The young woman in the gauzy dress said nothing. She merely bowed slightly in greeting.
Then she turned and continued walking.
Chen Yan followed her.
After leading Chen Yan past several more private rooms, she stopped in front of one.
She raised her hand and gently knocked twice on the door.
"Steward Ding, an immortal master from the Empty Mountain Sect wishes to see you. He says he's looking for the immortal master Song who met with you some time ago."
"Come in."
A few seconds later, a man's voice came from inside.
Perhaps it was just his imagination, but Chen Yan thought the voice sounded familiar, as though he had heard it somewhere before.
The young woman stepped aside and opened the door for Chen Yan.
"Senior Brother Sun, please come in."
Chen Yan walked into the room.
It was an old-fashioned private room, and judging by its furnishings, it looked much like a reception room.
The tables, chairs, and decorations were clearly expensive. They must have been worth a good deal of silver in the secular world.
A long table stood in the middle of the room, with a set of fine tea ware arranged on top.
Behind the table sat a man in splendid silk robes.
He didn't get up. He merely sat there, sizing up Chen Yan as he entered. His gaze swept over Chen Yan's face, then his daoist robe, and finally the gilded cloud-and-crane pattern on his sleeve.
"Fellow Daoist, please, have a seat."
The elegantly dressed man smiled. He picked up a teacup, rinsed it with hot water, then poured tea into Chen Yan's cup.
"Have you come here to look for Steward Song?"
"Yes," Chen Yan replied.
"But Steward Song said he doesn't want to see anyone right now—not even fellow disciples from the Empty Mountain Sect."
The gambling house steward, surnamed Ding, said this.
Chen Yan knew perfectly well that Steward Ding was testing him.
But what concerned Chen Yan more was that, for some reason, the man's voice sounded so familiar.
"Steward Song is dead," Chen Yan said bluntly.
The hand holding the teapot paused slightly, but no trace of emotion showed on Steward Ding's face.
Clearly, he knew about Song Mingde's death.
This gambling house steward was no ordinary man. Even most of the Empty Mountain Sect's Outer Court Disciples didn't know Song Mingde was dead.
"Then why have you come here looking for Steward Song?" Steward Ding asked.
"To retrieve something he left here," Chen Yan replied.
He was trying his luck.
"Something Steward Song left behind?"
Steward Ding looked perplexed, pretending he had no idea what Chen Yan meant.
"I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about, Fellow Daoist."
He was playing dumb.
Chen Yan knew perfectly well that Steward Ding was playing dumb.
Song Mingde had likely guessed that his chances of survival were slim before he went to the Law Enforcement Hall to turn himself in. So he had left the list at the gambling house.
"Elder Fu Qian sent me," Chen Yan said.
"Fellow Daoist, even if you invoke Elder Fu's name—or even Sect Master Yun's—something that doesn't exist still doesn't exist."
Steward Ding smiled wryly.
"Surely you don't expect me to conjure it out of thin air?"
Despite what he said, Steward Ding kept glancing, seemingly casually, toward Chen Yan's waist.
That was where a token would normally hang.
"I understand. Sorry to trouble you today, Steward Ding."
Chen Yan cupped his hands.
"Not at all, not at all. Fellow Daoist Sun is welcome to visit anytime."
Steward Ding smiled, then plucked a thin blade of grass from a nearby potted plant and tucked it into his mouth.
The moment Chen Yan saw him do that, the hair on his body stood on end, his pupils contracted, and true qi surged out of his Martial Spring.
If not for the concealment of the Hidden Immortal Art, the gambling house steward would surely have sensed his aura and noticed something was wrong.
At last, Chen Yan understood why Steward Ding's voice had seemed so familiar from the moment they met.
"You're a strange kid, you know that?"
"Sooner or later, I'll kill you."
The man before him gradually merged with the image of the man in coarse brown robes, a great saber slung over his shoulder.
Steward Ding was the very man who had ambushed and hunted Chen Yan and Cheng Ziying in multiple Reincarnations!
Chen Yan hadn't recognized him at first. It was simply too hard to connect this well-dressed, sharp-minded, genial-looking steward with that scruffy, sinister-eyed killer.
But that gesture—the way he had just tucked the grass blade into his mouth—had made the two figures from now and more than two years in the future unmistakably one and the same.
"Fellow Daoist, is something wrong?" Steward Ding asked, looking at Chen Yan with concern.
His voice was exactly the same as that of the man in the coarse brown robes.
"Nothing," Chen Yan replied, cupping his hands.
"I'll take my leave."
He concealed his hatred and the surging true qi, then left.
Chen Yan hurried out of the gambling house and headed toward the prince's manor.
What exactly had happened over the next two years?
For now, he could make a reasonable guess: Elder Zhengfa Bai Qiming and Martial Suppression Elder Fu Qian of Qingchan Peak most likely belonged to opposing factions.
That was clear from the fact that Lan Wei, an elder of Qingchan Peak's Scripture Hall and one of Fu Qian's subordinates, had a terrible impression of Lu Li, who was close to Elder Zhengfa.
And among those caught up in the calamity that struck the Outer Court, the faction that suffered the heaviest losses was the one aligned with the Sword-wielding Elder and Martial Suppression Elder.
Worse, Bai Qiming's faction had actually benefited from the disaster.
Chen Yan couldn't help wondering whether Bai Qiming was behind this whole chain of events.
If Bai Qiming really was behind it, what about Lu Li?
During this sect mission, Lu Li had more than enough opportunities to kill Chen Yan, but he hadn't.
Chen Yan considered two possibilities. The first was that although Lu Li was now close to Bai Qiming, he hadn't yet won Bai Qiming's complete trust.
Lu Li might not know what was going on.
The other possibility was that Bai Qiming knew Chen Yan was under Fu Qian's watchful eye. Making a move against him recklessly could alert the enemy.
So they couldn't afford to target Chen Yan.
Of course, all of this hinged on Bai Qiming being behind the whole chain of events.
These were nothing but Chen Yan's guesses. He had no evidence at all.
Standing before the manor gates, Chen Yan took a deep breath and pushed all the tangled thoughts out of his mind for the moment.
He had to deal with what was right in front of him first.
Qian Xun was still being held under guard by Lu Li and Zheng Fei. The urgent report had already been sent from the Consulate Office to the Empty Mountain Sect, and a response should come soon.
With that in mind, Chen Yan relied on his memory to find his way back to the courtyard the manor steward had assigned to the Empty Mountain Sect cultivators not long ago.
But when Chen Yan returned to the courtyard, it wasn't just Lu Li, Zheng Fei, and the captive Qian Xun there.
Another cultivator was present, dressed in the Empty Mountain Sect's daoist robes and looking to be around forty.
A wave pattern was embroidered on his collar, marking his identity.
He was from Yuanhua Mountain.
Before you continue