The End

In truth, having been with Gu Lianwei earlier, he already knew the exact location of Hundred Flavors Garden, but he simply wanted to play the part of an outsider.

Upon arriving at Hundred Flavors Garden, he circled the area twice, hoping to catch a familiar scent.

After activating Spirit Scent for a while, he felt as if his world had transformed; his original sense of smell had been a jumbled mess of odors, and quite dull at that.

Now, scents seemed to manifest as distinct threads, allowing him to trace their origins.

For instance, upon catching the aroma of steamed buns here, he could pinpoint exactly where they were without even turning his head.

He could walk down the street with his eyes closed without bumping into anyone, and his sense of smell could even perceive distance—a sensation both profound and mysterious, which he found quite marvelous.

However, the scent of the child from the jade pendant remained elusive, suggesting the child had not been in this area for a long time.

Furthermore, the only reason the child's scent had lingered on the pendant was due to being worn against the skin for an extended period.

This place was merely a transit point; since the child had only stopped here briefly, the scent would naturally dissipate quickly.

Could the trail have gone cold just like that? This Spirit Scent isn't living up to its potential. Lin Xuan shook his head and sighed to himself.

"Young master, fresh osmanthus cakes, would you like to try some?"

Seeing Lin Xuan dressed in brand-new clothes with an extraordinary air, looking like a man of some means, the street vendor selling snacks called out enthusiastically.

"How much?" Lin Xuan asked.

"Twenty-five wen a portion." The vendor's eyes lit up when he heard the inquiry.

"Give me one." Lin Xuan pulled out a string of coins, counted out twenty-five, and handed them to the vendor.

"Right away, sir, please wait a moment, I'll pack it up for you." The vendor took a specially prepared dried lotus leaf, wrapped the osmanthus cakes inside, and tied it with hemp rope to secure it.

Wait... why do I sense a familiar smell? Lin Xuan grew slightly vigilant; it wasn't the scent from the child's jade pendant, but something he felt he had smelled somewhere before.

He could trace the person's position, and the distance was not far at all.

It seems I'm being tracked again? Lin Xuan sighed inwardly. The few people who had tracked him before hadn't met a good end, and this person would be no exception.

He picked up the osmanthus cakes and slowly walked toward the quiet alley Gu Lianwei had mentioned.

After all, his memory was now incredibly sharp; remembering a single detail Gu Lianwei had mentioned was effortless for him.

The alley was narrow, flanked by high walls, and appeared to be a dead end.

But for Lin Xuan, a dead end was perfect.

He was curious why someone had started tracking him the moment he left the Pleasure Pavilion; could there be a mole near Gu Lianwei?

That seemed too fast.

Or perhaps, was the mole Gu Lianwei herself?

As soon as this thought surfaced, he dismissed it; Gu Lianwei seemed quite intelligent. If she wanted her brother to go missing, why would she seek out someone like him—someone who walked without sound, possessed keen vision, and held high cultivation—to help her?

Wouldn't that be sabotaging herself?

He placed a piece of osmanthus cake in his mouth, savoring the sweetness and the faint fragrance of osmanthus.

Chewing, he asked in a muffled voice, "You've followed me all this way, aren't you tired?"

The next moment, a physician in a gray cloth jacket appeared at the mouth of the alley. He looked to be in his forties, with a sallow complexion and several white hairs in his thick beard.

The physician looked stunned, then replied, "I think the young master must have misunderstood. I am merely passing by."

"Is that so? Passing by from Hundred Flavors Garden, all the way to West Street, then to East Street, and now to Benevolence Alley?"

Lin Xuan popped another osmanthus cake into his mouth, having already quietly readied his Retractable Staff.

"State your purpose, and I may spare your life." Lin Xuan appeared nonchalant.

"Arrogant." The physician scoffed at Lin Xuan's words, his hand already prepared with poison-tipped silver needles.

He flicked them out casually.

Lin Xuan didn't care; he whipped out his Retractable Staff, extending it into its full three-section form, and with a forceful flick, knocked all the needles to the ground.

The sound of the needles hitting the ground was faint and crisp.

"Hidden weapons are useless when used in the open."

"How is this possible?"

Seeing this reaction, the physician's heart sank. Was the intelligence false? Wasn't he just a young Flag Commander?

He immediately pulled out a pouch of medicinal powder, intending to scatter it in Lin Xuan's face.

But Lin Xuan lunged forward, grabbing his hand with a force of a thousand catties, and with a single yank, the man's right hand was crippled on the spot.

The physician let out a howl of agony.

Lin Xuan seized the opportunity to threaten him: "If you reveal what you know, I can spare your life. Where did Gu Wuji go?"

The physician was remarkably stubborn: "Don't even think about it!"

"Are you afraid of being sliced into a thousand pieces?"

The physician sneered: "Forget a thousand pieces, even if you slice me a billion times, I won't say a word."

Lin Xuan: "Fine, if you don't want to talk, then so be it."

A single punch to the temple with a thousand pounds of force would normally be enough to kill a man outright, but since this fellow possessed some level of cultivation, it wasn't quite lethal—though it was more than enough to knock him unconscious.

He proceeded to dislocate the man's limbs one by one before binding his hands and feet tightly behind his back with hemp rope.

Between the dislocations and the specific binding technique, there was no way this physician would be able to free himself; he would leave him here for now and hand him over to the Qiyun Sect later, letting them handle the execution by a thousand cuts.

Lin Xuan caught a whiff of the scent lingering on the man and couldn't help but mutter to himself:

"Talk about a pillow appearing just as I'm getting sleepy. If you had just stayed put instead of tracking or observing me, I never would have found you. Who would have thought you'd deliver the clues right to my doorstep yourself?"

Although the scents along the path the physician had traveled had long since dissipated, Lin Xuan could instantly pick up the trail if he returned to a place where the man had spent a significant amount of time.

"Forget it, I'll just have to search bit by bit. Since he's a physician, it's likely he started noticing me at one of the pharmacies along the road I took."

With that hypothesis, the search area narrowed significantly; there were only a few such places, and as long as he checked them, he was bound to find something.

He searched left and right, only to find that none of the pharmacies matched the scent on the physician.

This left him feeling a bit doubtful of his own judgment.

It wasn't until he passed an abandoned courtyard that he detected a scent sharing the same origin as the one on the physician.

This abandoned courtyard happened to be located near the South City Gate.

Lin Xuan stared at the dilapidated structure and slowly walked inside, discovering a number of beggars lying about the premises.

Seeing Lin Xuan approach them, expressions of confusion and fear involuntarily surfaced on their faces.