I finished explaining what had happened afterward, then returned alone to the battlefield from before. By then, Wujing Mountain had already fallen silent. My expression darkened. Needless to say, the old man must have died without even a grave to contain him, considering how many imperial soldiers he had killed.
Just as I was preparing to go in and investigate, the woods behind me suddenly rustled. While concealed in broad daylight, I did not release my senses, since that made it easy for others to detect and counter-detect me. That was why I had only noticed the disturbance when it was this close.
"I was worried about you, so I wanted to go with you. Yuan Ci and Fellow Daoist Sun just returned, so they can lead the others." Shang Wanqiu emerged from the woods and spoke rather sheepishly.
"Fine, then come along." Darkness was gradually descending. Since she had already come, I could hardly send her away. Besides, having one more person raid the camp gave us one more advantage.
Shang Wanqiu was delighted. She immediately hid behind the carriage with me, then changed course into the woods of Wujing Mountain. We floated all the way up the mountain.
By the time we reached the camp halfway up the mountain, night had completely fallen. I did not know whether people had once lived on Wujing Mountain, or whether there had once been a Taoist temple, but there happened to be a stretch of level ground there. I paid attention to the location of the stairs and saw blood everywhere. It should have been left by the soldiers. As for where the old man had charged off to, we had no idea.
"Let's follow the blood trail," I said. Shang Wanqiu nodded, then followed me as we leaped up along