"This can't be coincidence," Lin Mu said quietly. "They're not just hiding in that valley—they're using it. Or maybe they've built something beneath it."
"A hidden sect fortress?" Meng Bai offered.
"Or a domain of their own," Daoist Chu said grimly. "If the valley contains spatial distortion and the cultivator's note about a second sky is true, they may have carved out a dimensional pocket inside the valley itself. A kind of hidden realm."
"Like a folded pocket within the world," Lin Mu muttered. "No wonder no one can find them."
"But what about the word 'Ephemera'?" Little Shrubby asked. "Why would a crazy man keep saying that over and over?"
Lin Mu set the scroll on the table. "That's the part I still don't understand. Could be a person. Could be a technique. A place. A code."
"Could be all of them," Meng Bai added with a shrug.
