"You remembered something," Lin Mu said gently.
The vice captain scratched his chin and frowned. "It's probably nothing. Could've been my eyes playing tricks on me."
"Please. Tell me anyway."
Yiru Shen sighed. "When we found him… I looked him in the eye. Just once, when he was half-conscious. For a split second, I saw something flicker in his right eye."
Lin Mu's heartbeat quickened. "What did you see?"
The man closed his eyes, recalling the image. "It was faint… like a brand beneath the iris. But not a normal one. It was… an eye. An eye surrounded by thorn-like patterns. Thorns that curved inward… almost like a cage."
Lin Mu felt a jolt run through him.
'An eye surrounded by thorns…'
That wasn't random.
That was a symbol.
A mark.
Perhaps even a seal.
And it wasn't just any symbol—it matched the esoteric design he had glimpsed in the Hollow Eye Sect's sigil during the banquet ambush as well as when he had gone to that cave near the Hawk Eye Sword Sect.
