Night deepened. In Nanyun City, under the jurisdiction of Ziyang Supreme Sect, the lights grew sparse.
The gates of the Zhang Family residence slowly swung shut.
The night was black as ink, and Nanyun City's long streets stretched into the distance beneath scattered lamplight.
An old woman leaned on an ebony cane as she walked slowly along the bluestone road.
She was Granny Jiu, a Zhang Family retainer known throughout the Four Paths region.
After turning through two alleys, the bustle gradually faded, and a secluded single-courtyard residence came into view.
Granny Jiu pushed open the courtyard gate and closed it behind her with a practiced motion.
The instant her left foot crossed the threshold, an exceedingly faint qi fluctuation emerged.
"Who?" Granny Jiu did not turn, yet the ebony cane in her hand had already struck the ground without a sound. Her true origin gathered, ready to erupt, and her cloudy eyes sharpened in an instant. "Get out here!"
No lamps were lit inside the house; only hazy moonlight filtered in from beyond the windows.
"Heh heh... Granny Jiu's Spiritual Sense is still as sharp as ever. Worthy indeed of being one of the tribe's finest 'Night Owls' back then."
An aged voice sounded from the shadows to the left of the main hall.
As the voice fell, the shadows there seemed to writhe before slowly "floating" up into a figure.
The man was lean and tall, dressed in an utterly unremarkable grayish-brown fur robe. His gray-white hair was disheveled, and his eyes glimmered with a ghostly green light in the darkness, like an old wolf hunting for food in the wilderness.
The veins on the back of Granny Jiu's withered hand tightened slightly around her cane.
"From the Canglang Tribe... 'Gray Mane'?" Her voice carried a trace of