Number

The Red-Maned Wolf den was not in a cave, but beneath a stone house mostly buried in earth.

By the time Helian Yuan followed the drag marks there, the three surviving level-three Red-Maned Wolves had already left. Fresh footprints were scattered around the entrance. The pack had probably only taken shelter there temporarily and had not wanted to stay after its leader died.

He did not go in immediately.

He waited outside for a while, then threw in a piece of bloody meat from downwind. There were no growls or sounds of movement. Only after confirming that no ambush awaited him inside did Helian Yuan raise his torch and crawl in.

The stone house's original door had been twice a man's height, but earth and rocks had blocked it, leaving only a low opening a wolf could squeeze through. Iron rings had been fastened to the interior walls, and several broken chains lay in a corner, but there were no intact cages. Wolf fur, bear fur, and the droppings of several different demonic beasts were mixed together on the floor.

Red-Maned Wolves were not the only creatures that had been held here.

Wooden crates, gnawed to pieces by wolves, were piled at the back. Helian Yuan moved the boards on top aside and found a rusty iron tag.

The front was engraved with "seven."

The back had two narrow grooves that fit perfectly into the recessed frame on the iron tag from the collapsed shed.

The numbered tags could be removed and replaced.

Helian Yuan set the iron tag on the ground without taking it away immediately. He continued searching the crates and found several pages of records stuck together. Their edges matched the fragments in the cracks between the stones at the old camp, but the ink was clearer.

The first line read: level-three Red-Maned Wolf, seven.

The second line read: level-three Ironmane Bear, three.

Only "Lightning-Patterned Leopard, thirteen" remained of the third line. The section listing its level had been destroyed by water.

Helian Yuan looked at the iron rings on the wall.

The old marks on the level-three Ironmane Bear's neck, the broken chain in the bear den, and the numbered records in the stone house finally matched up. It had not happened to grow up in the wild and then occupy the bear den. Someone had registered and restrained it before it escaped or was released for some unknown reason.

The level-four Lightning-Patterned Leopard was on the register too.

That explained why it knew the stone path and why it had inspected the broken chain and cave entrance. It also explained the unfamiliar scent of a high-level demonic beast on the other side of the rapids-the whole of Blackwater Ravine might once have been divided into different areas for holding or observing numbered demonic beasts.

The records seemed to provide many answers, but they lacked the most important things.

There were no dates.

No record keeper.

Nothing about where the demonic beasts came from or where they ultimately went.

Each line contained only a species, a number, and an extremely brief status, like an order that could not be questioned.

Helian Yuan turned to the last page.

It bore a rough map of Blackwater Ravine. The old camp, the stone path, and the cave entrance at the cliff were all marked, while the inside of the cave was divided into several circles. Beside the largest circle was the character for "cave." The line beneath it had been neatly torn away, leaving only the upper edge of half a digit.

He held the paper up to the firelight.

The tear was too straight to have been made by a wolf. Someone had returned after the records were abandoned and deliberately taken the last line.

The sound of loose stones rolling suddenly came from outside the stone house.

Helian Yuan immediately extinguished the torch and pressed himself against the wall.

Footsteps passed outside the entrance, one light and one heavy. They were not wolf paws, nor did they sound like the level-four Lightning-Patterned Leopard. The newcomer stopped at the entrance, seemingly smelling the smoke inside.

Helian Yuan tightened his grip on his short spear.

A moment later, someone outside said quietly, "House number seven is empty."

Another voice replied, "As long as the tag's still there. Report back first."

Before leaving, one of them struck the stone wall outside the entrance twice with metal. The first strike was short, the second long. The same response soon came from farther away.

These were not two ordinary hunters who had happened to be patrolling the mountains. This was a way of communicating that did not require calling out names. Helian Yuan memorized the rhythm but did not imitate it immediately. Before he understood who the people on both sides were and what they wanted, responding at random would only reveal that someone was inside the stone house.

He waited until the two sets of footsteps had gone in different directions before peering out through the entrance. The newcomers were not wearing full gray robes; they only had gray cloth tied around their arms. The patterns on their soles, however, matched those of the man from Greystone Town. One headed toward the cave entrance, while the other returned to the old camp.

They were splitting up to inspect the numbered facilities.

He put the third page, which he had already picked up, back where it belonged. If the papers and iron tag were all taken, the other side would immediately seal the routes on their next round. As long as the visible records remained intact, the inspectors would be more likely to trust the existing procedure first rather than search everywhere for an intruder.

The footsteps did not come inside and soon receded along the stone slope.

Helian Yuan waited until it was quiet outside again before lighting a small flame.

The newcomer had called it "house number seven," not the Red-Maned Wolf den.

That meant the numbers belonged not only to the demonic beasts but also corresponded to facilities. As long as the tag remained in place, they would consider the site untouched.

Helian Yuan looked at the iron tag on the ground.

If he took it, the gray-robed people would soon know someone had investigated the place. If he left it, he would have one less piece of physical evidence proving the numbered system existed.

He cut a thin piece of iron of roughly the same size from a wooden crate, darkened it with mud and rust powder, and engraved only a blurry vertical mark on it before inserting it deep into the recessed frame. He wrapped the real "seven" tag in cloth and hid it close to his body.

The fake tag would not withstand a close look, but it could delay them during the first inspection from a distance.

He also deduced something else from the varying darkness of the ink on the record pages. The level-three Ironmane Bear's line was the oldest, and the edge of the paper bore black marks left by repeated handling. The Red-Maned Wolf's line was newer, but had twice been supplemented in different handwriting. Number thirteen, the Lightning-Patterned Leopard, was only half recorded, as though the record keeper had been interrupted before confirming its level.

These demonic beasts had not been brought into Blackwater Ravine on the same day. The numbered facilities had been in use for many years, and there had been more than one record keeper. Whatever the gray-robed people were looking for now was only one part of this system, which was still operating.

Helian Yuan folded the two pages into different shapes. He hid one at the bottom of his quiver and tucked the other into the section of the secret tome where pages were missing. If someone searching him found only one, they would think the records were incomplete rather than immediately realize he had already pieced together the pattern behind the numbering.

He placed the iron "seven" tag against his lower back. It was unlikely to rattle there when he walked, though it might be bent by an impact during a fight. He cut a thin pad from wolf hide, wrapped it around the edges of the tag, and confirmed that it would make no sound even if he rolled.

A few fresh grains of sawdust remained at the bottom of the crate, lighter in color than its boards. Someone had recently opened a hidden compartment, then nailed the thin board back in place. Helian Yuan did not pry it open immediately: the inspectors outside could return at any moment, and an unknown compartment was not worth risking the two pages of records he had already secured.

He merely noted the spacing of the nails and the direction of the wood grain. If he came back later, the first thing he would do was check the bottom of the crate.

Before leaving the stone house, Helian Yuan took only two pages of records and pressed the rest back into the crate in their original order. He also erased his footprints and scattered the wolf fur back over the entrance.

The wolf fur at the entrance had been dampened by the night dew, making it easy to leave marks showing which way his fingers had moved it when he scattered it back. Helian Yuan arranged it with a twig rather than his hands, then let a clod of earth fall naturally from the top of the opening. If an inspector only glanced at it, the entrance would still look as though the wolves had just left. If one crouched down for a close inspection, they would at least have to determine which traces came from beasts and which came from the person who had taken the records.

As dawn approached, he withdrew to a spot beyond the cliff.

The two inspectors had vanished, leaving only matching, standard-issue boot prints in the mud. The prints led not toward Greystone Town, but toward the entrance to Blackwater Ravine.

Helian Yuan unfolded the rough map and looked at the last line, where it had been torn away.

Number seven already had a surface-level answer: it had been a level-three Red-Maned Wolf, and it was also the number of a stone house used to hold demonic beasts.

But the "seven" the gray-robed people were offering a high price to find obviously could not be just a wolf that was already dead.

Someone had deliberately made the same number refer to different things.

The real key was hidden in the line that had been torn away.