He turned to the two taciturn Transforming Force Realm experts beside him and instructed them in a low voice, "Seniors, our target, Lin Fan, lives in that estate in the south of the city. It's protected by an Estate Protection Array, so we can't make a move inside Commandery City. Once I've worked out a way to lure him beyond the city, we'll capture him."
The two black-clad martial artists nodded slightly. Their cold gazes followed the Chief Steward's gesture into the distance, where a huge bubble shimmering with faint blue light enclosed the estate below.
It was Lin Fan's Estate Protection Array, which remained active at all times.
Lin Fan, meanwhile, had no idea that a deadly trap was quietly closing around him.
Inside his estate, all remained peaceful. Lin Fan meditated and cultivated as usual, refining eighty Top-Grade High-Grade Pills each day. In his spare moments, he guided Chu Lingxi in alchemy and cultivation or played with his two children.
Life was quite pleasant.
More than ten days passed. By his reckoning, it was time for the Ten Thousand Prosperity Medicine Depot to deliver his next shipment.
Early that morning, Lin Fan sat cultivating in the courtyard, circulating his Inner Qi as he quietly waited for the medicine depot's carriage.
His thirty-five-thousandfold cultivation acceleration took hold. Fine strands of powerful new energy flowed steadily into his body, nourishing it and raising his cultivation.
Before long, the rumble of wheels over flagstones reached him from outside.
Lin Fan's ears twitched, and he frowned slightly. At this hour, deliveries usually came in at least three carriages, but the hoofbeats and wheels sounded noticeably fewer today.
Suspicious, he rose, walked to the courtyard gate, and pushed open the heavy wooden doors.
Sure enough, only one small carriage stood outside, its horse