Night Walk

After dealing with all five of them, most of the morning had been spent.

The situation the Yellow-Shirted Man had mentioned was gradually becoming reality—candidates had begun attacking one another for the chance to remain in Qingshan Town, and such incidents had even appeared outside inns and teahouses.

If not for the rule stating, "Do not interfere with the villagers' daily lives," Xia Fan suspected this crowd would have turned the insides of shops into battlegrounds as well.

"Good thing they won't start trouble inside the teahouse," Wei Wushuang said, still shaken. "It seems the examiners showed some mercy after all."

"Not necessarily." Xia Fan shook his head.

"Why do you say that, Brother Xia?" he asked in surprise. "The examination rules clearly state that candidates must not—"

"They must not interfere with the villagers' lives, but there's no rule saying they can't smash up inns and teahouses."

"This..." Wei Wushuang could not quite wrap his head around it.

"Think about it," Xia Fan lowered his voice. "If you caused trouble at an inn outside and broke a table or two, what would the owner do?"

"As long as you pay for it, it's fine—unless you don't have enough money..." He froze halfway through his words.

"Exactly." Xia Fan's lips curled slightly. "If you could pay enough, the owner would probably wish you'd smash every old table in the place, and the authorities wouldn't bother with such a trivial matter. In Qingshan Town, that means causing trouble isn't against the rules; only being unable to pay compensation is."

Wei Wushuang was speechless for quite a while.

Xia Fan did not continue either. He knew that with the other man's understanding, he would certainly realize what this meant.

There were only two reasons no one had acted yet.

First, no one had noticed this for the time being. Second, they did not have enough money in hand.

Failing to realize it now did not mean no one would realize it over the next few days. Likewise, not having enough money now did not mean that would remain true in the days ahead. As more and more candidates were eliminated, the money would gradually concentrate into fewer hands until "giants" emerged. That trend was almost inevitable.

By the last day or two, the remaining candidates would likely possess great amounts of money. Even if they smashed a few tables, or the doors and beds of an inn, they would be able to afford the compensation.

With Spirit Fire certain to be insufficient, taking it from other candidates would become their only choice. Xia Fan could imagine what would happen with his eyes closed—day or night, in teahouses or inn rooms, all of Qingshan Town would become a hunting ground. Whoever could gather more money would seize the initiative completely.

Wei Wushuang's face changed.

Such a development was clearly the worst possible outcome for him.

Or rather, the worst possible outcome for every candidate.

Trust and cooperation would cease to exist. Even those groups cobbled together on the spot would have to constantly guard against attacks from within—after all, the examiners wanted jars filled with Spirit Fire, and would not care where the jars had come from.

After cupping his hands to Xia Fan, his fellow townsman left with a dazed, dispirited expression.

Xia Fan found a table by the edge on the second floor of the teahouse, ordered some food, and watched the situation over at the inn as he ate.

By this point, the core of the Scholar Examination seemed to have surfaced.

Yet Xia Fan still harbored quite a few doubts.

No matter how one looked at it, these rules were far too advantageous for disciples of great clans. Compared with gangs hastily assembled on the spot, their internal stability was undoubtedly much stronger. What was more, they might have decided on the distribution of spots before the examination even began. As long as a small number of people focused on accompanying the others through the exam, the group as a whole could gain the greatest benefit.

Connections and family background were part of one's strength, true, but this way, every Sorcery Art practitioner selected would come with a great clan background. The Qi State royal family should not be hoping for such a result.

Of course, the political purpose of the Scholar Examination was not something he needed to consider now—whatever calculations those above might have had were none of his concern. His most urgent task was to obtain a bottle of Spirit Fire as quickly as possible and secure his qualification.

At midnight, all was quiet outside.

Xia Fan stopped his qi-guiding cultivation and sighed softly. At this hour, with the Fox Demon still nowhere to be seen, his guess had most likely been confirmed—she would not be coming again.

With a trace of regret, he began preparing for tonight's real business. The Scholar Examination allowed each candidate to bring two sets of clothes. Aside from one ordinary outer robe, the other was a set of night clothes he had made himself. Unlike the loose garments popular in this era, this outfit followed the principle of simplicity and practicality to the letter. It had no buttons, and its sleeves, body, and hood were all one piece. A layer of cowhide had been sewn into the wrists, elbows, and chest to improve its durability.

The clothes were not pure black either, but made from dark navy fabric. In theory, the best color for blending into the night was deep purple, but limited by the quality of available dyes, he had to settle for the less uncommon dark blue. As for black... it looked most like the night, but once it entered a lit area, a moving "shadow" would easily draw attention. Its concealment was even worse than gray.

Taking a deep breath, Xia Fan climbed out through the window and pressed himself against the wall as he climbed toward the second floor.

Unlike smooth concrete walls, wooden houses had many protruding wedge ends along their outer edges, making them naturally suited to climbing. Even a half-baked climber like him could easily scale several floors.

He had spent the entire afternoon observing the residences and movements of the great clan disciples, ultimately selecting a house nearest to his own lodging as his target.

The Spirit Fire collection sites were now occupied in turns by the Fei Clan, Luo Family, and Wei Clan. Only those three groups could reliably obtain Spirit Fire.

And Xia Fan's plan was to steal a bottle of Source of Spirit Fire from their hands!

Though he did not know who lived inside, people wearing the Luo Family's blue robes had entered and exited this house many times, every one of them highly vigilant and looking around before entering. Considering that great clan disciples could also come under attack, Xia Fan guessed their countermeasure was to collect the Spirit Fire in one place under centralized guard rather than leave it with individuals.

At the same time, he had noticed that the corridor outside this house connected six rooms in total, four of which had been rented by the Luo Family. If anyone tried to force their way in head-on, a single call would allow the Luo Family to quickly fill the corridor and form a line of defense that would be difficult to breach.

The great clans might not even have known the examination's contents, much less the layout of Qingshan Town in advance. This was undoubtedly something they had devised based on the circumstances at hand.

Occupying a corner high up in the inn, supporting one another, easy to defend and hard to attack—he had to admit that the great clan disciples thought more shrewdly than most people their age.

But Xia Fan had never intended to confront them head-on.

He slowly moved to the edge of the window, untied the cloth belt around his waist with one hand, looped it around a projecting roof beam, and suspended himself in midair. At the same time, he took out a hairpin, pierced the window paper at its edge, and gently inserted it into the room.

This special hairpin was thin at the front and thick at the back, hollow inside. Through it, he could barely see the room's interior. Xia Fan swept his gaze around and found that the Luo Family had specifically arranged for two people to keep watch at night, further confirming his guess.

Time was of the essence. He took out a medicine pouch and packed a portion of mixed herbs into the hairpin. Then he lit it with a fire striker and cautiously blew into the room.

This herbal mixture, made from datura flowers, raw aconite, night peonies, phantom mushrooms, and winter ferns, was his master's proud creation. It was said to be priceless and never to be passed on lightly. When burned, it produced smoke that was soft and elegant, colorless and odorless. Those who inhaled it would only feel incomparably peaceful; it soothed pain and calmed the mind. Inhaling it for too long would make one drift unconsciously into sleep, unable to awaken before dawn. Its hypnotic effects far surpassed the knockout drugs and Hundred-Step Fall sold on the black market.

Xia Fan had tested it personally several times. The facts proved this was probably one of the few things his master had not exaggerated—although even Sorcery Art practitioners would find it difficult to notice its presence. Before his master had been drugged unconscious by him, he had not reacted at all, and afterward had repeatedly remarked on how wonderfully he had slept.

This was the greatest support for Xia Fan's plan. Without it, he would never have dared spend most of his money on the very first day.

In fact, only a small pinch of the herbs in Xia Fan's medicine pouch had anything to do with Sorcery Art. Most were healing medicines, sleeping drugs, and antidotes. Having followed his master for over a decade, he had not learned much Sorcery Art knowledge, but he had achieved modest success in all sorts of tricks of the jianghu and underhanded ways of dealing with people.

This showed that avoiding direct confrontation and staying alive to keep dealing damage was an unshakable truth everywhere.

After blowing for roughly half an hour, no sound could be heard from within the room.

Although the Luo Family had arranged for people to keep watch, they were ultimately children in their teens. Expecting them to remain intensely focused at the door for hours was unrealistic to begin with. Before Xia Fan had even lit the sleeping incense, the two had already been nodding off repeatedly. The incense had merely given them a slight push.

With practiced ease, Xia Fan pried open the window latch, covered his mouth and nose with a wet cloth, and flipped into the room.

This side room was much larger than the one he had rented, and gauze curtains divided it into an inner and outer chamber. The outer room served as a sitting room, while the inner one was the bedroom.

He drew aside the gauze curtain and searched carefully. Before long, he found the target of this trip.

Just as he had expected, the Luo Family had gathered all the Spirit Fire they collected here, hiding it beneath the bed in an utterly uncreative fashion. By the dim candlelight from the outer room, he could see at least twenty porcelain bottles stuffed beneath the bed, each with a thin string tied around its mouth.

This was probably the Luo Family's final line of defense.

Though he could not see where the strings led, moving a bottle would most likely trigger whatever mechanism they were connected to. Xia Fan guessed the other end probably held something like bells, which could alert the Luo Family immediately that the bedroom had been breached.

Naturally, this did not trouble him in the slightest. After all, with mathematics, physics, and chemistry under his belt, he feared nothing under heaven. He cut two strips from a corner of the bedsheet, twisted them into cords using whatever was at hand, then, according to the parallelogram law of forces, tied the two cloth cords separately between the thin string and the bedframe, aligning their resultant force with the direction of the string. Only after making these preparations did Xia Fan cut the thin string.

Freed from its restraint, the string shrank back slightly, but was quickly caught by the taut cloth cords and held in its original position.

At that point, nothing stood in the way of taking out a porcelain bottle.

After confirming that the bottle did indeed contain Source of Spirit Fire, Xia Fan tied it to his back, retreated along the same route to the window, and climbed back down the wall to his own small room.

Only when both feet touched the ground did he finally let out a full breath.

The entire process had gone unexpectedly smoothly. From setting out to succeeding, it had taken only a little over an hour.

"For Sorcery Art practitioners to be so good at sneaking around and stealing chickens and dogs, should I call that surprising or only natural?"

Yet in the next instant, a voice came unexpectedly from behind him, startling him into a cold sweat!