Rebel

The woman in the tent was cloaked in black, her face hidden. Only her sapphire-blue eyes showed.

Mo Jingjing took the opportunity to survey the tent. Aside from the one-foot-tall table in front of the woman, there was nothing else.

No ambush.

The situation was somewhat unexpected. Hearing the mysterious woman's title for him, he raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not the 'Rebel' you're talking about. Why don't you get straight to the point? What do you want with me, dragging me here in the middle of the night?"

The woman in the black veil showed no emotion. She only gazed at him sincerely.

"Everything is arranged by fate, and I am merely a coordinate in the river of your destiny."

The more mysterious she sounded, the more Mo Jingxian felt like playing along.

Ever since he had entered the tent, the feeling in his heart had grown stronger.

He was certain it wasn't the mysterious woman's ability. It had to be some object on her.

Mo Jingxian sat down beside the table, facing the mysterious woman.

"Then, if you please... Your Excellency, the Coordinate, what guidance can you offer me tonight?"

The woman took out a set of bone tiles and laid them out on the table in a row. There were thirteen in all.

In the dim lamplight, the tiles gave off a soft glow. The same symbol was carved on the back of each one.

It looked like a wheel, with several mysterious characters he couldn't read in its center.

They seemed to be the same kind of characters as those written on the city gates.

"Turn over three. In the river of destiny, there are always special individuals who surface, leaving indelible traces behind."

Mo Jingxian carefully sensed the bone tiles but detected no danger. They seemed to be ordinary objects.

He reached out and turned one over. It showed a river, with indistinct shadows beneath the water.

He looked up at the mysterious woman across from him. She gestured for him to continue.

A late-night meeting, a mysterious woman, bone tiles—every part of the scene felt eerie.

Mo Jingxian quickly turned over the two tiles beside it.

One depicted several stick figures dancing around a fire, with a number of eyes carved all around them.

The eyes were all different shapes. One even looked like a Sharingan.

The other was completely black—or rather, blank. There was nothing on it.

The mysterious woman furrowed her brow. The movement was unmistakable; it was the first time Mo Jingxian had sensed any change in her emotions.

Silence settled over the tent. He didn't urge her, simply waiting.

"Those who pry into fate will inevitably sink into the abyss of the void."

"What does that mean?"

The woman looked him over again, from head to toe.

Just as Mo Jingxian began to feel uneasy under her gaze and was about to flip the table, she spoke again.

"Not you."

"What?" Mo Jingjing was stunned. She'd lured him here in the middle of the night, only to say she'd made a mistake.

"Not me... Are you messing with me?"

The mysterious woman paid no attention to his attitude. The confusion in her eyes slowly faded.

"Listening to fate can easily draw one into the river of the heart. It isn't you as you are now. Your destiny lies in your future."

Mo Jingxian translated her meaning in his head. In short, he'd come too early.

He hadn't forgotten why he was here. The woman was hiding a mysterious object, and it seemed to have something to do with him.

"Then what? Don't tell me we're done!"

The woman put the bone tiles away and returned to her former impassive state.

"Please settle the divination fee. That'll be twenty-five Moonstones. Thank you!"

The sudden turn nearly threw Mo Jingxian off balance.

If not for the real, powerful feeling he'd had, he would've thought she was trying to scam him.

He fished out the coins left over from his meal. They called them Moonstones here.

At least he had just enough left to pay. Mo Jingxian counted out twenty-five and placed them on the table.

He idly toyed with the remaining Moonstone in his hand, turning the clear crystal between his fingers.

"I thought fate had brought us together. Turns out this was just business."

She seemed not to hear the teasing in his voice and stared earnestly into his eyes.

"Fate has long since marked a price for everything in secret."

The Moonstone spinning at his fingertips came to an abrupt stop.

This was the second time Mo Jingxian had heard that phrase. The first had been when he awakened his Golden Finger, when some voice had imprinted those words in his mind.

The playful expression vanished from his face, replaced by a sudden seriousness.

At last, he was certain she wasn't putting on a mysterious act. Some unknown presence seemed to have set its sights on him long ago.

He didn't know what it was. Perhaps the actions he thought he'd chosen for himself had already been arranged by that presence.

A chill shot from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head.

The mysterious woman took a small glass bottle from her robes. Purple clouds churned inside.

Every so often, he caught a glimpse of a slender shadow concealed within, but it quickly disappeared into the purple mist again.

Mo Jingxian's heart clenched. This was the feeling.

The moment the bottle appeared, the longing and the sense of being summoned in his heart erupted completely.

His gaze locked on the purple clouds. The elements within his body vibrated in unison, answering them.

The woman opened the bottle and dropped one Moonstone inside.

Like water being soaked up by a sponge, the Moonstone absorbed every last wisp of purple mist in the blink of an eye.

The fleeting shadow vanished without a trace.

The mysterious woman handed him the bottle. "Here you are. That'll be one Moonstone."

Mo Jingxian blankly handed her the Moonstone in his hand and took the bottle.

It felt unreal. He'd obtained the strange object he'd been longing for so easily.

The bottle felt solid in his hand, and the information he received from the elements around him proved he wasn't under an illusion.

She'd handed it over as casually as if she were tossing him a flatbread.

"Clatter!"

Mo Jingxian took out the Moonstone. It had turned a deep purplish black.

He held it up to the candlelight. Light passed through it, revealing what looked like a tiny dragon swimming inside.

"Mysterious traveler, the Dragon Vein has yet to mature. The time isn't right. Please leave as soon as you can."

Mo Jingxian stopped examining the stone, sharply catching several key points in her words.

First, she'd changed the way she addressed him. The mysterious woman must have grown suspicious about his origins.

It seemed she was just an ordinary person with some mysterious powers.

If she was human, that made things easier—especially since she believed in fair trade.

Second... Dragon Vein, timing, leaving. There was a lot to unpack in those words.

Conversely, once the Dragon Vein matured, he'd be able to come and claim it.

With that in mind, Mo Jingxian raised the Moonstone in his hand and gave it a shake.

"Two questions. First, when will the Dragon Vein mature, and how will I know?"

"The Dragon Vein will mature when it is ready. The Moonstone in your hand is the key to entering it. It will keep guiding you."

He silently translated her answer:

She didn't know when the Dragon Vein would mature. When it did, the Moonstone would react.

He committed that to memory, then asked his second question.

"Could I get the Dragon Vein ahead of time? You know... I'd feel safer keeping a good thing in my own hands."

The mysterious woman began gathering the bone tiles from the table, placing them neatly in their box one by one.

"An immature Dragon Vein has no form or substance. No one can obtain it."

All right, then.

Seeing that she was trying to send him on his way, he didn't linger. He'd already learned far more than he'd expected tonight.

"By the way, there is more than one Rebel marked by fate."

She offered him one last piece of information as he was about to leave.

Mo Jingxian walked along the silent city streets, examining the Moonstone in his hand over and over.

The powerful sense of being summoned had now disappeared. It seemed this little thing had led him there.

Since fate lay at some point in the future, there was no point in thinking about it now.

He put the Moonstone away and slipped seamlessly into the shadows cast by the city buildings.

An hour later.

After searching the entire city, Mo Jingxian still hadn't found anything else out of the ordinary.

Looks like she didn't lie to me. There really isn't any clue to the Dragon Vein.

That's fine. We've been out for a while. If I don't head back soon, the other two will start worrying.

"More than one, huh? This is getting more and more interesting..."

Under the sunlight, the ancient city returned to its usual bustle, and the three of them made it out through the city gate.

After resting for a full day and night, they all felt refreshed, back in peak condition.

Even their conversations felt more relaxed.

With no pursuers and the danger behind them, the three headed toward the Land of Earth.

They hadn't gone far when Ayako Hyuuga suddenly exclaimed in shock.

"It's gone! The ancient city has disappeared!"

The other two turned around.

Sure enough, there was nothing in the direction of the city. Nothing at all.

They'd traveled less than two kilometers, and there was nothing tall in the desert that could hide it. The ancient city couldn't have been concealed.

But the truth was right before their eyes.

Even the oasis... Crescent Lake had vanished into thin air along with the ancient city.

"Th-this... this...!"

Shinju Ishikawa stammered for a while before finally forcing out a sentence through his trembling lips.

"Did we stumble into a ghost city? Could it be that what we ate yesterday..."

He hurriedly shut his mouth, because Ayako Hyuuga's expression had clearly darkened.

Whatever had crossed their minds, Shinju Ishikawa had gone pale.

"Hahaha..."

Mo Jingxian's cheerful laughter interrupted their wild imaginings.

"This world is full of secrets. Who can claim to know everything? And you two call yourselves shinobi—never heard of Space-Time Ninjutsu?"

After he changed the subject, they thought it over and realized Mo Jingxian wasn't entirely wrong.

That was true. The Ninja World was full of legends. A city suddenly disappearing wasn't impossible to accept.

After that brief interlude, the three had to face reality again. There were some questions they couldn't avoid.

There was a thorn in Shinju Ishikawa's heart that he still hadn't pulled out. He wanted to know the truth behind the ambush mission.

"Tell me, what should we do if we get back to camp and find that all our suspicions were right?"

"What should we do? Not much we can do!"

Mo Jingxian met their gazes, making his meaning clear.

They understood. Shinju forced an awkward smile.

"Yeah. Nobody hears us crying out."

The mood grew somewhat oppressive. Mo Jingxian said nothing more. Sometimes people had to discover the essence of the rules for themselves.

Only then could they see the road ahead.

In silence, the group traveled for three hours. They were probably not far from the border.

"Stop!"

The veins around Ayako Hyuuga's eyes bulged.

"I've spotted a shinobi a thousand meters to the southwest."

Any shinobi able to travel alone through the desert had to be quite capable.

For safety's sake, the three chose to take a detour, quickly moving in the opposite direction.

Ten minutes later, Ayako Hyuuga said urgently:

"Not good. He's caught up with us!"