Eyes in the Shadows

I returned to the old house as darkness fell.

The courtyard gate closed, and Lu Qinghe peeked out from the kitchen, still holding the spatula in his hand. His gaze swept over the five people, lingered on Lu Yuan's face for a moment, nodded, and then retreated back into the kitchen.

Mo Chen plopped down on the edge of the well and gulped down several mouthfuls of water. "I'm exhausted." He wiped his mouth. "Kid Su, let me try that shockwave Soul Skill of yours later."

Su Yan unloaded her luggage and nodded earnestly.

Shen Moxin took off her glasses and wiped them, then walked to the corner of the wall and squatted down next to the Blue Silver Grass, touching the grass blades with her fingertips.

Lu Yuan didn't move.

He stood in the center of the courtyard, his back to the gate, his gaze sweeping over the eaves, woodpile, well, and wall. The setting sun cast long shadows, and everything looked the same.

It's too quiet.

It wasn't the usual silence. The calls of the woman next door calling her child to eat, the hammering of the blacksmith finishing work, the barking of stray dogs... all seemed muffled, separated by something. Even the usual chirping of insects in the yard had ceased.

It's so thin it's almost imperceptible.

Lu Yuan tapped his thigh lightly with his index finger. Three short taps followed by one long tap, then a pause, and then two more short taps.

"Father," he began.

Lu Qinghe brought out a basin of hot water. "Hmm?"

"Is there any movement from Deacon Han's side?"

"No. The signal stone isn't responding."

Lu Yuan nodded and walked to the well to wash his hands. The water was very cold. He splashed it on his face, closed his eyes for a few seconds, and when he opened them again, the weariness in his eyes had been suppressed.

"Mo Chen." He waved his hand. "How many of those little gadgets for detecting Soul Power fluctuations do you have left?"

Mo Chen was taken aback. "Simple ones? We don't have many ingredients left. If we're making them now... three or four, maybe. What's wrong?"

"Make it, we'll use it tonight."

Shen Moxin stood up, her gaze behind her glasses sharpening. "What did you find out?"

"It's not certain yet." Lu Yuan walked towards the main room. "Come in and eat first. After dinner, Mo Chen will set up the device. Su Yan, Li Wangye, you two check around the courtyard wall, especially the weeds in the shady areas. Teacher Shen, please list out everything that's unusual in town during the days we were away—even the smallest details."

He pushed open the door to the main room and lit the oil lamp. In the dim yellow light, the food steamed.

"Father," Lu Yuan sat down, "Tomorrow, go to the blacksmith shop in the east of town and order a batch of ordinary iron nails. Tell them it's for repairing the roof."

Lu Qinghe paused, his hand still holding the rice. "Iron nails?"

"Okay. Order more, pick it up in batches." Lu Yuan picked up some pickled vegetables. "Also, let Shopkeeper Liu know we might be going into the mountains to collect ' Snake Saliva Grass ' soon, and ask him if he'll buy it."

Shen Moxin frowned slightly. "Snake Saliva Grass? That stuff only grows in the damp crevices deep within the Black Stone Mountain Range. Harvesting it is risky, yet its market price is low. You..."

She suddenly stopped.

Lu Yuan looked up and met her gaze. Neither of them spoke.

With a biscuit stuffed in his mouth, Mo Chen mumbled indistinctly, "A deliberate diversion? Who are they trying to fool?"

"Show this to anyone who might be watching," Lu Yuan said calmly. "Let's eat."

A wind picked up at night.

Mo Chen squatted in the corner of the main room, fiddling with gray stones and thin metal wires by the light of an oil lamp. His fingers were rough, but his movements were steady. Guided by his Soul Power, the metal wires drilled into the shallow grooves of the stone, winding into intricate patterns.

"It's done." He picked up the palm-sized rock and held it up to the light to examine it. The texture was extremely fine, and it didn't reflect light. "Sensing range is thirty paces. It's well-hidden, Soul Power fluctuations are almost zero. Unless you scan it right up to your face, you won't be able to detect it."

He made four pieces.

Lu Yuan took the piece and stroked it. It felt cool and rough. "How do I use it?"

"Buried in the soil or sealed in wall cracks, it continuously absorbs free Soul Power to maintain its operation. Once Soul Power fluctuation exceeding the threshold enters the range—for example, someone circulating Soul Power or passing by with an item carrying strong Soul Power —the internal patterns of the stone will produce a weak resonance."

He pulled out a thin piece about the size of a button. "This is a receiver. When a resonance signal is transmitted, it causes a temperature change. You can feel it when you shake hands."

Shen Moxin picked up the thin slice and examined it against the light. "It can only sense the strength of Soul Power fluctuations, but it can't distinguish the source attribute, right?"

"Yes." Mo Chen nodded. "I can only tell you that 'something' has come in. The specifics are up to guessing."

Lu Yuan tucked the stone into his pocket. "That's enough."

Around midnight, the town became completely quiet.

Lu Yuan and Mo Chen left the main hall. No lamps were lit, and they crossed the courtyard by the dim moonlight.

Behind the woodpile in the southeast corner, beside the water tank in the northwest corner, under the threshold of the main gate, and at the base of the fence in the backyard, four stones were quietly placed. Mo Chen would hold the receiving thin plate to detect and activate each stone as it was placed.

Su Yan and Li Wangye were also awake. The two of them carefully examined the courtyard wall inch by inch. Their fingers traced the cracks between the bricks, and they parted the withered grass, their eyes straining in the darkness.

Half an hour later, the group reunited in the main room.

"There are no new marks on the courtyard wall," Su Yan said in a low voice, "But on the old locust tree opposite the main gate, there are three places where the bark on our side is worn particularly smooth. It's like someone often leans against there."

Li Wangye added, "There were several footprints on the muddy ground beside the drainage ditch in the back alley. They were very shallow, but the tread pattern on the soles of the shoes was different from the ones people in town usually wear. They were deeper and denser."

Shen Moxin opened her notebook, which listed seven or eight items. "In the three days you've been in the mountains, four groups of unfamiliar merchants have come to town. One of them inquired about 'rare medicinal herbs in the mountains' at Shopkeeper Liu. The owner of the teahouse at the east end said that a man in a gray shirt came to drink tea for two consecutive days, and each time he sat by the street corner for half a day."

She paused, "Also, yesterday afternoon a carriage passed by on the official road outside town. It didn't enter the town, but went straight north. The horses pulling the carriage weren't ordinary horses; their hooves were deeper, and their steps were more synchronized. The carriage curtain wasn't lifted."

Lu Yuan listened quietly, tapping his index finger lightly on the table. He only spoke after everyone had finished.

"Mo Chen, receiver."

Mo Chen spread the four thin button pieces on the table. Two of them, under the oil lamp, showed an extremely subtle difference in color—they were slightly darker.

"Behind the woodpile and beside the water vat," Mo Chen pointed to the two, "There's a reaction. Very weak, but persistent. It's not just passing by; it's staying there."

The main room was completely silent.

The oil lamp's flame flickered and popped.

"Two points," Lu Yuan said calmly, "Forming a pincer movement, covering the front gate of the courtyard. A skillful maneuver; the chosen positions allow for observation of the courtyard while also facilitating evacuation."

Shen Moxin took a deep breath. "Cloud Mist Sect? Or Desolate Wolf?"

"It doesn't seem like it." Lu Yuan shook his head. "The Soul Power fluctuations of the Cloud Mist Sect carry a damp and gloomy aura, like fog. The Soul Power of the Desolate Wolf gang of desperados is restless and chaotic, and you can smell the blood from a great distance. But these two points..." He looked at Mo Chen.

Mo Chen licked his lips. "It was extremely well-controlled. If it weren't for the fact that my stone is particularly sensitive to sustained low-intensity fluctuations, I wouldn't have been able to grasp it at all. That feeling... if I had to describe it, it was like ice, cold, hard, and devoid of emotion."

Lu Qinghe suddenly spoke up, "The Inspection Office?"

Lu Yuan didn't answer immediately. He got up, walked to the window, and opened it a crack. The night breeze blew in, carrying the chill of late autumn.

"Deacon Han doesn't need to be so secretive to monitor us," he said, his voice carried on the wind. "He could simply come openly to 'inquire about the progress.' Besides, the Inspection Office process is more direct and bureaucratic. This style of hiding in the shadows..."

He closed the window and turned around.

"Tomorrow, we'll put on a play."

The next day was cloudy.

Lu Yuan got up early and fetched water in the courtyard to wash up. He moved slowly and deliberately. After breakfast, he called Lu Qinghe to the center of the courtyard, and the two squatted down and used tree branches to gesture.

The sound wasn't loud, but it was clear enough.

"... Deacon Han is pressing us hard." Lu Yuan drew circles on the ground with a twig. "They don't seem satisfied with the information we gave them last time. They want more specific details, such as the distribution of the Cloud Mist Sect's strongholds in the Black Stone Mountain Range and recent personnel movements."

Lu Qinghe frowned. "It's not that easy. We're not mind readers."

"There's no other way," Lu Yuan sighed. "When it comes to cooperation, we have to show some sincerity. I was thinking that next time we meet, we can package up those suspicious locations we observed earlier—the mountain hollow to the north, the area below the cliff to the east—and present them to them as potential temporary camps of the Cloud Mist Sect."

"Wouldn't that be too risky?" Lu Qinghe asked with concern. "What if they really send someone to investigate, alerting them..."

"So we need to package it," Lu Yuan interrupted him, "A mix of truth and falsehood, a little exaggeration. That way we appear valuable without revealing our hand. We need to think this through carefully."

The two whispered a few more words to each other, then stood up.

Throughout the day, people came and went from the old house as usual. Su Yan and Li Wangye practiced their martial arts in the courtyard, the sound of hammers whistling through the air. Mo Chen squatted under the eaves, clanging metal pieces. Shen Moxin sat by the window in the main room, writing at her desk, occasionally pushing up her slipping glasses.

The calmness was deliberate.

In the evening, Lu Qinghe went out and came back carrying a bag of iron nails. He said the blacksmith had agreed to start forging them tomorrow, with the first batch of fifty nails to be picked up in three days.

Lu Yuan didn't sleep at night.

He sat cross-legged on the floor of the main room, closed his eyes, and slowly circulated his Soul Power in the most subtle way, sensing the faint signals coming from the four stones in the courtyard.

The dot behind the woodpile disappeared for half a quarter of an hour at midnight, then reappeared. The dot next to the water vat remained stable.

At 3:45 AM, both dots disappeared simultaneously.

Lu Yuan opened his eyes.

He waited for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, but the signal never returned.

As dawn approached, he got up and walked to the courtyard gate. The morning mist was thick, and the stone path was wet. He opened the door, his gaze falling on the inside of the door frame.

A metal plate was nailed there.

Thin, cool, about the size of a thumbnail. Dull gray like ordinary cast iron. The surface has no patterns or text, only a single engraving—a simple eye pattern outlined by three curved lines.

The engravings are deep and the edges are sharp, giving them a cold, hard, almost mechanical precision.

Lu Yuan reached out, his fingertips touching the metal plate. A chill crept up his fingertips.

With a gentle pry, the metal piece detached from the door frame and fell into his palm.

An oil lamp was lit in the main room.

Everyone gathered around. Shen Moxin took the metal piece and examined it closely under the light. Her brows furrowed more and more, and after a long while, she shook her head.

"Never seen it before." Her voice was soft. "I've studied the emblems of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, the Spirit Hall... including the military emblems of the two major empires and well-known Soul Master families. This pattern isn't there."

Mo Chen took it and scraped the edges of the engraving with his fingernail. "The technique is impressive. It wasn't done by grinding it bit by bit with a carving knife; it was done in one go, with terrifyingly even force. It's like... it was 'cut' directly from an extremely fine thread formed from Soul Power."

He weighed it in his hand. "The material is ordinary wrought iron; ten Copper Soul Coin can buy a pound of it on the street. But the precision of the workmanship is beyond the capabilities of ordinary craftsmen."

Lu Yuan took the metal piece back and held it between his fingertips. The eye pattern engraved on it gleamed coldly under the light.

"Not a friend," he said slowly, "Nor does he seem like an enemy ready to strike at any moment."

Shen Moxin looked up. "What's that?"

"Announcement." Lu Yuan clenched the metal plate in his palm, the cool touch pressed against his skin. "'I see you.' Or rather, 'We are watching.'"

The main room was deathly silent.

The sky outside the window was gradually brightening. The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and Maple Leaf Town revealed its blurry outline in the fog, quiet like a painting.

But beneath this quiet, something was different.

Lu Yuan released his grip, and the metal piece fell onto the table with a crisp, light sound. His gaze swept over everyone.

"Pack up, activities will proceed as usual today. Su Yan, Li Wangye, continue your practice. Mo Chen, make a few more small gadgets. Teacher Shen, double-check all recent purchase lists and travel records."

He paused.

"The purpose of those eyes is unclear. They might be after the Soul Marrow Essence, they might be interested in us, or perhaps..." He looked at the metal plate on the table, "They're after our 'cooperation' with the Inspection Office."

An unknown third party entered the scene quietly.

Like a drop of ink falling into already murky water.

Lu Yuan walked to the window and opened it. Cold mist rushed in and hit his face. He gazed at the hazy streets, eaves, and tree shadows in the distance.

The situation has become more complicated.