The wind swept grains of sand past his feet, but Chen Wuya remained where he stood. His cuff stirred faintly as his knuckles pressed lightly against the edge of his cloth pouch. He said nothing more, merely shifted his pack from his right shoulder to his left, unhurried as a peddler carrying his load through a market.
Bai Zhi stood slightly behind him, her sword already returned to its sheath, yet her hand had not left the hilt. Her gaze swept over the people opposite them. The figures that had once closed in now scattered without retreating, like dead leaves tossed by the wind but not yet fallen.
Zhou Li stood three paces away, his face livid. The gray-robed elder behind him murmured, "The letter is still on him. As long as we seize it and burn it, there'll be no fear of it spreading."
"You take him for a fool?" the old man in green sneered. "Since he dared bring it out, he must have prepared a fallback."
Before his words had faded, a black shadow burst from behind the crowd. Dressed in dark robes and carrying a short dagger at his waist, the man moved like an arrow, lunging straight for Chen Wuya's chest—it was Night Harrier, one of Yan Song's swiftest personal guards.
Rather than dodge, Chen Wuya stepped half a pace forward to meet the attack.
His palm jolted sharply. Misaligned Force erupted from the Laogong Acupoint, running in reverse through the Greater Yin Lung Meridian. His true qi was like water flowing upstream, forcefully turning back through his meridians. His left hand plunged into his robe, and his five fingers suddenly loosened.
The oil-paper secret letter flew out at once, spinning half a circle through the air just as it caught the fierce wind blowing