She rushed inside and Wei Zian took a moment to collect himself before he confronted her. In his future memories, she never visited him once after he refused to go along with her mission to the spirit tunnels, which spoke volumes about her true feelings about this 'friendship' of theirs. Then again, he hardly even thought about her himself until now, so he probably shouldn't judge. In any case, he was even less inclined to join her on this mission now than he was in his future memories , he actually had more pressing matters to attend to this time, in addition to general apprehensiveness that was still as valid now as it was then. Accordingly, he felt a lot less reluctance in simply dismissing her request, and it only took him an hour to convince her to leave him alone.
That done, he immediately set out for the Scripture Hall, making a short detour to a nearby spirit herb stall for a quick bite to tide him over. Once in the Scripture Hall, he started searching for scrolls on the topic of time reversal and trying to identify the language the jiangshi lord used in his technique.
To call it disappointing would be calling it mildly. For one thing, there were no scrolls on time reversal. The topic was not considered a serious field of study, what with it being impossible and all. What little was written about it was scattered across innumerable volumes, hidden in unmarked sections and paragraphs of otherwise unrelated scrolls. Piecing together these scattered mentions was an absolute chore, and not all that rewarding either , none of it was useful in solving the mystery of his future memories. Finding the language the jiangshi lord used in his technique was even more frustrating, since he failed to even identify the language, much less translate the chant.
He spent the entire weekend fruitlessly sifting through Scripture Hall texts, finally abandoning that avenue of research when it became obvious it wasn't producing any results. Plus the Scripture Hall attendants were starting to give him weird looks at his choice of reading material and he didn't want to create any unfortunate rumors. Hopefully he would be able to trick Zhao Hong into revealing what was going on when the training sessions started.
But not right now. He deserved a little rest after being brought back from the dead.
⋆⋆⋆
"You're late."
Wei Zian stared at Ao Jiao's stern face in quiet contemplation. He was glad he wouldn't have to deal with any drama because of his disastrous evening with her , almost as glad as he was about the fact that he wasn't dead , but he couldn't help but wonder what her outburst had been about. She didn't really look like she had affection for him, so why did his comment hit her so heavily?
"What?" she asked, and Wei Zian realized he had been staring at her a little too long. Oh.
"Ao Jiao, why are you telling me this when more than half the cohort isn't even here yet?" he asked.
"Because there is at least a chance you will listen, unlike them," Ao Jiao admitted. "Also, someone like you should be an example to other disciples, not descend to their level."
"Someone like me?" inquired Wei Zian.
"Just get inside," she snapped irritably.
He sighed and went inside. It was probably for the best to leave things be , he had other problems to deal with, and she was far too rule-bound for his tastes anyway.
He didn't know what he was expecting to happen when he walked into the training hall. Everyone to stop what they were doing and stare at him, maybe? At least then he would have a reason for feeling so unnerved at attending his first session of the year for the second time. But of course they did no such thing. It wasn't a second time for them, and there was nothing visibly irregular about him for them to take notice. He quashed his unease and sat down in the back of the hall, discreetly scanning new arrivals for signs of Zhao Hong. He was sure the other young master was connected to this somehow, and the mysterious cultivator appeared to be Wei Zian's best chance at understanding what was happening to him.
There was a brief commotion when Bai Lian's fire dragon hissed up a storm and started chasing Bai Lian's terrified neighbor across the training hall before Bai Lian calmed it down. Apparently the magical reptile liked the unfortunate disciple even less than it did Wei Zian. In any case, Senior Sister Yun came in soon after and started the session.
Zhao Hong never showed up.
Wei Zian spent the entire session in a daze, shocked at this turn of events. Where was Zhao Hong? Everything happened almost exactly as it did in his future memories so far, with Zhao Hong's absence being the first major deviation. This firmly cemented Zhao Hong as somehow connected to this madness, but it also put the young master out of Wei Zian's reach for the moment.
The lecture was even more annoying now than it was the first time he listened to it, since from his perspective he went through these review sessions less than a month ago. Apparently Senior Sister Yun worked off some kind of a script, because the lecture was virtually identical to the one from his memory, the only difference being that Zhao Hong wasn't there to compete with Ao Jiao for answering Senior Sister Yun's questions to the cohort.
Funny how things seem clearer in retrospect. Zhao Hong was acting strange right from the start, in that very first lecture, but Wei Zian thought nothing of it. Sure, Zhao Hong volunteering to answer instructor's questions was out of character for the young master, but not completely implausible. It was just a review session anyway, and they had to know these things to reach the next level. It took two weeks before people really began to notice the extent of Zhao Hong's sudden improvement.
So many questions, so few answers. He could only hope that Zhao Hong would show up soon.