The firelight gradually dimmed, leaving only a few strands of ash swirling in the wind. Chen Wuya leaned against the woodpile, eyelids lowered, his breathing as steady as someone fast asleep. Yet the fingertips hidden in his sleeve remained pressed against that shard of pottery, unmoving.
The rhythm of that bird landing on the dead tree still echoed in his mind—three short beats, a pause, then three more. It was the same tempo as his tapping knee, and also the first set of footfalls for the Universe Reversal Step. There was no such thing as a coincidence this perfect. Could a bird understand human speech? Or was someone using it to deliver messages?
He did not open his eyes, but his ears never relaxed. After the laughter faded, the camp fell quiet, and groups of footsteps retreated into the tents. Only two faint sounds came from the northwest corner, like clods of earth rolling to the bottom of a pit.
He slowly tucked the pottery shard back into its cloth pouch, then used the motion of turning over to prop up half his body. Only a few drunken men remained beside the fire, sprawled on the muddy ground and snoring. The crowd had completely dispersed.
Chen Wuya rose, planted his feet firmly on the ground, and walked step by step toward the edge of the camp. He skirted the main path and moved along the outsides of the tents, keeping his footsteps extremely light. Halfway there, he suddenly heard a rustling ahead. Looking down, he saw that the earth had been disturbed, with grass roots turned up, while more than half of the dead grass that had originally been piled there was gone.
He crouched and ran his fingers over the ground. The dampness had not yet faded; it had been dug up recently. Half a step farther on, a broken reed was stuck obliquely into the soil. Its tip had been sharpened, and its angle happened to point toward the crooked tree outside the camp. Moonlight struck it, and the end reflected a faint gleam.
He stared at that beam of light for a moment, then straightened and walked toward Old Wu Tou's shack.
The old man was not asleep. He sat on a small stool in front of the door, holding his jujube-wood cane and repeatedly wiping it with a coarse cloth. Every so often, his finger pressed a certain depression in the cane's head, as if testing some mechanism.
"Not resting yet?" Chen Wuya approached, his voice lowered to a whisper.
Old Wu Tou looked up at him. "You aren't resting either."
"I can't sleep soundly." Chen Wuya sat against a support post of the shack. "That bird just now was flying strangely."
The old man's hands paused, but he did not answer.
"The number of times it wagged its tail matched the rhythm of my tapping leg." Chen Wuya stared at him. "You've traveled far and wide with the escort agency for all these years. Have you ever seen anyone use a bird to send messages?"
Old Wu Tou slowly set down his cane. "I've seen notes tied to kite strings, and I've seen people raise messenger pigeons. But using a wild bird as a courier... Unless the bird was trained, or—someone was waiting for a signal."
"I already gave it a signal." Chen Wuya let out a cold laugh. "I tapped three times, and it came."
Old Wu Tou was silent for a moment before saying, "Some footprints are an accident when stepped once. Step twice, and they become a road."
Chen Wuya nodded. "The question now is, where does this road lead?"
The two said nothing more. The night wind swept through the camp, making the tents billow faintly. In the distance, a night watchman passed with a lantern, his shadow stretching and shrinking on the ground.
Chen Wuya returned to his shack and pulled a yellowed sheet of paper from his pack. It was a supplementary page of the Canglang Art that he had completed based on the fragmentary scroll, bearing a diagram of the misaligned force circulation he had worked out himself. The lines were crooked, their direction bizarre, utterly unlike any orthodox internal art. He deliberately left one corner exposed on the table, then scattered a ring of powder mixed from medicinal residue and ash at the doorway. He had discovered this while treating his wounds: when misaligned force circulated, it caused minute disturbances in the airflow. Ordinary people could not detect them, but when someone who had practiced a similar art approached, the traces would distort.
After doing all this, he lay down and closed his eyes. Misaligned force slowly coursed through his meridians as he restrained his aura, like a creature lying in wait.
Half an hour passed.
Extremely light footsteps sounded outside the door, almost drowned out by the wind buffeting the tent. The person stopped at the entrance, lowered their head, and glanced at the ground, their brows faintly furrowing as if they had noticed something strange about the powder. But they did not retreat. Instead, they bent down for a closer look, and their gaze was immediately drawn to the sheet of paper on the table.
They reached out to take it.
The instant their fingertips touched the paper, Chen Wuya suddenly opened his eyes.
The person reacted with astonishing speed, immediately withdrawing their hand and retreating. With a flash of movement, they slipped into the shadows. Their actions were clean and decisive, yet carried no killing intent. It seemed more like they had come to confirm whether something existed.
Chen Wuya did not pursue them. He quietly watched the direction in which they vanished until their footsteps could no longer be heard, then rose and walked to the doorway.
The powder on the ground had been crushed beneath a clear footprint. The sole pattern was a neat interlocking diamond design, unlike the hemp shoes commonly worn by the villagers or the broken boots scavenged by refugees. This pattern looked more like the standardized leather soles used by the military.
He crouched, scraped up some remaining gray powder with his fingernail, and rubbed it between his fingers. A trace of slickness reached his fingertip—it had been mixed with wax. Leaving reflective footprints at night for tracking or marking was a trick commonly used by spies.
"Not a newcomer." He reached his conclusion. "Someone who infiltrated long ago."
He returned to the table and spread the sheet of paper open again, his finger tracing several lines on the misaligned force diagram. If the other party had come to steal martial secrets, this diagram was tempting enough. But if what truly concerned them was the transmission of intelligence, then this diagram was merely a decoy. Their real target was the camp's defenses—their strengths and weaknesses.
He snuffed out the oil lamp and sat cross-legged. Misaligned force circulated slowly through his body. This time, he deliberately made his true qi stray onto a crooked path, forming a faint tremor at his shoulder blade. It was a new phenomenon he had discovered recently: whenever misaligned force passed through an old injury, fleeting purplish-blue patterns surfaced beneath his skin and writhed like living things. Such fluctuations could be sensed by certain special medicinal powders.
In other words, as long as someone wanted to investigate whether his injuries were genuine, they had to approach. And once they approached, they would trigger the trap.
He opened his eyes and looked outside the shack.
Moonlight spilled across the open ground, and silence reigned. Yet the reflection on the reed still pointed toward the distant crooked tree.
He rose and walked out of the shack, arriving beside the fire. The embers were still warm. He picked up a half-burned branch and lightly drew three lines on the ground.
The first lay horizontally, representing the spy leader who had already been defeated.
The second extended from one corner of the camp, representing the scout who had appeared tonight.
The third pointed straight north, toward the direction of the foreign race's encampment.
He stared at the three lines and muttered, "A leader has died, yet they can still continue sending messages. That means someone else is backing them from behind. They aren't afraid of exposure because they know someone here is tipping them off."
Before he had finished speaking, footsteps sounded behind him.
Old Wu Tou stood not far away, both hands resting on his cane, his gaze falling on the lines in the dirt.
"You're going to make a move?" he asked.
"I have no choice." Chen Wuya snapped the branch in two and tossed it into the ashes. "But since they like sending messages, let's let them continue sending them."
Old Wu Tou looked at him. "You want to set bait?"
"No." Chen Wuya shook his head. "I want them to think I'm setting bait."
The corners of Old Wu Tou's mouth lifted faintly, and he said nothing more.
Chen Wuya turned and walked back toward his shack. When he passed the water source, his footsteps suddenly halted.
Beside the bucket was a small patch of dampness. It had not been spilled water. Someone had crouched there and washed their hands. The mark was faint, but the impressions of five spread fingers pressing against the rim of the bucket could still be made out.
He crouched and touched the damp spot with his fingertip.
The water was cold, but the lingering warmth was slightly greater than the night wind's. Someone had been there not long ago.
He followed the damp trail backward with his eyes, eventually landing on a tent near the northwest corner. It was where the kitchen laborers lived, normally occupied by two middle-aged women who took turns preparing meals. One of them was an outsider who had joined the camp only half a month ago.
He memorized the location.
Back inside the shack, he felt a small packet of medicinal powder from the bottom of his pack and opened it for a look. He had separated it from his wound-treatment medicine and mixed in a mineral powder that changed color when heated. As long as it was applied to an object's surface, it would reveal faint red marks when exposed to a temperature close to body heat.
He carefully scattered the powder over the corner of the table, the doorframe, and the edge of the bed. Then he spread the misaligned force diagram open again, weighed it down beneath a stone, and left only one corner exposed.
Then he lay down and closed his eyes, feigning sleep.
He did not know how much time passed before faint footsteps sounded outside the door again.
This time, the person did not stop at the entrance. They directly lifted the curtain and entered.
Chen Wuya held his breath, sinking the misaligned force into his dantian while relaxing all his muscles as usual.
The person stood before the table and lowered their head to examine the diagram. After a moment, they reached out to touch the edge of the paper.
The instant their fingertips touched the tabletop, Chen Wuya suddenly opened his eyes. His right hand swept up, and the powder in his palm shot forward.
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