Wangfeng City was even more boisterous and dreamlike at night than by day. Lanterns of every color bathed the streets in a dazzling array of light. The crowds had not thinned; if anything, people jostled shoulder to shoulder even more tightly. Taverns and gambling houses were at their liveliest, with music and instruments mingling with shouts and cries, filling the air with a heady, extravagant air of drunken revelry.
Li Yuan found an inconspicuous inn and settled in. His room was cramped and bare, but at least it was quiet. He sat cross-legged on the hard bed, not going to sleep right away. Instead, he carefully reviewed everything that had happened during the day.
The Black Flood Dragon Gang's provocation was merely a glimpse of the chaos at the bottom of Wangfeng City. What truly concerned him was the "Netherworld Ghost Market" the tall, lean assassin had mentioned before dying, and the "Poison Fang" the silk-clad man at the teahouse had brought up.
"The Netherworld Ghost Market..." Li Yuan murmured, unconsciously rubbing the cold Netherworld Soul Chasing Token against his chest with his fingertips. The strange eye rune on the bone token seemed to give off an almost imperceptible chill in the darkness, pulsing faintly like a living thing and answering some distant presence.
This was definitely no ordinary faction's possession. Though he had uprooted the Netherworld Cult's outpost in Black Mountain City, its roots were clearly far deeper than he had imagined. The Netherworld Ghost Market was likely an important node in its network throughout Tianfeng Prefecture.
And Poison Fang... Why would the head of an assassin organization active in the prefecture's southwest specifically send someone to watch for young Lone Walkers coming from the direction of Black Mountain City? Was it a bounty from the Netherworld Cult, or...