Half an hour later.
On the outskirts of Konoha.
In a remote forest.
The overly lush leaves blocked out the sunlight, making the place seem somewhat gloomy even at high noon.
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps rang out, coming closer from afar and breaking the silence in the woods.
A figure appeared a moment later. If it was not Qian, who else could it be?
Sensing the aura behind him growing increasingly undisguised, Qian simply stopped moving forward. He halted, turned around, and looked back down the path he had come from.
Sure enough, before long, an unfamiliar figure appeared in his field of vision.
The other party was dressed like an ordinary Konoha villager and looked completely unremarkable.
However, having nothing unusual about him was the most unusual thing of all.
Although Qian had not been running at full speed during this past stretch, nor had he gone out of his way to hide his tracks, he was still absolutely not someone an ordinary person could keep up with.
As for them simply heading the same way?
That was even more ridiculous.
This place was far from human habitation, and the woods were full of wild beasts. What ordinary villager with nothing better to do would come all the way out here? Was he looking to die?
So, the other party was definitely the person who had been secretly watching him.
Not to mention, that face of his...
After thinking back for a moment, Qian found the corresponding person in his memory.
Half an hour ago, when he had looked back, this man had been among those villagers.
It was just that Qian had focused the vast majority of his attention on those few ninja at the time and had not paid attention to these ordinary people.
Now it