Beyond the Prefectural City's south gate, the official road was broad and level.
The Mutant Beast Horse issued by the Heaven Patrol Office had a steady gait. Even Yi Yang, who rarely rode, could handle it easily without worrying about its wild nature.
Yi Yang's eyes were half closed, his body swaying with the horse's movements. He looked like an entirely ordinary old man.
In secret, however, his senses had remained vigilant ever since he left the city, monitoring every movement around him and letting no anomaly slip past.
After all, the human heart was unfathomable, and the notoriously vicious Rampage Six Bandits had already marked him as a target.
Who knew whether someone in the Heaven Patrol Office disliked him enough to leak his whereabouts?
After advancing to third inner qi level, his sensory range had nearly doubled compared to the second level.
Within a hundred zhang, even the tiny movement of a squirrel leaping from one branch to another could not escape his perception.
As Yi Yang rode swiftly onward, the trees flanking the official road grew denser.
Old locusts, cypresses, and elms mingled together, their interlocking crowns cutting the daylight overhead into scattered patches.
The air carried the scent of rotting leaves soaked in morning dew.
Damp and cold.
It was utterly unlike the bustle of everyday life he had felt in the Prefectural City.
Just as Yi Yang urged his horse swiftly toward his destination, he seemed to sense something.
Three presences.
Right behind him!
They followed faintly at the very edge of his sensory range.
Yi Yang tested them briefly and confirmed that they were tracking him.
The distance between them remained remarkably steady, neither too close nor too far, roughly a hundred and twenty or thirty zhang. Clearly, they were seasoned hands!
*They aren't