Xiao Nanhui’s pupils contracted sharply the instant she made out his face, and she stood motionless, stunned.
That face still retained a trace of youth, but it had grown considerably in the months since she last saw it. A faint trace of delicacy that had not yet entirely disappeared.
It was An Lu.
The descendant of the convicted An clan of Mu Er He in Huozhou — abandoned in a desolate village after failing his mission just months ago, and now appearing in a forbidden land a thousand miles away.
This was no coincidence.
“This must be Master Akuang, I presume?” An Lu’s voice was low. He had his back to Akuang, and seemed to have no particular interest in the man himself.
“The very same, the very same. Hearing that the honored Master An was coming, I made certain to be here waiting as you instructed. Only — I wonder what this matter concerns — why not move to the village to speak there—”
“Has anyone else been alerted?”
Akuang faltered for just a moment before answering quickly: “Certainly not.”
An Lu made a gentle wave of his hand, and the people behind him stepped forward one by one to check Akuang and his subordinates. It was only then that Xiao Nanhui noticed what appeared to be the same mark tattooed on the back of each of their necks.
“You should know — this is something Lord Yan arranged. He says that some time ago, at the Sun family’s estate, he encountered a rather peculiar woman who escaped in this direction. He sent me to come and have a look.”
Lord Yan?
Her mind flashed to the figure in purple and the bone-chilling level of martial skill that person had displayed.
She had been careless. She had been badly hurt at the time, desperate to shake off Kexang’s pursuit — she must have revealed something of her fighting technique and footwork. And after that, she had been drifting in and out of consciousness through the entire journey, with no idea how Wu Xiaoliu had managed to carry her back into the village. A man who could serve as the Bai Family’s arm was certainly a sharp judge of people. He might have had his suspicions long since.
She ought to be grateful that there were so many villages in Bijiang — that was the only reason they had taken this long to track her down.
“Could the woman Lord Yan described be Pan Yao’er, the current chief of this village?” Akuang’s mind was as quick as ever — he had seized on the key point in an instant.
An Lu’s interest was finally caught. “The current chief? What happened to the previous chief?”
“Pan Mei’er went to the Sun estate for a celebration some time ago, and never returned. The timing of the succession was right around then. The new chief claims to be Pan Mei’er’s younger sister—”
Akuang was still speaking when An Lu cut him off, his voice flat as ice.
“Where is she? Take me to her.”
---
A hundred plants die; the frost descends.
A thick carpet of leaves had fallen across the low scrubland of Bijiang, mixing with withered yellow grass — deep enough in places to swallow a person halfway up the leg.
The sun leaned westward. The air, stripped of warmth, sank down, and mist rose through the trees. A figure moved at speed through the mist, cutting it open like a knife through cloth, leaving a long trail of white in its wake.
Xiao Nanhui ran through the dead leaves on a still-mending leg, not daring to stop for an instant.
An Lu had not brought many people, but each of them was fully armed. Now that they knew something was wrong, they would not be slow.
She knew Akuang was a local too, no less familiar with the roads than she was. But over these past three months she hadn’t let the land go to waste — she had walked every hillside and stretch of wasteland around the village until they were mapped into her bones. The shortest and most direct route was etched in her mind. If she pushed herself to the absolute limit, she might be able to open a gap of one incense stick’s worth of time.
This was the first time she had ever run from a fight.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t win a direct confrontation — it was that she couldn’t afford to lose. The moment her impersonation was confirmed, escaping would be nothing like the close calls before. She could not fail here. If she died alone that was one thing, but she would likely drag three other lives down with her.
An Lu’s face seemed to hover before her eyes still. He was working for the Bai Family? Had his master summoned him to Bijiang?
At the time, his target had also been the secret seal — which would make sense if the Bai Family were behind it.
But what connection did he have to the organization known as Pu Huna? Were those assassins something the Bai Family had cultivated? If so, why had Wu Xiaoliu crossed their path as a child? The upheaval of Yu’an had been over a decade ago, and what Wu Xiaoliu described had happened at least twenty years back.
Xiao Nanhui felt as though a tangled skein of rope were twisting and writhing in her mind, the knots pulling tighter and tighter, stealing the air from her lungs.
Only one thing was perfectly clear to her in that moment: An Lu must not see her face.
Though their encounter in Huozhou had been brief, she would not allow herself the smallest carelessness toward this half-grown youth. The hatred and distortion she had seen in his eyes at their parting had been so stark — fierce enough to drive a mortal body to the most extreme of acts.
Bijiang, she feared, could no longer be held.
That thought had been circling at the edges of her mind since last night, but it had only taken shape fully in this moment.
And she had a vague premonition: the matter of Pu Huna might be the single most important intelligence she would uncover on this entire westward journey. Yet the night hawk would not return for another three days. She had no time left.
The sunlight struggled at the horizon.
In the last moment before the final sliver of sunset disappeared, Xiao Nanhui finally made out the outline of the village.
“Wu Xiaoliu!”
She had no breath to spare for her burning lungs. She called out with everything she had.
The village was still. Not a soul in sight.
“Wu Xiaoliu! Wu Xiaoliu—”
She called again twice more, and just as she was about to call a fourth time, a round silhouette came trembling out from beneath one of the elevated bamboo buildings, clutching half a smoking fire-starter in one hand.
Xiao Nanhui exhaled with relief and grabbed him at once. “The people in the village—”
Wu Xiaoliu swallowed hard, repeatedly. “They — they all went like you said, half an hour ago, and you still weren’t back—”
“Good, good, good.” She said it three times over, then asked urgently, “What about Hao Bai and the man in the cell?”
Before she had finished speaking, a white figure came struggling toward them from not far off — apparently attempting to run, but weighed down by the limp figure draped across his shoulder, unable to take proper strides.
“Right here, right here.”