"Yes."
Chen Qing accepted without expression.
The three silently patrolled along the embankments between the fishponds.
Liu Cheng clutched his face, aggrieved and terrified, while Jiang Wu also wore a lingering look of fright, secretly thankful that he had kept his eyes in check.
Chen Qing walked ahead, but his mind was highly focused, sensing every movement around him.
Fishponds Seven and Eight were relatively remote, near a wild Reed Marsh at the edge of the fishery.
Just after they rounded Fishpond Seven, a convoy appeared on the road ahead.
A carriage covered in heavy cloth was slowly heading out of the fishery.
A clear Ma character was branded on the carriage—the convoy of the Ma Family, who had long cooperated with the Wutai Sect and regularly came to purchase Treasure Fish.
This should have been nothing unusual.
Yet Chen Qing's gaze fixed on a humble-looking driver beside the carriage.
The man was of average build, dressed in the Ma Family's standard coarse-cloth short jacket and wearing a bamboo hat. He was entirely unfamiliar.
The way he handled the reins and drove the horse was unlike that of an ordinary driver. Whenever the carriage jolted, the breathing of those around it rose and fell accordingly; only this man's aura remained long, steady, and nearly nonexistent.
More importantly, a faint scent of blood was drifting out through the cracks in the carriage compartment.
Others might not have smelled it, but after undergoing marrow cleansing and bodily refinement, Chen Qing's five senses far surpassed those of an ordinary Transformation Force expert.
Just as the convoy was about to pass Chen Qing and the other two, the driver's gaze beneath his bamboo hat swept over Chen Qing, carrying a trace of barely perceptible wariness.
"Stop!"
Chen Qing stepped forward and looked at the