The night wind had stopped.
The shadow in the woods had already fled ten li. His footsteps went from a swift dash to a stagger, until at last he leaned against a crooked pine tree, gasping for breath. His right wrist was still numb, as though something had burrowed into his meridians, twitching every so often. He lowered his head to look at his hand, spreading and clenching his fingers. The movements were so stiff they barely seemed like his own.
That kick just now had been impossible to defend against.
It was neither fast nor clever. It was—utterly unreasonable. It had clearly struck the outer ankle, yet the force had surged up from the inner side, throwing his true qi circulation into chaos. It felt like a river that should have flowed downhill, only for someone to force it backward into the mouth of a mountain spring.
Gritting his teeth, he pulled a black bone whistle from his robes. His fingertips lingered over its mouth for a long while, but in the end, he did not blow it.
There was no use blowing it. The more men they sent, the faster they would die. Chen Wuya had not left his house, drawn his sword, or even stood up, yet he had forced him back. If he reported such a thing, people would only say he had disgraced the Shadow Fang Guard.
But if he did not report it... he knew Tuoba Lie's methods. When a colleague had failed a mission last time, he had been skinned and hung from a flagpole for three days. They had not even been allowed to retrieve the body.
He raised his head and looked north. The distant mountain ridge was sharp as a blade, in the direction of North Valley's secret outpost. He