"Hmm, why did this man react so strongly upon seeing me? He even cried out the surname 'Li.' Could he know me?"
Li Yan's thoughts immediately raced, but his expression merely showed a perfectly timed flicker of surprise, leaving no one aware that he, too, had noticed something amiss.
Li Yan knew that every mortal dynasty had immortal cultivators stationed within it, and the imperial dynasty was no exception. Moreover, they belonged to the cultivation forces under the jurisdiction of the Phantom Sect.
Naturally, the Phantom Sect would not personally dispatch people to handle such trivial matters, so the ones protecting the imperial family were disciples sent by several nearby cultivation sects.
Thus, Li Yan's first thought was that his identity might have been exposed and spread by those cultivators.
Yet he quickly felt that was impossible. There had never been many people in the Phantom Sect who knew him, and now more than half of them had perished.
As for the few remaining, he knew their backgrounds well. Not one of them had come from the imperial dynasty.
And apart from the people of Hundred-Mile Garden, how could those who might know him possibly distribute his portrait so casually?
Furthermore, when Li Yan had set out to gain experience, aside from Zhao Min, not even his master Wei Zhongran knew where he had gone!
At the same time, Li Yan carefully examined the old man. At first glance, his heart jolted—the other man's face seemed somewhat familiar.
"Could he be a descendant of someone I know?"
Memories surged through Li Yan's mind as he rapidly searched for impressions connected to this familiar face.
He could first confirm that the other man was absolutely not a descendant of the Li clan, because he had not sensed even the slightest bloodline