Chapter 696: Jinghai City

Suolong Village felt incredibly eerie in the dead of night. I scanned my surroundings. Dilapidated stone buildings stood in the rain, and rotting wooden doors creaked in the night wind.

'Wang Shi only told me there was something outside, but he never said if it was a person or a ghost.' I let out a bitter smile and shook my head.

Normally, given my cautious nature, I would never risk my life to come out and investigate at such a dangerous time.

But this time, my hand was truly forced. My faked death should have fooled the sect cultivators, but I couldn't be sure if Elder Chen had fallen for it. After all, he had been far too close to me when I left.

'That old guy is full of tricks and has repeatedly tried to kill me. When Daoist master Wan showed up later and the grand formation mutated, I came up from underground only to find him completely gone. I don't know if he left early out of fear of exposure, or if he's hiding in the shadows, waiting for a chance to strike.' I never underestimated my enemies; it was one of the reasons I had survived this long.

'Judging by the current situation, Elder Chen isn't tracking me. Otherwise, he would have struck while I was unconscious.' This was the only piece of good news, but I still couldn't let my guard down. 'Even if I fooled the Five Great Upper Sects, the Jiangcheng police aren't pushovers. Chen Jianguo has dealt with me so many times that he definitely won't just let this go. They have modern investigative tools and police dogs. If I don't get far enough away, they'll likely catch up.'

Police investigations into murder cases were far more rigorous than most people imagined. Even for a standard case closure, they had to go through multiple steps of verification.

Taking all of this into consideration, I decided to hurry up and leave. At the very least, I needed to cover my tracks and get far away from this village.

'My Heart Aperture is open, and my body has recovered to its peak condition. The Profound Truth Mental Method is on the verge of breaking through to the next realm, too. When that happens, my strength will see another massive boost.' Blind Liu had once said I had no talent for cultivation. Yet, in reality, it had only been a few weeks since I first encountered Daoist arts, and I was already about to catch up to him. If outsiders found out about this cultivation speed, their eyes would pop out of their heads.

Dragging my Black Leather Suitcase, I walked out of the ancestral hall. Suolong Village at night really did bear some resemblance to the Suolong Village in the Yin-Yang Boundary, except that there were no coffins placed inside these stone buildings.

'Everyone in this village shares the surname Lu, and most of them are underworld walkers. From the intelligence I've gathered, they also have some ambiguous connection with the Two-Faced Buddha. I just don't know if it's a mutually beneficial partnership or one-sided coercion.' I really wanted to cooperate with the underworld walkers in the Yin-Yang Boundary, but I simply didn't have the courage to enter that place again.

Compared to the version of myself in my memories, the current me was more human and felt much more real.

That was right, I felt fear too. It was just that, most of the time, I knew fear was useless. So logic took over my body, forcing me not to do something stupid like blindly run for my life.

Advancing along the blue-brick path, I followed Suolong Village's main road, cutting straight across the entire village.

I hadn't come here to uncover any truths this time, so I didn't enter any of the houses. Passing through hurriedly, I soon reached the edge of the village.

'This was the well I escaped from back then.' Seeing the ancient well at the edge of the village, I still felt a lingering sense of dread. 'Now that the Dream Wing Gu has matured, I'm confident I can make it back even if I enter the Yin-Yang Boundary again.'

With that thought in mind, I involuntarily walked over.

The ancient well looked exactly the same; it felt as though time had left no mark on it at all.

I stood by the well and peered inside. Perhaps due to the rain, some dirty water had accumulated inside.

It was murky, with fallen leaves and the carcasses of a couple of small birds floating on the surface.

I didn't pay it much mind at first, but the more I thought about it, the more something felt wrong.

'Why would there be dead birds in the well water? They wouldn't fly down there to drink.' Activating my Judging Eye, I quickly noticed that the wounds on the birds were extremely fine. Furthermore, some of their blood had been drained, and their bellies were shriveled—all their internal organs were gone.

'Eaten by a wild beast?' I stood where I was and looked around the ancient well, soon making a new discovery. There were animal paw prints left in the dirt. They were slightly larger than a cat's, with incredibly sharp claws.

'Are these... fox paws?' My gaze drifted back and forth between the ancient well and the prints. 'The ancient well connects to the Yin-Yang Boundary. If so, could these prints have been left by the Blood Fox's corpse?'

Eating only the most tender organs and thirsting for blood—everything perfectly matched the habits of the Fox Immortal Corpse.

'The Blood Fox's corpse drank the Meng Po Soup and lost its mind. It should be lost in the Yin-Yang Boundary. How could it possibly find its way back here? This has to be a coincidence.' I consoled myself, while simultaneously heightening my vigilance and keeping a close eye on my surroundings.

For some unknown reason, the Fox Immortal Corpse harbored an intense killing intent toward me. That mad fox was always trying to put me in the ground. More importantly, it seemed to have a special method of sensing my location. No matter how I hid, it always managed to find me.

'Gao Jian, oh Gao Jian, just what kind of sins have you committed? People want you dead, ghosts want you dead, and even a fox wants to kill you.' Looking at the murky well water, I tried to communicate with Xue Zhuo's divine sense inside my spirit platform. Unfortunately, it had no intention of responding and completely ignored me.

'The main culprit won't show itself, and I have too little intel. Even if I leave Jiangcheng, I have to stay vigilant at all times. There are too many enemies hiding in the shadows; they could appear at any moment.' The Fox Immortal Corpse could track me down likely because Xue Zhuo's divine sense was hidden inside my spirit platform, allowing them to sense each other. Aside from the Blood Fox, I also had to look out for other enemies. For instance, the Uncorrupted Bone. I had stolen a piece of its spine, so it would definitely come looking for me to complete its body. Finally, there was the Two-Faced Buddha. I had screwed Elder Chen over right before I left by exposing his identity as a Fate Usurper. Given the temperament of the Two-Faced Buddha's group, they absolutely wouldn't let things rest.

Just thinking about all this gave me a headache. Most of my enemies had means of tracking me. Even if they couldn't pinpoint my exact location, they could determine my general direction.

'Going to Xinhu City now is just throwing myself into a net, and returning to Jiangcheng is completely out of the question—that massive grave is already showing signs of mutation.' After mulling it over, my best destination was Jinghai City. It was a tier-one metropolis with a massive transient population, making it easy for me to hide my identity.

'Me going to Jinghai City is fine, but I'm afraid my enemies will follow me there. If they turn Jinghai City completely upside down, that would be interesting.' Thinking about it carefully, I really did feel like a "menace." Wherever I went, I turned the place completely upside down.

I glanced back at Suolong Village. Faint dark silhouettes flitted through the stone buildings. This eerie village filled me with intense apprehension.

'One day, I will unravel all the mysteries here.' Without overthinking it, I ran out of the village into the rain and plunged straight into the mountain forest.

I wove some branches into a makeshift raincoat and draped it over myself. Ever since my Heart Aperture opened, my body radiated warmth, making me feel like I had an endless supply of strength.

Unlike Wang Shi, I possessed an extremely strong sense of counter-reconnaissance. I carefully cleaned up any tracks I might have left behind. After circling around, I actually didn't go far from Suolong Village, finally stopping beneath a jutting rock face on the village outskirts.

'The rain is still getting heavier. It's too easy to lose my bearings, so I'd better wait until daybreak to leave.' Having left no tracks, I hid in the shadows. Even if something came after me, I would spot it immediately and be able to react.

Hiding beneath the rock face, I stared into the pitch-black night and pondered my future path.

'Tomorrow night is when the next livestream begins.' I pulled out the Live Show Phone. The heavy Large-Screen Phone was still working properly. 'I don't know where tomorrow's livestream will take place. If it's still in Jiangcheng, that will be bad.'

Refusing to participate in a livestream would deduct ten points. My current points could sustain me for a while, but this was absolutely not a long-term plan.

'Before my points are completely exhausted, I must find that Streamer in Jinghai City. Whether his intentions are genuine or false, I have to do whatever it takes to pry the secrets of the Live Show out of him.' Jinghai was far larger than Jiangcheng. Trying to find one person in such an international metropolis was like looking for a needle in a haystack, so I had to prepare a backup plan.

Finding him would obviously be best, but if my points ran out and I still hadn't found him, I would have to face the Live Show's punishment.

'There are no eternal friends or eternal enemies in this world. If it really comes down to that, I'll enter the Deep Dream Layer to find the Traitors.' The second memory that surfaced after my Heart Aperture opened was related to Xiao A. This queen who governed a portion of the Dream Realm's time might be able to help me.

Putting the phone away, I dispelled the stray thoughts in my head, huddled beneath the rock face, and sat cross-legged to meditate.

...

The pattering sound of rain echoed in my ears. It rained through the entire night, making the early morning air in the mountain forest exceptionally fresh.

'Time to head out. From now on, I am no longer Gao Jian.' Pulling out the Human Skin Mask, I secured it over my face. I organized the contents of my suitcase and used Suolong Village as a coordinate to navigate my way forward. It wasn't until the sun had completely risen that I walked out of the mountains and arrived at the riverbank.

I was far away from Jiangcheng now. Having taken a massive detour, even I had no idea where I had ended up.

'I have to cross the river to get to Jinghai City. Looks like I'm definitely going to miss tonight's livestream.' The rain had long since stopped, and the great river flowed quietly. I walked along the riverbank for nearly two more hours before finally spotting the silhouette of a boat on the water.

The boat was small. The man steering it held the tiller in one hand and a bamboo pole over two meters long in the other. Every now and then, he would fish garbage out of the river and toss it into a bamboo basket on the boat.

The man was tall and thin. Living on the river year-round had tanned his skin a deep dark brown. He was middle-aged, but his hands moved nimbly; every swing of the pole felt as light as a dragonfly skimming the water as he effortlessly picked trash off the surface.

Having just escaped Jiangcheng, I didn't dare act rashly. I activated my Judging Eye for a closer look, and my expression slowly turned peculiar.

Tied to the back of that small boat were several hemp ropes, and securely bound to the end of each rope was a bloated corpse!