Footprints of the Tracker

The canopy of the Forest of Death blocked out most of the moonlight.

Lin Feng crouched at the roots of an old banyan tree, gently brushing aside the surface layer of decaying leaves. The thread buried in the crack was still there, but its position had shifted by three millimeters—there was no way the wind could have caused an angle like this.

He narrowed his eyes, feeling the tension in the thread with his fingertips.

The displacement angle was wrong.

It was the work of a professional.

Lin Feng did not rise immediately. Instead, he remained crouched as he surveyed his surroundings. There were no chakra signatures within fifty meters and no heartbeats within thirty. Whoever it was had worked cleanly, leaving no obvious traces even in the surrounding air.

He withdrew his hand and covered the decaying leaves exactly as they had been.

Those Root bastards really were still following him.

Lin Feng stood and brushed the dirt from his hands. Shisui asked to meet me today. Was it to draw me away so they could inspect the markers?

He shook off the thought.

No, it was probably just a coincidence.

But he knew he could no longer trust his instincts.

Lin Feng quickened his pace toward the second marker.

The temperature in the Forest of Death dropped quickly at night, and the air carried the damp scent of humus. He followed the planned route around three trees before stopping beside a fallen dead log.

The second marker was hidden on the shaded side of the log.

Lin Feng dropped to one knee and slipped his fingers into a gap beneath the log. The leaves in the hidden layer were still there, but their arrangement was completely wrong—he remembered placing three: two facing north and one facing east. Now, all three faced south.

Even the leaves in the hidden layer had been restored.

Lin Feng lowered his voice and muttered to himself, "They didn't just follow me here. They carefully searched every inch of ground."

Ordinary Anbu would not have been this thorough.

Only an organization like Root, obsessed with absolute intelligence, would go this far.

He took a deep breath and pressed a finger against his ninja tool pouch. There was still a third marker, roughly three hundred meters away, beyond a dense patch of brush.

Rather than heading there in a straight line, Lin Feng deliberately took a wide semicircular detour. As he passed through a patch of ferns, he released an infinitesimal amount of chakra—one of the Uchiha's basic sensory techniques, capable of detecting other chakra nearby.

The feedback was faint, but it was definitely there.

Someone was fifty meters away, remaining perfectly still.

Lin Feng concealed his presence and continued toward the third marker. He did not look back or slow down. He merely memorized that direction.

The third marker had been placed inside the hollow of a massive banyan tree.

Lin Feng crawled inside and used the moonlight to inspect the thread hidden at the top of the hollow. A strand of hair clung to it—a marker he had deliberately left behind. The hair was still in its original place, but its angle had changed from vertical to horizontal.

He reached out and touched the hair, confirming that it bore no skin oil.

It had been moved with a tool.

Lin Feng took an Explosive Tag and a spool of thread from his ninja tool pouch. Since they liked inspecting things so much, he would leave them a little gift.

He swiftly set up a triggered Explosive Tag on the inner side of the tree hollow's entrance. The thread stretched across the opening; the moment someone touched it while passing through, the Explosive Tag would detonate.

Once the setup was complete, Lin Feng pretended to leave and headed toward the outskirts of the Forest of Death.

After walking fifty meters and confirming that his footsteps had vanished into the layer of fallen leaves, he immediately changed direction, circled wide, and returned to a tree thirty meters from the third marker.

Hide, stay still, wait.

Seconds ticked by.

The night wind swept over the canopy as insects chirped in succession. Moonlight filtered through the branches and leaves, illuminating the thread at the entrance to the tree hollow.

No one approached.

There was no explosion from the triggered trap.

Lin Feng crouched in the tree for twenty minutes before finally confirming that the other party had not stepped into the trap. Either they had never followed him here, or—

They already knew there was a trap here.

Lin Feng jumped down from the tree and landed beside the third marker. The Explosive Tag remained in place, and the thread had not moved in the slightest. He retrieved the tag and checked the surroundings for fresh footprints.

There were no traces at all.

The other party was cautious.

Cautious enough to seem as if they knew every arrangement he made.

Lin Feng stood there as a thought flashed through his mind: Shisui's invitation today happened to fall within the window when Root searched the markers? If it was a coincidence, it was far too convenient.

He did not dwell on it. Instead, he left the Forest of Death directly in the opposite direction.

When he reached the edge of the forest, Lin Feng stopped and glanced toward Naka Shrine. Shisui should have returned by now, though he might still be waiting for a reply.

But Lin Feng decided not to keep the appointment.

If Root had already grasped his movements, then the safe house was most likely under surveillance as well. Lin Feng turned and headed northwest, where there was a backup contact point—a location he had never registered in the official intelligence network.

The informant with intelligence about the drug that Fugaku had mentioned had left an emergency contact method there.

If the drug intelligence was real, Danzo's scheme was about to close its net.

Lin Feng quickened his pace.

I can't wait three more days.

I have to gamble now.

He vanished into the darkness, leaving only fallen leaves stirred by the breeze behind him. The Forest of Death returned to silence, with only the distant chirping of insects continuing.

And on a tree fifty meters from the third marker where Lin Feng had just kept watch, a figure slowly emerged from behind the trunk.

The figure wore an animal mask and raised a hand to touch the coded markings along its edge.

Then the figure vanished as well.