"Saint Child Lin, don't you recognize me anymore? Have you forgotten the old now that you've met someone new?"
Hu Niu leaned against the tree trunk with her arms folded across her chest, her dark red disciple's tunic particularly striking in the night.
It was the standard uniform of a Danyang Sect Inner Sect disciple, with the sect's emblem embroidered at the collar, a tiny design.
She had already stood there for the better part of an hour. Whenever patrolling disciples passed, they lowered their heads and addressed her as senior sister.
"Lin Shisan, I knew you would come back."
Hu Niu murmured to herself, the faintest curve on her lips. "When someone you care about disappears, you can't possibly sit still."
She had figured that out long ago. So three days earlier, she had sent a message using Long Shuang'er's Message Stone, arranged for someone to drop half a Green Jade Pendant halfway up the mountain, and specifically had Qing'er pass along word too. Three people, three threads, woven into a net.
She did not know where Lin Shisan was. She was not even sure whether he was still alive, but she had gambled that he would return.
"Long Yan'er is in your hands." Lin Shisan froze for a moment, then quickly understood. Hu Niu had been behind everything. He stopped three paces from her, his voice as flat as a thoroughly frozen stretch of water, without the slightest ripple.
Hu Niu paused, then smiled. "You're much cleverer than you were in Tianshui Village."
"You sent Long Shuang'er's message, deliberately leaked Qing'er's, and had someone leave the Green Jade Pendant halfway up the mountain. You had no idea where I was. You just used Yan'er's disappearance to lure me out."
Lin Shisan's tone did not waver, as though he