Morning light had just broken when Chen Wuya leaned against the second-floor window of the inn. Hearing movement below, he looked up to see several people in fitted blue attire standing in the middle of the street. The one in front held a red flag aloft; as it snapped in the wind, it gave off a crisp sound.
Bai Zhi emerged from the room next door with her sword in hand. She walked to the window, took one look outside, and said softly, "Qingfeng disciples."
Mo Feng had woken up too. Rubbing his eyes, he leaned over. "How did they find us?"
Chen Wuya did not answer. He stared at the flag as the Misaligned Force in his sea of consciousness suddenly stirred. That sound from before had been wrong. It was not cloth slapping in the wind, but carried the frequency of vibrating true qi. Only the upper ranks of the Enforcement Hall used this method of communication; outsiders could not learn it.
Downstairs, the disciple leading the group shouted, "The Sect Master sensed tremors from the Devil's Den and has ordered us to escort Young Master Chen and Junior Sister Bai! Please return to the mountain with us at once!"
Once the words fell, the flag swayed three more times in a short, rapid rhythm.
Chen Wuya closed his eyes. The Misaligned Force stretched through the air, catching the minute discrepancies within the flag's fluctuations. The signal should have meant, "Safety confirmed. Remain where you are and await aid," but one segment of its true-qi pulse had been altered, as though someone had hastily inserted another message.
Frowning, he began to reverse-engineer that frequency. The Misaligned Practice Connects to Spirit system immediately responded:
[Encrypted message detected. Reverse reconstruction?]
He nodded.
The remaining Misaligned Force within him