' room was the first door on the left after going up the stairs.

The room was only about thirty square meters. The bed, table, wardrobe, and refrigerator were all squeezed into this tiny space. At the outermost side was a partitioned enclosed balcony, with a gas stove sitting on a platform made of wooden boards.

“Have you eaten yet? Shall we go out to eat?”

His mother set down the safety helmet in her hand and turned to ask Lin Qing.

“Never mind, let's just cook at home.”

Lin Qing shook his head. Compared to restaurants outside, he would rather eat his mother's cooking.

Afterward, his mother took a change of clothes to the restroom in the corridor to shower, while his father went out again to the convenience store at the intersection to buy alcohol, returning with a portion of pig ears.

Forty minutes later, the three of them sat around a small folding square table. On the table were three bowls of rice, two bottles of beer, a portion of pig ears, a plate of shredded pork with green peppers, and another of Mapo tofu, Lin Qing's favorite.

His parents were very happy. They asked about Lin Qing's work and urged him to start dating. Lin Qing's face beamed with a smile as he chatted easily with the two elders.

After dinner, Lin Qing went for a walk with his parents. Although this wasn't their hometown, they had lived in this room for decades, and the neighbors were already very familiar with them.

The female owner of the convenience store at the intersection greeted his mother.

“Have you eaten? Who is this?”

“This is our son. He had absolutely nothing to do, so he ran all the way here to see us.”

His mother had a brilliant smile on her face; she wasn't truly complaining about Lin Qing at all.

Lin Qing walked slowly with his parents, looking at this old suburban village where they lived, watching them introduce their son to others, and seeing the wrinkles on their faces spread out with their smiles.

When Lin Qing came to visit them as a child, he would sleep in that thirty-square-meter room on a bed made of wooden boards. Now, however, that was no longer possible.

And so, the time for parting quickly arrived. With reddened eyes, Lin Qing stared at their increasingly aging faces.

“Dad, Mom, I will be back!”

Crack—!

Lin Qing took a deep breath. The surrounding environment and his parents' faces cracked like glass, then shattered instantly.

Behind the shattered shards of glass was that dark Forbidden Ground passage.

Lin Qing had known from the very beginning that this was an illusion; otherwise, he wouldn't have gone straight to find his parents on the second day.

Lin Qing could have broken free long ago, but he didn't. He wanted to go see them.

There are many types of illusions. The most common type is fabricating the surrounding environment, causing people to walk into the most dangerous spots of an area completely off-guard.

The illusion Lin Qing encountered was of another type, which was also relatively common. The focus of this kind of illusion was not on interfering with the external environment; its primary target of attack was the Cultivator's mind.

This type of illusion had an important characteristic: the Cultivators pulled into it would forget certain things, such as events that occurred shortly before falling into the illusion, or other things that could help them see through it.

This kind of illusion often reflected the deepest parts of a Cultivator's heart. With their memories affected, Cultivators would often involuntarily sink into the fake illusion.

They would either be unable to wake up for a long time, remaining trapped in the illusion forever, or wake up too late, only to be beset by dangers from the outside world.

The reason Lin Qing was able to detect that it was an illusion immediately was due to his talent, Sitting in Oblivion.

Possessing Sitting in Oblivion, Lin Qing's mind was clear and transcendent; the mental attacks brought by the illusion simply could not latch onto him.

That was a great power Lin Qing had acquired with the help of the System. Even though this illusion's grade was extremely high, it ultimately could not affect Lin Qing too much.

After calming his emotions, Lin Qing scanned his surroundings. Everyone had their eyes closed, their bodies frozen in place.

It seemed this illusion was an indiscriminate attack; it wasn't because Lin Qing had seen the pattern on the wall that he was dragged into it.

At this moment, the expressions on the faces of these super-force Disciples were extremely varied. Some had faces full of fear, some showed wretched expressions, and others had the corners of their mouths curled up with smiles on their faces.

Lin Qing saw Ren Wudi in the crowd. He was also standing there silently. Although his face was expressionless, two lines of tears flowed from the corners of his eyes.

After a moment of contemplation, Lin Qing stepped into the crowd, grabbed the clothes at the back of Ren Wudi's neck, and lifted him from the passage they came from onto the intersection.

This was a T-junction with three passages. Two of them were still relatively spacious, but the passage they had come from was now less than five feet wide.

That was because the walls on both sides of the passage were constantly moving toward the middle, whereas the intersection where Ren Wudi was currently standing would not be affected by the crushing walls of the passage.

Looking at the relatively wide passages on both sides, Lin Qing stepped forward and chose a side at random to proceed. In any case, he couldn't make heads or tails of it.

As for the Cultivators of these super forces left behind, he would just leave them to their own devices. If they could break free of the illusion in time, perhaps they would still have a slim chance of survival.

It was just a pity. Lin Qing had originally wanted them to scout the way, but they had lost their usefulness after passing only two trials.

Starting from that T-junction, the forks in the passage began to increase, sometimes being T-junctions, sometimes crossroad intersections.

During his advance, Lin Qing always maintained the continuity of the wall on his right side, which was a conventional method for navigating mazes.

But unfortunately, this was not a real maze, and these passages were constantly changing.