West of Ying Capital, the capital of the Great Chu Kingdom, stood a sprawling compound.
The compound was lush and green, with pavilions and waterside terraces, every detail in place. It had a poetic beauty about it.
At first glance, though, it looked like an ordinary courtyard. There were countless places like it throughout Ying Capital—not a hundred, then eighty. But step inside, and you would notice the difference. The compound was guarded with extreme vigilance, with a post every three paces and a sentry every five. You could even say that a mosquito would have to pass through layer after layer of permission to get in.
What kind of place was this? How could somewhere inside the capital be guarded so heavily?
Could it be...
At the heart of the compound stood a grand hall, about five hundred square meters in size.
Suddenly, a somewhat ethereal blue bird appeared out of nowhere in midair, less than a zhang from the hall. The moment it appeared, it flew straight toward the building.
A blue bird flying straight toward a hall was nothing strange.
What was strange was that, judging by its flight path, it would clearly crash into the ancient brick wall if it kept flying straight.
At that speed, it would surely smash its head and draw blood if it hit the wall. It didn't even know enough to dodge or take a detour.
Could it be... that this blue bird was an idiot?
But it didn't look like one...
About a breath later, the blue bird had reached the ancient wall. It was now extremely close, less than half a foot away, yet it showed no sign of slowing down.
By now, it was probably too late for it to slow down.
It looked like this blue bird was about to splatter blood all over the place.
Just as the two were about to collide, the blue bird's head suddenly slipped into the wall without the slightest resistance. Its body quickly followed, disappearing inside. It was as if the ancient wall had swallowed the entire bird.
On the other side of the wall, inside the grand hall, a blue bird suddenly emerged from the wall at the same spot.
First came its head, then its body, and finally its long blue tail.
Once it was through, the blue bird flew past the figures inside the hall and straight toward a middle-aged man in white robes on the eastern side.
After landing on the table, the bird chirped twice.
Only then did the middle-aged man in white stop writing with his brush and look at the blue bird before him. He wasn't surprised to see it. With a thought, he stirred up a surge of spiritual qi. The middle-aged man then closed his eyes for a moment before opening them with a look of understanding.
A moment later, the middle-aged man activated his divine ability. The blue bird flapped its wings and took off.
Once again, it passed straight through the wall.
When the blue bird flew into the air outside the grand hall, it abruptly vanished without a trace.
Judging by where it had disappeared and the direction it had been flying, it had presumably returned the way it came.
Now, back to the middle-aged man in white inside the hall.
After the blue bird flew away, the middle-aged man pondered for a moment, then suddenly stood up. He surveyed the entire hall, taking in the equally busy figures inside and the blue birds that flitted back and forth from time to time, before hurrying toward the rear courtyard.
At that moment, the hundred or so figures inside the hall remained busy at their desks. Some wrote with flourishing brushstrokes, others manipulated the blue birds before them, while still others huddled together in quiet conversation...
But none of them paid the middle-aged man in white any attention. They didn't even glance at him. He didn't seem to mind in the slightest.
Perhaps he was used to it.
In a hall in the grand hall's rear courtyard,
the middle-aged man in white stood respectfully before a middle-aged scholar dressed in a blue robe.
Suddenly, the middle-aged scholar muttered under his breath, "So the people at Xiaoxiang Academy don't know anything either?"
The middle-aged man in white didn't answer. He knew his superior wasn't asking him.
Sure enough, the middle-aged scholar continued, "All right, Xu He, you may go. Keep monitoring for news in that area."
The middle-aged man in white, Xu He, acknowledged the order with a nod, bowed, and withdrew.
After Xu He left, the middle-aged scholar sat in his chair and thought for a moment. Then he suddenly rapped his knuckles on the wooden table to his right, stood up, and headed outside.
Ten li outside Ying Capital, on Mount Ziyang, stood a Daoist temple called Ziyang Temple.
It was said that Ziyang Temple's "innate divination" was unmatched under heaven. It could calculate the heavens, the earth, and all living beings, even a person's past life, present life, and future.
As a result, Ziyang Temple was always bustling with worshippers, and visitors came in an endless stream.
On this day, a guest appeared in the rear courtyard of Ziyang Temple, a place usually closed to outsiders. He wore a blue robe and was dressed simply.
That's right, the guest was the middle-aged scholar.
At that moment, he sat facing a Daoist priest in robes, sipping tea and chatting.
The priest's beard and hair were completely white, yet his complexion was ruddy. At a glance, he seemed a true master of health and longevity.
He was the temple's abbot, the Daoist Master of Heavenly Secrets. Usually, he was as elusive as a divine dragon—but for some reason, he had come out to meet the middle-aged scholar today.
"Dean Wang, has the Celestial Pivot Secret Court really found no other information?"
The middle-aged scholar—Dean Wang—gave a wry smile and replied, "To be honest, Daoist Master, we really haven't found the slightest clue. Otherwise, I wouldn't keep troubling you."
Truthfully, the middle-aged scholar didn't want to ask for help. But that person had hidden himself so well that not a single clue had come to light. They had only a name on the Heavenly Dao Virtual Network. How could they investigate that?
But his superiors were waiting for an answer, and he had to do everything he could. Otherwise, it would make the Celestial Pivot Secret Court look negligent.
So the middle-aged scholar could only come and test the power of innate divination, to see if it could locate the other party, though he didn't have much hope.
Even so, he wasn't ready to give up. Perhaps the Daoists had some secret divination technique, never shared with outsiders, that could easily find the person.
But if nothing came of it, he could only give up for now and wait until the other party let something slip.
Hearing that Dean Wang had no other leads, the Daoist Master of Heavenly Secrets furrowed his brows. He already knew this would probably come to nothing. But since the other man wouldn't be satisfied without trying, the Daoist Master could only say, "Dean Wang, tell me everything you know. I'll do my best."
A moment later, the Daoist Master of Heavenly Secrets shook his head.
The middle-aged scholar's heart sank at the sight, though he had already prepared himself for this outcome.
The Daoist Master of Heavenly Secrets explained, "Dean Wang, I've already tried the [Five Great Divination Arts], the [Tui Bei Tu], the [Lianshan], the [Guicang], the [Book of Changes], and all the rest, but none of them produced any result."
Hearing this, the middle-aged scholar knew that, given the information they had, it was only natural that the divination had failed.
The Daoist Master of Heavenly Secrets was one of the Daoist sect's foremost masters of divination. He excelled at the [Five Great Divination Arts]: the [Ziwei Doushu], the [Nanjishenshu], the [Beijishenshu], the [Tiebanshenshu], and the [Shaozishenshu].
If even the Daoist Master of Heavenly Secrets couldn't divine the answer, then nobody in the world could.
Now he had truly given up hope.
Still, the fact that the Daoist Master of Heavenly Secrets couldn't divine the answer gave him something to report. He had done everything he could.
In truth, it would have been terrifying if the other man had been able to divine the answer.
"Sorry for the trouble, Daoist Master."
"No trouble. I'm curious myself about who this person is. But in the end, we simply have too little information. We only have the name 'Anonymous,' and that name is on the Heavenly Dao Virtual Network. On top of that, he has never communicated with anyone else, which is as good as having the Heavenly Dao conceal his identity.
"If we had more information—for instance, if you had spoken with him on the Heavenly Dao Virtual Network—the difficulty of divining his identity should drop considerably."
The middle-aged scholar heard this and thought, Just as I expected.
The Celestial Pivot Secret Court also had people who specialized in divination, but their skill in that field was nowhere near the Daoist Master's.
But he knew that divination used known information to infer what was unknown.
The more you knew, the easier it was to calculate the result. By the same logic, the less you knew, the harder it was.
The worst part was that, in the case of the creator of [Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage], Anonymous, they knew only his name on the Heavenly Dao Virtual Network and had no other connection to him. That was no different from knowing nothing about him at all.
In such a situation, even a master of divination could spend an entire lifetime searching every city in the world, one by one.
Without any other information, it would all be a waste of effort.
But there was too little information?
It looked like he would have to lure the other man into revealing a little more.
Even false information would do.
It would still be better than knowing nothing at all.
Dean Wang knew that when it came to divination, the more information one had, the less likely one was to make a mistake. Even if someone deliberately provided misleading information, as long as there was enough of it, one could calmly filter it out.
Having come up with a plan, Dean Wang stopped dwelling on the matter. He knew the Daoist Master had truly done everything he could.
Besides, if the Daoist Master could divine the answer with so little information, then there would be nothing under heaven the Daoists couldn't uncover. In that case, the Daoist sect might even be in danger. So no matter whether the Daoist Master had managed to divine the answer today, his reply to Dean Wang would probably be that he hadn't.
Dean Wang had been prepared for this all along, so he stopped dwelling on the matter.
"Daoist Master, in your opinion, who exactly is this 'Anonymous'? What kind of person is he?
"Is he a master of mathematics? An ordinary peddler? Or perhaps a diligent young scholar still at school?"
"Well, any of those are possible. But the divine ability he created is called [Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage]. You could start by investigating that."
"Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage? That's a problem from the Classic of Sunzi. Do you mean we should look into people who study mathematics in depth?"
"That is one lead.
"But the Classic of Sunzi has been on the Heavenly Dao Network for several hundred years. Anyone can study it. And 'Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage' is one of the simpler problems in the Classic of Sunzi. Most people have probably studied it.
"So, Dean Wang, you'd best begin by investigating everyone who studies mathematics in depth.
"It would be best if you found him.
"If you can't, then there's nothing to be done. You'll just have to wait for him to slip up."
"Thank you for your guidance, Daoist Master."
"Also, the name of this divine ability contains a new word: 'Mathematics.' You could look into that too and see if anyone has used it before."
Dean Wang's eyes suddenly lit up. That really was another lead. But it would mean a tremendous amount of work, and he didn't know if his superiors would let them spend years of effort on it.