Having decided to leave, Li Chen and You An put all other thoughts aside, rested well for the night, and set out early the next morning.
Meanwhile, Jin Hongbo was still personally carrying the Qi-Seeking Compass, painstakingly searching every street and alley.
What darkened Jin Hongbo's expression was that, after all their twists and turns, they had actually ended up back at the inn.
"What's going on? Could the thing we're looking for have been here all along?"
Long Xi, who was beside him, mused, "It's possible."
Jin Hongbo could not help cursing, "This is fucking uncanny!"
"Oh, Master Jin, Master Long, what brings you back so early?" The shopkeeper had noticed them by then and hurried over to greet them.
Jin Hongbo told him, "Shopkeeper Dong, call out every guest who's checked in over the past two or three days."
The shopkeeper looked troubled. "Master Jin, how am I supposed to order the guests around?"
"Then we'll call them out ourselves!" Jin Hongbo snapped.
The shopkeeper could hardly argue with him, so he could only say, "All right, all right. This way, gentlemen."
With the Qi-Seeking Compass in hand, they could indeed see its needle shaking far more violently once they went upstairs. The magic artifact was gathering the stray qi signatures around them.
However, the Qi-Seeking Compass made by the Zuo Household had been refined using Zuo Hao's qi signature as its template. Now that Zuo Hao was dead, only his belongings retained any traces of it.
Li Chen and You An knew no method for concealing qi signatures, but over the past few days, most of those traces had already dissipated, making them difficult to detect.
The only reason the men had managed to find their way back to the inn was that Li Chen had been