"We have arrived." Li Kong said.
"You really wasn't kidding about him being an outcast." White remarked in a rather weird manner.
In front of them was a house. It was a simple medium-sized wooden house, neither big nor small. The house was built slightly above the ground with wooden pillars supporting the house from below and a stairs was built into the house.
Li Kong carefully observed the house's surrounding and found a tree stump sticking out from the ground with an axe pinned on the side of it and in front of the house, stacks of chopped woods aligned in orderly manner besides the stairs.
'It look like an ordinary house.' Li Kong mused to himself while he slowly walked to the house.
He grabbed on the stairs handle and rubbed his fingers on it.
"Woah! It's so smooth." The wooden surface of the handle almost felt silky-like but remembering his mission, Li Kong cleared out his mind and continued his steps.
When he arrived at the front door, Li Kong gathered his courage before stretching out his hand and knocked on the door for a few times.
"Hello. Is there anybody home?" Li Kong spoked loudly only to be followed by silent.
Li Kong knocked on the door again but once again, there were no noises coming out from the house.
"Is he out again?" Li Kong felt a little troubled and grabbed the handle before he realized he could move it. He pulled the handle a little and to his surprise, the door wasn't locked as a gap created on the corner of the door.
"What if I..." Li Kong cautiously checked his left and right and after ascertaining the situation, he took a last look at the open door with hesitation before ultimately he decided to swallow his fear and pushed the door gently.
A creaking sound travelled to his ear as the door slowly opened itself, revealing the scenery hidden inside.
As the door opened, allowing a sliver light to entered the house, the house was filled with darkness to the point where Li Kong could barely see anything.
He further peeked in his head to see everything clearer but even with the help of the light from the outside, the interior was still to dark for him to see anything.
"Seriously what are you waiting?" An impatient voice rang in his ears.
"It's not appropriate to enter someone's house without their permission." Li Kong was adamant of stepping in.
"Since when did you become law-abiding? Less chat and get yourself inside the damn house! Here let me help you." White was sick of him at this point and decided to intervene.
"What do you mean by hel–" Before Li Kong could even finished his words, an invisible energy pushed his back, making him lose his center of balance.
Li Kong reached his hands out and aligned his head and spine to performed a roll to mitigated the impact throughout his body before landing safely on his feet.
"Safe!" Li Kong exclaimed before he grabbed his pouch and shook it.
"Why did you do that, White? What if my head hit the floor?" Li Kong bore a hole through the pouch.
"And did you hit your head?" White asked.
"I'm not! But that's not the point!"
"Then, there's nothing worth to be argued."
Hearing no words coming from the bead, Li Kong grumbled but still proceed to inspect inside the house.
The living room consist of two wooden couch positioned on the corner of the room next to the walls and a huge wooden table in front of the couches. At the corner between the couches, a little wooden table place and a vase standing calmly on top of it.
Li Kong continued to inspect the room and he found the source of the darkness. All of the windows in the house was shut tight and to see clearer, Li Kong walked to the window behind one of the couches and opened it widely, allowing the light to graced the room with brightness.
Now that the room had lighten up, everything in the room became crystal clear to Li Kong.
He looked again at the wooden couch and couldn't help but widened his eyes at the handiworks in front of him.
The details that was hidden by the darkness, now being seen clear by Li Kong. Everything from the handle to the back carved in an intricate wavy pattern and the other couches even had a head of a lion carved in front of the handles.
"This is amazing." Li Kong sincerely praised and touched the couch and watched as his fingers traced the surface of the wooden furniture like gliding his finger through a clear water.
"Focus on your objective." A stern voice reminded him.
"Oh right." Li Kong awakened from his dazed and leave the couches and proceeding deeper into the house where he found a wooden rack and inside of it was a weird block of wood but Li Kong couldn't figure out of the exact detail because the lack of light but it suspiciously looked similar like a human figure.
'Is that...' Li Kong tried squinting his eyes. '...Tang Xia?'
Although the detail of the face was blurry, Li Kong could tell that the statue had a feminine touch in the creation.
Refusing to believe what he had seen, Li Kong turned back his body and tried to open the window before suddenly his nose collided with something.
"Ow!" He landed on his bum and took a quick look in front of him.
"Since where is there a wall here?" Li Kong put his hand on the wall and for some reason, the wall seemed to be a little fleshy.
"What are you doing in my house?" A deep and hoarse voice resonated.
Li Kong slowly raised his head and to his horror, someone was standing in front of him. The man was easily a head taller than him and his arms bulked up with muscles he only every seen from his uncle, perhaps even bigger.
"I asked. What are you doing here?" The voice turned more aggressive.
The shift of tone caused Li Kong's complexion turned pale.
"I- I can explain! I didn't come here to steal anything!" Li Kong pushed his body backward with his legs and opened his palms toward the person standing.
The man raised his hand and Li Kong gritted his teeth and braced with his hand for any strike that may come but to his shock, nothing happened.
Li Kong slowly opened his eyes and saw a bulky hand, reaching him with an open palm.
"Ah?" Li Kong let out a little sound in confusion as he continued to watched the open palm.
"Stand up." The man spoke rather calmly.
"Oh! Yes, yes. Thank you." Li Kong hurriedly grabbed on the man's palm and feeling him pulled him upward.
After that Li Kong brushed off any dusts from his clothes before taking a look at the man's giant stature.
"Woah, you're so big." Words unknowingly slipped out from his mouth before he realized what he had said and covered his mouth tightly.
"What?" The man turned back.
"Mmm." Li Kong sealed his mouth shut and shook his head frantically.
The man didn't chase any further and instead lead him back to the living room.
"Take a seat." The man said.
Li Kong sat himself down, his hands sat peacefully on top of his thighs and watched as the man slowly walked to the inside. Li Kong heard the familiar sound of crackle and after a few minutes, the man had arrived back at the living room, carrying with him cups of glass.
The man offered Li Kong one of them cup and asked, "Take it."
"Oh, right." Li Kong nodded his head and politely grabbed the glass cup handle from the man.
Li Kong took a quick look of the cup and found that it was tea.
After that, the man take a seat on the other couch and sipped his tea calmly.
Li Kong observed the man mannerisms and found himself confused at what he should do in this kind of situation.
'Now that I can see his face clearly. Honestly he's isn't as bad as people described.' Li Kong had heard his peers talking about the man and every time, they put it like they were seeing some sort of monster rather than a human being. But now he had seen the person himself, in Li Kong's humble opinion, he thought he wasn't bad at all, just a little too bulky.
The man had a stern face, the type you would think to never smile at all. Other than that, his other attributes wasn't bad at all. His face was wide but symmetrical and paired with his well-defined jawline, Li Kong honestly thought that he would made a great warrior with his stature and serious face.
'Altogether he looked like another uncle Ye! But younger and slightly bigger.'
After a moment like an eternity, the man put his cup down and directly stared at Li Kong.
At the sudden gaze, Li Kong jumped a bit and observed the man's doing with great caution.
"You're Li Kong right?" The man asked.
"Yes." Li Kong hurriedly replied before noticing something. "Wait. How did you know my name?"
"You are..." The man appeared to be in a deep thought. "Famous."
The man fixed his posture before looking directly to Li Kong.
"So why you are in my house?" HIs gaze settled deeply at Li Kong.
Sweats started to running crazily on his back as he desperately tried to maintain his calm face.
'Damn, what do I do now? Maybe say something like I saw your door opened and decided to go in? On a whim? Even if he didn't beat me, if uncle Zheng ever catch this news out, he'll be the one to beat me. But what other excuses do I have?' Times continued to tick down and the gaze became sharper each seconds passed.
'White! What should I do?' Li Kong shook his waist pouch and waited for the bead's usual voice to chimed in but to no avail, the bead stayed silent.
Li Kong felt like a boat, stranded in the middle of stormy ocean, helplessly tried to maintain the ship's balance while his master slacking off in the side.
'There's no other way then...' Li Kong closed his eyes and took a deep breath before meeting the gaze who had been staring at him this whole time.
"Uncle! Please listen to this." Li Kong exclaimed.
The man was undisturbed by Li Kong's sudden loud exclamation and cued him to continue.
Li Kong started to narrating slowly to the man about the altar he found in the forest and details of it.
After Li Kong done explaining, the man leaned his back to the couch and seemingly deep within his mind while on the other side of the couch, Li Kong tracked every single of his movement.
'If he shows any weird movement, I'll immediately use my Flame Fist.' Li Kong hid his hand beneath the conceal of the table, ready to unleash the technique at any given moment.
After a moment of thoughts, the man suddenly moved which throwing Li Kong off balance for a bit but he decided to hold his hand in place and continued to observe the man.
"Regarding the altar you mentioned..." The man finally uttered something.
At the mention of the word "altar", Li Kong gulped down his saliva and his body tensed as he waited for any sudden movement for the man.
"I've seen another one not a long time ago." The man stated calmly.
"Huh?" Li Kong's mind was thrown out of chaos. He strike the wooden table and said with a open eyes. "There's another one out there?"
The man wasn't bothered by Li Kong's action and nodded casually before continuing, "But the one I found had deer on it rather than bunnies."
'Deer?' Li Kong went into contemplation. 'Why is it one of them was bunnies and the other was deer?'
Amidst his contemplation, Li Kong felt that something was missing and couldn't help himself to asked further about the altar.
"When and where did you find the altar uncle?"
"Three weeks ago. Not far from the place I usually gathered woods."
'Three weeks? White said the altar was made only one or two day before we discovered it but now this uncle said that there was an altar in the forest three weeks ago? Then doesn't that mean someone had been doing this for a long time?' Li Kong tried to figured something more from the man's expression but he really wasn't looking like he was lying.
"So what you did to that altar, uncle?" Li Kong asked.
"I destroyed it." The man replied swiftly.
"What about the deers?"
"I buried them not far from the altar."
"Why do you didn't tell anyone about finding the altar, uncle?" Li Kong asked while staring observantly at the man's expression.
Faced with Li Kong's sharp gaze, the man didn't panicked and maintained his calm composure.
"I felt uncomfortable walking in the village and you already know what's my reputation inside of the village. Did you think people will believe me?" The man's gaze resided down, staring into the table with a lonely look in his eyes.
Li Kong thought about his question for a while and finding it logical.
"Hmm." The man mummed while rubbing his chin. "So does this mean the reason you break into my house was because you think I made the altar?"
Li Kong completely caught off guard by the sudden statement and started trembling like crazy.
"Uh... T-That's... Haha..." Li Kong stuttered as he tried to let the words flowing out from his mouth and slowly turned his face away from him.
The man let out a whiff before a curve formed on the corner of the mouth.
"I don't mind it."
For the first time since their meeting, the man had show another emotion beside stone cold face.
Li Kong feeling like tearing up soon as he looked at the man with star-like eyes.
"Thank you, uncle! And please don't tell uncle Zheng about all of this. Please! He'll beat the living out of me if he ever catch this." Li Kong sincerely begged.
"I won't" The man promised.
"And why did you keep calling me uncle? I should be only 5 years older than you."
'5 years?!' Li Kong felt like his eyes was popping off. 'This was even more surprising than knowing that there's another altar.'
After that, Li Kong raised his arms and compared both of their body to each other and safe to assume that the result was an automatic win for the man.
'Holy crap. The difference is big!' Li Kong exclaimed inwardly.
"If not uncle, then big brother? Yeah, that sounds nice." Li Kong nodded to himself before striking himself on the forehead.
"What's wrong?"
"I haven't asked for your name yet." Li Kong said.
"It's Xin Qiangdu."
"Then big brother Qiang it is!" Li Kong smiled.
Xin Qiandu was taken aback by the sudden smile of Li Kong before replying back with another smile.
"Yeah."
After that, they began to talk to each other and discussed about their daily lives.
"So brother Qiang!"
"Hmm?"
"Is that Tang Xia inside of that shelf."
"...No."
"Why are you turning slightly red, big brother? You look just like Yu Mei! Hahaha!"
"Whoever this Yu Mei is, I feel sorry for her."
"But why though? Have you met her?"
"Sigh..." Xin Qiangdu already tired of speaking now.