On a dark, windy night, a carriage left the Royal City and headed into the wilderness.
A figure skirted the city gate, used a large tree to leap five meters up and out of the Royal City, then followed the speeding carriage.
The carriage was not moving particularly fast, so the figure behind it could keep pace on foot.
About fifteen minutes later, the carriage stopped before a stretch of woodland. A man stepped out, his back matching the figure Zeng Mu had seen at the Gong residence. He was alone, with no coachman. Only then did Zeng Mu realize he had driven himself.
"Coming to a place like this alone, so late at night..." Zeng Mu was now certain this fellow was not here for anything good. He had come to carry out some shady business.
"A site for human trafficking?" He surveyed the woods before him. Judging by the time the journey had taken, they were about five li from the Royal City, somewhere people rarely ventured. There was no sound of running water nearby, so even animals would be scarce. If someone were held here for ten days or a fortnight, probably no one would notice. Viewed that way, it certainly was an ideal secret location.
He continued following quietly, keeping roughly twenty meters behind the man. At that distance, even an expert martial artist would struggle to notice a tail, let alone one who was an Elementalist capable of moving without a sound.
The man strolled onward for about a minute before stopping. A small wooden cabin stood before them, covering roughly twenty square meters. Its roof showed that it had been built recently: the wood had yet to darken much, having seen little rain or sunlight.
The man approached the door but did not enter