To set aside for now how Han Li managed to find the bamboo courtyard where Annie and her disciples lived the next morning and ask to see "Miss Mo," let us turn back a few hours and see what had happened...
?
It was late at night.
It was around the hour of the Tiger, some four or five hours after the hour of the Dog, when the entire family of Prince Xin had been killed.
"..."
While a certain Miss Mo was still foolishly following the direction the Five Friends of Mengshan had indicated, searching fruitlessly northeastward outside the walls of Xujing before turning back and anxiously scurrying around the woods and mountains like a headless fly, Han Li had already escorted the still-shaken Old Master Qin and his family from Prince Xin's residence back to the Qin estate. He then slipped out again and, following an aura he had left on those four people earlier, flew low and carefully outside Xujing.
He was now southeast of Xujing, in the exact opposite direction from where Miss Mo had gone to search.
The mountains and forests here were dense, and there were hardly any homes. The surrounding terrain offered many hiding places, and it was complicated enough that Han Li had to fly low beneath the treetops and sense his surroundings carefully.
"Hm?"
After flying forward for a while, Han Li soon felt, guided by the aura, that he was drawing closer to his destination. He promptly lowered the dark green flying boat beneath his feet, stopped using the flying artifact, and instead silently approached the faintly glowing, dilapidated mountain god temple ahead with light-footed stealth.
"Getting closer."
"If I'm not mistaken, it should be just up ahead."
"Better to be careful."
Xujing really was a dangerous place. It was