News of the Star Palace Inspector's arrival on Jade Conch Island struck like a boulder plunging into water, sending immense ripples across a placid lake. The island lord's residence on the inner island was festooned with lanterns and banners, and Reverend Green Wave personally welcomed the visitors with great ceremony. Yet the air in Luo Kou Town abruptly grew tense. The market remained as noisy as ever, but cultivators hurried along, their exchanged glances carrying new measures of scrutiny and wariness. Patrols from the island lord's residence became noticeably more frequent, inspections at the docks grew almost excessively strict, and certain shady forces that had once been active quietly went to ground.
Inside a quiet room at the Tide Listening Pavilion, Han Li sat cross-legged, the blue jade pendant he had obtained at the auction floating before him. In the daylight filtering through the window, it gave off a soft, lustrous glow, and the cloud-and-water patterns on its surface flowed slowly as though alive. A strand of pure water spiritual power curled around his fingertip as he cautiously extended it toward the pendant, attempting to awaken its secrets. Yet his spiritual power vanished like a clay ox sinking into the sea, and the pendant showed no response. Only when the Profound Yin Token in his robes happened to draw near did a barely perceptible glimmer of resonance flash within it.
"The Profound Yin Token is the key, but this pendant... is it a map, a token, or something else?" Han Li frowned slightly and put the pendant away. There was no rushing this matter; he would have to wait for the Profound Yin Token to recover further or find relevant clues. His immediate priority was to deal with the changing situation before him.
He spread his spiritual sense, enveloping nearly