"Too bad. I'd wanted to catch up with him."
Even as he began to grasp the situation, Fu Qian didn't delay in shaking his head with a sigh. He continued speaking honestly.
"I just heard something interesting recently. I thought he might be interested."
He wasn't making that up, either. He'd deliberately found a chance to ask Li Weixuan's friend, Yuan Fang, whose name was the same.
As it turned out, it wasn't a simple case of sharing a name. His name had been chosen in imitation of an ancestor of the family.
That ancestor, also named Yuan Fang, had been so exceptionally gifted that, at thirty, he sensed the call of the Supreme Will and passed away in seclusion.
Considering the longstanding ties between the Yuan and Ji families, Fu Qian had wanted to confirm it for a long time.
Now fate had brought him back to this place, but the man had died, leaving no one to confirm the truth.
"Sounds like the Great Fortune Ming King and the Prophet were friends. So why would you do something like this?"
Besides, honesty did seem to be a surefire trick. Faced with Fu Qian's frankness, the lord, who seemed rather crafty, didn't press him for more details about what he'd said.
"If I hadn't stepped in, it would have swallowed everything."
As he spoke, he gestured toward Fu Qian's side, plainly hoping the latter would know who was friend and who was foe.
"So it's done this sort of thing many times?"
Fu Qian didn't rush to deny it. Instead, he touched the strange mass with one finger, savoring its pungent stench.
"Many times. Not just carriages... people, animals, even the trees in the square."
His behavior was strange, but his manner still gave the impression that communication was