Xiao Fang didn't feel like he was being watched. He felt like space itself was bending around his very soul, pulling his consciousness into something vast, ancient, and incomprehensibly deep. His surroundings melted away—the auction hall, Xiao Hei's concerned voice, even the faint clamor of the crowd. All of it faded into a silent, expansive nothingness.
Suddenly, he vanished.
Xiao Hei, wide-eyed, stared at the now-empty chair in shock. It had happened too quickly—and it seemed as if he had been sucked into the scroll.
Xiao Fang floated—or rather, drifted—through fractured starscapes, across ribbons of distorted galaxies, and over planes of existence that bent and folded in upon themselves like living origami. The laws of reality twisted and unfurled before him, and somewhere within that chaos, a colossal presence stared back.
