Tracking the Trail

Strategist Ji had now arrived outside Green Mountain Pass. He raced through the pitch-black night, his face darker than the heavy darkness itself. He had just investigated the secret passage in the Marshal's Mansion garden, yet found nothing.

He had then turned back and searched the Marshal's Mansion several times, only to finally confirm that Li Yan was not in the residence. After leaving the Marshal's Mansion, he leapt onto the city wall again, followed the mountain ridge upward, and left the city.

His current target was the garrison camp thirty li away. That place would be difficult to search. With hundreds of thousands of troops stationed there, if Hong Linying had hidden someone among them, even with his Divine Sense, it would take a long time to find him.

Moreover, he did not want anyone else to know. If, after searching there, Li Yan was still nowhere to be found, then after wasting so much time, finding him would become even harder.

At that thought, anger surged in his heart, and the fire poison within him showed faint signs of stirring. He could only flash into the mountain forest to the side, casually find a spot, and sit cross-legged.

About half the time it took to drink a cup of tea later, he rose to his feet. With another flash, he vanished into the darkness.

Time flew by, and Strategist Valley welcomed the second day after Li Yan's departure. Chen An and Li Yin had not slept all night, their eyes bloodshot. They had no idea what fate awaited them next, and their hearts were truly unsettled to the extreme.

Thus, amid their anxiety, time slowly reached the second night. After only one day and one night, exhaustion was plain on both their faces. How could they possibly be well when they could neither eat nor sleep?

The other soldiers and women in the valley had also noticed that something was wrong. After Lord Ji arrived yesterday, he had quickly left the Strategist's residence alone, his face dark and gloomy.

Even stranger, the young master had not returned with Chen An and Li Yin yesterday. After the two returned, they had stayed in the barracks with dark faces, neither eating nor drinking.

Without knowing the reason, the others—including the group of soldiers who usually liked to joke and laugh with them—lowered their voices considerably. As a result, the entire Strategist's residence felt oppressively tense, as though black clouds were pressing down upon the city.

The sun slowly rose amid that oppression, climbed above the center of the valley, and then tilted toward the western mountains.

Moonlight slowly rose as well, then gradually drifted westward bit by bit.

"Chen An, Li Yin, come in here!" A voice suddenly rang out in the open ground outside the valley, incomparably gloomy.

It was already midnight. Dressed in a black robe, Strategist Ji appeared in a flash upon the open ground like a ghost in the night, then walked straight into the valley.

At those words, whether they were soldiers standing guard outside or those within the buildings, everyone shuddered. A chill rose from their backs. Chen An and Li Yin trembled as they rushed outside, somewhat dazed and disoriented.

When the two arrived in the valley, they saw a figure standing before Li Yan's room. They hurried closer and looked carefully beneath the moonlight. It was indeed Strategist Ji, standing with his hands behind his back.

Yet his appearance at this moment left them utterly shocked. In only a day and a night, Strategist Ji's complexion had turned purplish-black. His expression was haggard beyond measure, and his face had aged considerably. Only his eyes still gleamed with a blood-red light.

After arriving at the garrison camp thirty li away last night, Strategist Ji had used every trick at his disposal. His eyes and Divine Sense worked together, while his movement technique and spiritual power were unleashed in full as he darted through every corner of the camp.

Yet even by dawn, he had not finished searching. If he continued, then once daylight fully arrived, even someone with his movement technique would be discovered.

But where did he have the time to wait? Gritting his teeth, he dispersed some of the spiritual power suppressing the poison, expanded the range of his Divine Sense, and increased his speed. When he moved, he was no more than a light breeze sweeping past.

Several hours later, he appeared behind a tent. His complexion was terrible, his appearance savage, and his mind unfocused. The fire poison had begun flowing through his body, making his reason somewhat difficult to control.

The more so, the more desperately he wanted to find Li Yan regardless of the cost. After pausing briefly, he increased his spiritual power again and resumed searching in every direction.

By the time night fell, he had searched seventy or eighty percent of the garrison camp. Because he had used too much spiritual power, the fire poison within him flowed much faster, and his mind had become somewhat frenzied.

Looking at the areas still unsearched, even the black qi on his face carried a purplish tinge. Parts of his hair had begun turning ashen black. Unconsciously, he muttered, "You think you can hide? Even if I dig three feet into the ground, you will not escape."

Not until midnight did he finally finish searching the entire garrison camp, still finding nothing. Strategist Ji's face twisted, and he ground his teeth. His stark white teeth clicked and clacked, while beneath his purplish-black face, his glowing blood-red eyes resembled those of a vicious ghost in the night.

"No... no... Where exactly are you?" At this moment, his mind was in chaos. The fire poison had gradually spread through all the meridians in his body.

After rapidly roaming through the military camp for a while longer, he began running wildly without awareness, his lips muttering without cease.

He did not know how long he wandered before his mind gradually steadied. He stopped, gasping heavily. Once he had composed himself slightly, he looked around and realized that, unconsciously, he had returned to the outside of the Strategist's residence.

"You two, tell me everything Li Yan said and did whenever you went out with him over the past few months. Tell it all, in detail and clearly. Do you understand?" Strategist Ji stood beneath the moonlight in his black robe, speaking coldly as he stared icily at the two kneeling on the ground.

Under his gaze, Chen An and Li Yin felt as though they had fallen into the depths of winter, their bodies trembling uncontrollably. Chen An immediately began recounting everything one by one, while even Li Yin, who rarely spoke, occasionally added a few words.

Nearly an hour later, Strategist Ji said coldly, "Is that all?" Chen An and Li Yin lay prone on the ground without answering. They were still racking their brains, searching their memories with all their might.

After a long while, the two secretly glanced at each other. They found the answer in each other's eyes. Over the past hour, they had already said everything they could say and everything they could remember about the few times they had gone out with Li Yan.

"Yes, my lord, that is all. There truly is nothing else," Chen An answered cautiously. Li Yin nodded in agreement.

After recounting everything for the past hour, the two had gradually calmed down. After all, they were men who had faced life and death countless times on the battlefield. By now, they could only submit to fate.

After hearing them, Strategist Ji stood there silently without speaking. The two also remained quietly prostrate on the ground. Beneath the moonlight, only the insects of early summer occasionally chirped amid the thick grass and flowers, making the atmosphere feel even more oppressive.

After a while, Chen An and Li Yin felt the pressure on them lessen. When they raised their heads, Strategist Ji had already vanished from sight. Then they heard sounds coming from Li Yan's room.

Strategist Ji entered Li Yan's room. During the past hour, he had pondered every word the two men spoke while listening. His mind had already returned to complete calm, and his brain continuously analyzed everything. In the end, he arrived at several conclusions and doubts.

First, Li Yan must have learned of his intentions toward him. Even if Li Yan did not know his true purpose, he had certainly sensed that something bad might happen to him. But how had Li Yan learned of his intentions? He had always concealed them so flawlessly that not a drop of water could leak through, which left him puzzled.

Second, Li Yan had intentionally or unintentionally begun increasing his contact with Liu Chengyong two months ago. Liu Chengyong must therefore have been the person Hong Linying arranged to receive him. Could it be that when Li Yan escaped today, Liu Chengyong had acted under orders in the military camp, using an eye-blinding trick to obscure Chen An and Li Yin's sight?

Third, the several fellow villagers close to Li Yan were equally suspicious. Any of them might have helped Li Yan escape. In that case, the tavern and the ironworks might be Li Yan's hiding places. Although the guards at the city gate said Li Yan had left the city, with Hong Linying's methods, getting several soldiers to lie would be no difficult matter.

Fourth, if the soldiers at the city gate could lie, then the soldiers guarding the camp could lie as well. Could Li Yan still be hiding in the military camp?

Fifth, if all those soldiers might be lying, then perhaps it could be assumed that, aside from the tavern and the ironworks, Hong Linying had found some private residence within the city to hide Li Yan rather than hiding him in the Marshal's Mansion.

Sixth, what exactly did Li Yan's recent large-scale purchases of farming tools and clothing have to do with his escape? This was something he could not understand for the moment.

Seventh, did Li Yan's recent large-scale planting of these special flowers and grasses have anything to do with his escape?

Eighth, if Li Yan was not in any of those places, where else might he have gone? His hometown? Or had he found some hidden place and was waiting for him to slowly lose confidence and give up looking for him?

Ninth, how had Li Yan managed to imitate his handwriting and forge that note?

Tenth, had Chen An and Li Yin also been bought over by Li Yan? Had the two of them actually been helping Li Yan all along?

He reasoned through each of these possibilities one by one, and they slowly formed conclusion after conclusion.

The first thing he did upon entering Li Yan's room was verify the final two points. He believed Li Yan could not have acted seamlessly without a single flaw. Every method would leave some trace to follow.

What he needed to do now was reach an answer for each of these conclusions. Then, step by step, he would be able to determine where Li Yan had gone.

After entering the room, he found no lamp lit within. Yet with a cultivator's eyesight, as long as there was even a little light, darkness was scarcely different from daylight to him. Only when looking far into the distance would it have a greater effect.

Besides, the moonlight tonight flowed like water, and every object in the room was visible to him down to the finest detail.

He stopped before the table. An inkstone and brush still lay near the window. With one glance, he could infer that Li Yan had been in a great hurry at the time.

Though the inkstone and brush had been returned to positions not meant for writing, the ink in the inkstone had not been washed away, and ink stains remained on the brush. A few drops had even fallen on the tabletop. Though there were only one or two drops, they revealed Li Yan's urgency at the time. He must have feared some unforeseen change disrupting his plan.

He picked up the brush in one hand and examined it for a while, but found nothing else. Looking around again, he noticed a pile of crumpled paper in the corner by the wall.

After setting down the brush, he flashed to the corner. Both hands moved at once. His left hand tucked the jade book, which never left his person, into the belt outside his robe. He bent down, picked up a ball of paper from the pile, and unfolded it.

What was written on it were ordinary lines of poetry. He picked up several more sheets and unfolded them. Slowly, his expression became somewhat unsightly.

These sheets of paper were precisely the scribbles Li Yan had often left behind some time ago. Since no one knew when Li Yan might suddenly start writing wildly again, the women cleaning the room occasionally failed to sweep away everything in time.

The papers removed during cleaning had all been taken away and burned as firewood, according to what Strategist Ji had previously told Chen An and Li Yin.

Strategist Ji had seen these before. Chen An and Li Yin had shown them to him, and at the time he had found nothing unusual. But upon examining them carefully again today, he immediately discovered certain problems.

Though the handwriting was still a chaotic mess, as though Li Yan had been venting the pent-up frustration in his chest, and remained just as ugly and disorderly, upon close inspection now, certain strokes in a few characters bore some resemblance to his own.

If he had not deliberately been looking for flaws now, he truly would never have noticed such a thing.

That discovery caused a flash of insight to strike his mind. He turned and looked toward the bookshelf against the western wall, where one or two dozen books rested.

His body flickered, and he arrived before the bookshelf. He found a book within it—the very book from which a poetic line on one of the crumpled papers he had just examined had come. He had often studied it himself, so naturally he knew.

Very quickly, he turned to that page. With only one look, his expression changed. Then he found two or three more books in succession. After opening and examining them, he could not help sighing and muttering to himself, "This brat... I truly underestimated him. At only fifteen or sixteen years old, he possesses such a mind."

When he opened the first book, he had already basically understood. These were all books he had often read before. It was merely that he had read too many books, and the bookshelf in his own room could no longer hold them all.

Thus, he had kept only the books he read most often there, while placing the rest on the bookshelves in these rooms. He had a habit when reading: he liked marking fine passages and occasionally writing a few annotations or comments.

Clearly, Li Yan had discovered this as well and incorporated it into his plan.

Strategist Ji then recalled that Li Yan had previously taken several books from him. One reason must have been to see more of his handwriting; another was to determine whether the handwriting in the books within this room truly belonged to him.

He also remembered that he had only written two things for Li Yan: once, the "Breath Guidance Technique," and the other time, the Black Night Curtain Green Technique.

Yet when Li Yan studied the latter technique, he had clearly spent much longer looking at it. At the time, he had thought that because the technique had advanced, Li Yan needed more time to comprehend it.

Now, however, he could not rule out the possibility that Li Yan had been using that time to study more of his handwriting, or compare the handwriting in the books with that on the papers to see whether they came from the same hand.

Looking again at the balls of paper in the corner, he came to another realization. Among the characters Li Yan had practiced, often only certain basic strokes within a character were truly imitating his own. Everything else had been written randomly to conceal it.

Then, when he actually used the imitation, Li Yan had slowly combined those practiced basic strokes together and formed his forged note.

By this point, he had confirmed the final two points in his conclusions. Li Yan had secretly imitated his handwriting through books he had once annotated. As for the flaws in his cultivation techniques, they happened to require outside objects to soothe the burning heat in his chest, and Li Yan had used that to conceal his practice at imitation.

The other point was that Chen An and Li Yin had not been bought over by Li Yan. This was easy to understand. If Li Yan had bought them over, he would not have needed to go to such painstaking lengths to secretly imitate his handwriting. Chen An and Li Yin could simply have gone out with him.

Next, he needed to verify his other conclusions. Perhaps Li Yan's trail lay among them.