As Lin Chen watched, Dai Mubai keenly sensed his gaze from within the crowd. He turned toward him, surprise flickering across his face, and opened his mouth to call out.
Before he could speak, however, Lin Chen gave him a faint smile, then turned and walked away.
There were eyes everywhere now. He had no reason to linger here, much less invite fresh complications.
Dai Mubai froze for a moment. By the time he recovered and squeezed out of the crowd, Lin Chen had already vanished beyond the courtyard gate.
Dai Mubai stared in the direction he had disappeared, his lips parting, but ultimately did not call after him.
While unease stirred hearts in Heaven Dou City, a very different scene unfolded in the cave deep within Sunset Forest.
Early that morning, Tang San instructed Yu Xiaogang and the others to gather various herbs around the cave.
Though both his hands were badly injured, his mind remained clear. He identified each herb's medicinal properties and had the others prepare them according to his instructions.
In his previous life in the Tang Sect, he had known medicinal principles and properties by heart. Though his Martial Soul had changed in this life, he had not lost a single scrap of his knowledge of herbs.
He could list with his eyes closed which herbs cleared heat and purged toxins, which strengthened the body's foundations and replenished vitality, and which helped medicinal energy circulate.
Some of the herbs grew in damp cracks in the rocks, while others sprouted beneath shaded tree roots. Liu Erlong and Zhao Wuji searched around the cave for over an hour before gathering all the ingredients.
Yu Xiaogang followed his instructions, crushing and boiling the herbs to prepare a dose of medicine.
A bitter medicinal smell soon filled the cave.