I Am Your Natural Enemy

Chapter 1233: Chapter 424: Guarding the Big Intersection, Craftsman

“I have money myself, I can buy it on my own!”

The old man in the surveillance noticed the camera and the intersection, but didn’t dare to take risks, still moving forward quickly.

On the other side, Wen Yan had just emerged from the Nether Path, arriving in Guanzhong County.

“If someone is in the Nether Path right now, just passed the Big Intersection, can we catch up if we enter now?”

“It’s basically impossible to encounter them; the Nether Path only goes forward, not back. By the time we go in, they might be about to exit.” Feng Wei shook his head.

“Have you ever met anyone or anything else in the Nether Path?”

“I’ve never met someone walking the Nether Path, but I have encountered Ghosts that originally resided there. It’s indeed quite difficult to meet others there.”

“That’s a pity…”

It wasn’t particularly surprising to Wen Yan that someone would walk the Nether Path. Crossing the shadow or traversing the shades is an ancient practice with various depictions in records, but with generally similar nature.

Walking the Nether Path with the physical body has always been the most dangerous; even the Taoists of the Three Mountains and Five Ridges avoid it unless absolutely necessary.

Even nowadays, they would rather endure discomfort and take a flight lasting several hours than take a ten-minute shortcut.

Yet, while these people are unwilling, there are always other traditions willing to take this risk to perform tasks only suitable in the Nether Path.

Take soul summoning, for instance. The orthodox method involves setting up an altar, preparing sacrifices, talismans, divine positions, straw effigies, etc., to summon back the lost Life Soul or Lost Souls.

But it’s rare for Daoist Masters or the Treasure Talismans they impart to match this ritual.

And the demand for soul summoning remains fairly common, leading to the development of riskier methods that don’t require talismans.

The most typical is soul calling, or the wilder approach where souls directly exit the body to find someone in the Nether Path, akin to walking a tightrope over a deep abyss, risking a fall with any misstep.

Wen Yan had heard of similar individuals before, but physically walking the Nether Path was not normal and rarely seen, which is why many found Wen Yan odd or even rebellious for taking it like a homecoming.

However, having reached this point was no big deal, yet when Wen Yan heard the other person was carrying a lantern, walking the Nether Path physically, he felt it necessary to take a look.

Walking into the desolate tomb, Wen Yan quickly traversed the Nether Path, hoping to encounter that person.

Unfortunately, having reached the Big Intersection, there was no sign of anyone.

After leaving the Big Intersection, Wen Yan returned home, checked the surveillance and found all the clips indicating he saw something, besides himself, was only an old man.

He now felt that ordinary surveillance cameras were quite useful.

In the living world, surrounded by the living, use cameras that capture Ghosts specifically.

Conversely, in the Nether Path filled with Lost Souls, using ordinary cameras to capture the living is fitting.

These cameras were not purely decorative.

He adjusted the video, freezing the frame of the face for a few seconds, then took out his phone, snapped a picture, fed it to the Black Box, to see if it could find any information.

No matter who they are, as long as they have an ID, living in modern society, with very little chance of having no information at all.

This old man couldn’t possibly be cautious to the point of disguising himself just because of surveillance cameras while walking the Nether Path, right?

The Black Box had high-definition photos, a video of the face for a few seconds, and captured the person’s gait, so even if facial recognition couldn’t verify identity, there were plenty of other methods.

Fortunately, the Black Box was quite powerful and quickly produced search results.

The elderly man was named Fan Zeyun, living in a place called Fanzhou in Guanzhong County, precisely the destination Wen Yan was heading to.

According to the data, Fan Zeyun’s family was wealthy in his childhood but later declined, although he was an educated man, a rarity in those days.

He experienced major upheavals in his early years, drifted around, and only in his later years returned to his homeland, where he’s been rooted, making a living stitching lanterns and small jobs, alongside a modest pension due to relaxed coal mine management nearby.

He was never married, had no children, no related contacts except those from the village committee, seeming quite regular from the records.

However, counting his daring to walk the Nether Path physically and back, paired with the earlier data; not just ordinary, but invincible.

Without ties, no children, no relatives, all emergency contacts are village committee members.

Wen Yan understood in his heart that this old man was likely the target he was searching for.

Then had the Black Box compare the white lantern carried by the elderly, examining the patterns on it.

As expected, the Black Box directly gave an assessment result with a 98% match.

It’s essentially confirmed that the pattern he previously compared was made by the same person.

Wen Yan wanted to check the old man’s other data, which was very little, and even those few were only available after being registered.

But the man’s behavior matched those of many pension-dependent elders in Guanzhong County; each month he’d carry his salary slip to the bank, verify the deposit, withdraw all cash and spend only in cash, never using electronic payments, leaving hardly any records.