Black Market Rumors, Wuchen Travels Under the Alias Yin Feng

My hand loosened, and the leaf stained with medicinal residue slipped through my fingers, swept toward the corner by the night wind. The courtyard was silent. The green-canopied carriage from earlier was long gone, leaving only a faint tire track on the stone slabs at the alley entrance.

I didn't go back inside.

Turning, I walked into the side room and dragged an old wooden chest from under the bed. I lifted the lid and took out a neatly folded set of Black Martial Robes. The fabric felt cool to the touch; once on, it blended seamlessly with my outer garments. The leather belt at my waist clicked softly as I fastened it. My feet, clad in rough cloth boots, made no sound as I stepped into them. I smoothed a layer of thin balm over the scar on my left cheek. The reflection in the mirror showed a blurred face.

Afu was squatting by the back door of the pharmacy, gnawing on a dry biscuit, and almost choked when he saw me enter.

"Young Master? Why are you..."

"Go tell the guards I was startled last night and fainted this morning," I interrupted him. "Later, I'll knock over a bowl and shout a couple of times to get them to come over."

He swallowed his mouthful, his eyes wide. "Are you really going to act? What if they investigate..."

"It won't implicate you," I said. "After you're done, go back to sleep."

He hesitated for a moment, then nodded, tucking the remaining half of the biscuit into his clothes.

I went around to the back courtyard, lifted the broken wooden board covering the dry well, and climbed down the slippery stone steps into the drainage ditch. The water flowed slowly, carrying the scent of decaying leaves. I walked with my body bent until I reached the iron grate at the end, then emerged from the ground. Above me was a narrow alleyway in the western part of the city, its walls covered in black moss. A few steps away was the entrance to the black market.

With a change of identity, it was a different world.

When I gave my name at the entrance of the gambling house, the guard glanced at me sideways. "Yin Feng? Qi Refining Sixth Level?"

"I don't renege on my debts if I lose," I said, slapping a bag of Spirit Stones onto the counter.

He sneered, made a mark on the roster, and pushed me onto the fighting platform.

My opponent was a tall, thin man with half an ear missing and a cold gaze. He stood still, his aura steady, clearly an informant planted by Ji Hantian. People like him wouldn't give up information easily unless you made them feel—you weren't worthy of knowing.

I deliberately swayed my body, a smile forming on my lips. "I heard you get good stuff if you win against you?"

He didn't answer, his fist wind already arriving.

I dodged to the side, but my shoulder was still grazed, burning fiercely. In the next few rounds, I stumbled repeatedly, blood slowly seeping from the corner of my mouth. The audience roared with laughter, and someone threw a fruit pit, hitting me in the face.

For the final blow, his palm strike was aimed directly at my chest. I feigned an inability to block, flying out of the ring and crashing through the wooden frame, rolling onto the ground.

Amidst the crowd's clamor, I propped myself up halfway and pulled a pale gold crystal from my sleeve, tossing it into his embrace.

"Winning against you isn't glorious either."

He looked down at the crystal, rubbing it with his fingertips for a moment. Confirming it wasn't a trick, he let out a cold laugh and pulled a scorched fragment of a map from his clothes, throwing it at me.

"If you want to live, don't go east."

I grabbed the map and staggered to my feet, not looking back at him.

After leaving the gambling house, the sky was growing dark. I walked along the edge of the black market for a while and chose an inn called "Cloud-Breaking Inn" to stay. In the innermost room on the second floor, the door had a bolt, and the three hollow bricks under the bed had been loosened by me beforehand. The kitchen had a frying pan, and the pile of firewood could hide someone. The location perfectly blocked the line of sight from the stairs.

I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes, pretending to sleep.

The Pseudo-Primordial Body quietly circulated, my senses extending to the corridor outside the door, the stairwell, and the roof tiles. Every subtle change in airflow traced a path within my body.

At a quarter past midnight, a very faint friction sound came from the roof.

It wasn't the wind, nor cats or rats. It was the sound of a rope scraping against the eaves as it was lowered.

I remained still.

A shadow landed. The moment its feet touched the ground, I suddenly opened my eyes and sprang up. Before the other party could react, their wrist was already seized, twisted, and they were flung into the air, thrown in the direction of the kitchen.

"Boom!"

The pot lid flew off, boiling oil splashed out, and before the person could scream, they had fallen into the hot oil. Oil splattered, and the smell of burning flesh instantly filled the air.

I didn't step forward to finish them.

Standing by the stove, I stared at the body twitching in the oil until it was completely still.

Then, I reached out, dragged the corpse out, and pulled open its collar.

The skin on the back of its neck showed dark red markings, like a brand from a red-hot iron—in the center of the swirling blood pattern was the outline of a crystal. This was the mark of a Blood Demon Sect death warrior, activated only when carrying out a kill-on-sight mission.

Someone from Mo Xuan.

They had found me so quickly, which meant there was a deeper network of informants in the black market. This fragment of a map was probably more than just a path to the Primordial Ruins.

I let go, allowing the corpse to slide back into the oil pan, and turned back to my room.

The map lay spread on the table, its edges scorched, the lines in the middle broken. I pressed my fingertip to a corner, and my mind stirred.

The System responded silently.

The Heaven-Slaying Origin flowed slowly, a thread of extremely fine perception extending from my fingertip, seeping into the paper. The seemingly chaotic creases, burn marks, and ink stains gradually reassembled in my Sea of Consciousness—like fragments being pieced together by an invisible hand.

A mountain valley outline appeared in the southeast corner, with a small symbol next to it, resembling a broken stele.

That was the entrance.

But what truly made my pupils contract was a line of tiny text seeping from the back of the map, originally covered by oil stains. Under the influence of the Origin's penetration, a few incomplete strokes were now revealed:

"...The Path to Primordial Unity, only blood opens the gate..."

The sentence was unfinished, as if the writer had been interrupted.

I withdrew my hand and blew out the oil lamp.

Outside the window, lights flickered sporadically in the depths of the black market. The slave cages hadn't been put away yet, and the sound of hammers from the weapon shops continued to ring out. Shouts could be heard in the distance, someone auctioning an artifact of unknown origin.

I leaned against the wall, sitting still.

Seven-ninths of the origin flowed slowly through my meridians, just a sliver away from the Heaven-Slaying Dao Foundation. But the closer I got to the threshold, the more I couldn't act rashly. Although my strength wasn't revealed in today's battle, killing the Blood Demon Sect's assassins would undoubtedly trigger a chain reaction.

I had to obtain the Primordial Opportunity faster.

As I was thinking, footsteps sounded from downstairs.

Not one person, but three, their steps synchronized and deliberately lowered. They circled the first floor before stopping in front of my room.

Under the door crack, a thin piece of paper was slowly pushed in.

I bent down and picked it up.

There were no words on the paper, only a dark red thumbprint, its shape distorted, like some kind of contract mark.

I stared at the imprint for a few breaths, then suddenly heard the adjacent room door creak open.

A hoarse voice sounded, "New here? I advise you to leave the black market before dawn."

I didn't respond.

The person paused, then said, "Someone died last night, boiled in oil. If you don't want to be next, you'd best not touch what you shouldn't."

The footsteps receded.

I looked down at the red imprint, slowly crumpled it into a ball, stuffed it into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

Outside the window, the wind of the Northern Wasteland blew through the alley entrance, rustling the faded cloth banner under the eaves. A loose roof tile suddenly slid off, hitting the center of the street and shattering into two pieces.

I stood up, walked to the table, folded the fragmented map into small pieces, and tucked it into the inside of my boot shaft.

Then I untied my outer robe, revealing a hidden pocket in my leather belt, and took out a bronze token.

Two words were engraved on its surface: Yin Feng.

This was my new identity in this city.

And the beginning of the next move.

The sound of a horse snorting came from downstairs. A cart carrying goods stopped at the inn's entrance. The driver wore a bamboo hat, his back to the door, motionless.

I pushed open the window and saw the curtain at the back of the cart tremble slightly.

There were people hidden inside.