I loosened my hand, and the leaf speckled with medicinal crumbs slipped through my fingers, carried by the night wind toward the corner of the wall. The courtyard was deathly silent. The Blue Tented Cart from earlier had long vanished without a trace, leaving only a faint wheel rut on the flagstones at the alley entrance.
I did not return to my room.
Turning into the side chamber, I dragged an old wooden chest out from beneath the bed. Opening it, I took out a neatly folded set of Black Martial Robes. The fabric felt faintly cool to the touch, and once worn close against my skin, it blended seamlessly with my outer robe. The leather belt at my waist clicked softly as I fastened it. After wrapping the Cloud-Treading Boots in coarse cloth, my footsteps became utterly soundless. I smeared a thin layer of grease over the scar on my left cheek, making the face in the mirror several degrees blurrier.
Afu was squatting by the back door of the Apothecary Hall, gnawing on a dry flatbread. The moment he saw me enter, he nearly choked.
"Young Master? How did you..."
"Tell the guards I was frightened last night and fainted this morning," I interrupted. "Break a bowl later, shout a few times, and get them all to come take a look."
He swallowed the food in his mouth, his eyes widening. "Are we really putting on an act? What if they investigate..."
"It will not implicate you," I said. "Go back to sleep once the act is over."
He hesitated briefly before nodding. He casually stuffed the remaining half of the flatbread into his clothes.
I circled around to the rear courtyard, lifted the broken boards covering the dried-up well, and climbed down the slick stone steps into the drainage channel. The sluggish water carried the stench of rotting leaves. I moved forward hunched over all the way until I crawled out through an iron grate at the far end. Above me lay an abandoned narrow alley in the west of the city, its walls overgrown with black moss. The entrance to the Black Market was only a few steps away.
With a new identity came another world.
When I reported my name at the Gambling House entrance, the guard gave me a sidelong look. "Yin Feng? Qi Refining Sixth Level?"
"I do not welch on a loss." I slapped down a pouch of spirit stones.
He sneered, marked the registry, and shoved me onto the fighting stage.
My opponent was a lanky man with half his left ear missing and a cold, gloomy gaze. He stood still, his aura steady. He was clearly an informant Ji Hantian had planted here. People like him would not easily hand over information—unless you made him feel that you did not deserve to know.
I deliberately swayed, curling my lips into a grin. "I heard beating you gets me something good?"
He did not answer. His fist wind was already upon me.
I twisted aside, but my shoulder was still grazed, erupting in fiery pain. Over the next several exchanges, I staggered repeatedly, blood slowly seeping from the corner of my mouth. The spectators roared with laughter, and someone threw a fruit pit that struck my face.
For the final blow, his palm force chopped straight toward my chest. I pretended to block weakly and was sent flying off the platform, smashing through a wooden rack before rolling across the ground.
Amid the crowd's uproar, I propped myself halfway up, drew a pale golden crystal from my sleeve, and flung it into his arms.
"Even if I beat you, it would not be glorious."
He lowered his head to inspect the crystal, rubbing it between his fingertips for a moment. Once he confirmed there was no trick, he gave a cold laugh, pulled a scorched-edged fragment of a map from his clothes, and tossed it onto me.
"If you want to stay alive, do not go east."
I snatched up the map and staggered to my feet without looking at him again.
By the time I left the Gambling House, the sky had begun to darken. I walked along the edge of the Black Market for a while, then chose an inn called Broken Cloud Inn. My room was at the far end of the second floor, its door fitted with a bolt. Three hollow bricks beneath the bed had already been loosened under my feet. There was a wok of oil in the kitchen, and the woodpile could hide a person. The location perfectly occupied the blind spot between the upstairs and downstairs stairways.
I lay on the bed, closed my eyes, and feigned sleep.
The Pseudo-Primordial Body silently began to circulate, extending my senses to the corridor outside the door, the stairway, and the roof tiles. Every minute change in the airflow traced a path within my body.
At the third quarter of the Rat hour, an exceedingly faint scraping sound came from the roof.
It was neither wind nor rats and cats. It was the sound of a rope scraping against the edge of the tiles as it descended.
I remained motionless.
The shadow landed. The instant its toes touched the ground, I suddenly opened my eyes and sprang up. Before the other party could react, I had already seized his wrist. With a backward twist, I sent his entire body into the air and hurled him toward the kitchen.
Boom!
The wok lid flew up, boiling oil splashed everywhere, and before the man could even scream, he had fallen into the hot wok. Oil burst and crackled, and the stench of charred flesh instantly filled the air.
I did not step forward to finish him off.
I stood before the stove, staring at the body twitching in the oil until it finally became completely still.
Then I reached in, dragged out the corpse, and tore open its collar.
Dark-red markings surfaced on the skin at the back of its neck, like the imprint of a red-hot branding iron—a swirling Blood Mark with the outline of a crystal embedded at its center. This was the mark of a Blood Demon Sect death warrior. Only those carrying out certain-kill missions would activate it.
Mo Xuan's men.
They had found me so quickly, which meant the Black Market contained deeper informants. This fragment of a map was likely more than a route to the Primordial Ruins.
I let go, allowing the corpse to slide back into the wok, then turned and returned to my room.
The map lay spread across the table, its edges blackened by fire and its lines broken in the middle. I pressed a finger to one corner, and a thought stirred.
The system responded soundlessly.
The Heaven-Slaying Origin slowly circulated. An exceedingly fine thread of perception extended from my fingertip and seeped into the paper. The seemingly chaotic creases, burn marks, and ink stains gradually reassembled within my Sea of Consciousness—like fragments pieced together by an invisible hand.
The outline of a valley emerged in the southeastern corner, beside it a small symbol resembling a broken stele.
That was the entrance.
But what truly made my pupils contract was a tiny line of writing seeping through on the back of the map. It had originally been covered by oil stains, but under the Origin's infiltration, several incomplete strokes emerged:
"...the Path to Primordial Unity, only blood opens the gate..."
The sentence was unfinished, as though the writer had been interrupted midway.
I withdrew my hand and blew out the oil lamp.
Outside the window, sparse lights flickered in the depths of the Black Market. The slave traders had yet to put away their cages, and the hammers at the weapon shops were still pounding. From afar came cries of sale, someone auctioning an origin-unknown bone artifact.
I leaned against the wall and sat quietly without moving.
Seven strands and nine-tenths of the Origin flowed slowly through my meridians, only a thread away from the Heaven-Slaying Dao Foundation. Yet the closer I came to the threshold, the less I could act rashly. Though today's battle had not exposed my strength, killing a Blood Demon Sect death warrior would inevitably trigger a chain reaction.
I had to obtain the Primordial Opportunity faster.
Just as I was thinking this, footsteps sounded downstairs.
It was not one person, but three. Their steps were synchronized and deliberately muted. They made a circuit through the first floor, then stopped outside my door.
A thin slip of paper slowly slid in beneath the gap under the door.
I bent down and picked it up.
There were no words on it, only a dark-red fingerprint. Its shape was twisted, like some kind of contract mark.
I stared at the mark for several breaths, then suddenly heard the neighboring door creak open.
A hoarse voice sounded. "Newcomer? Let me offer you some advice. Leave the Black Market before dawn."
I did not respond.
The man paused, then continued, "Someone died last night, cooked through in a wok of oil. If you do not want to become the next one, you had better not touch what you should not touch."
The footsteps receded.
I lowered my head to look at the red mark, slowly crumpled the paper into a ball, stuffed it into my mouth, chewed it to pieces, and swallowed it.
Outside the window, the wind from the Northern Wastes passed through the alley entrance, stirring the faded cloth banners beneath the eaves. A loose roof tile suddenly slipped free and crashed into the middle of the street, splitting in two.
I rose and walked to the table, folding the map fragment into small pieces and tucking them inside my boot shaft.
Then I untied my outer robe, revealing the hidden pouch on my leather belt, and took out a bronze token.
Two characters were carved upon it: Yin Feng.
This was my new identity in this city.
It was also the beginning of my next move.
A horse snorted downstairs. A cargo cart stopped at the inn entrance, its driver wearing a bamboo hat with his back to the door, utterly motionless.
I pushed open the window and saw the curtain at the back of the cart gently sway.
Someone was hiding inside.
Before you continue