Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 275: A Sudden Appearance

Twelfth Madam Luo looked at Zhang Yingbo at the door and asked with some curiosity, ”Miss Zhang, what can I do for you?”

Zhang Yingbo smiled politely.

”Shopkeeper, I’d like to ask you for some information.”

Seeing Twelfth Madam Luo’s puzzled look, Zhang Yingbo explained, ”I just ran into Young Hero Ding and remembered your place isn’t far from the Treasure Market, and your business is booming. Perhaps some news has spread.”

What she didn’t say was ”all sorts of people including riff-raff come through,” since saying so would be too rude to the shop.

Twelfth Madam Luo understood.

”What do you want to know?”

Zhang Yingbo unfolded the portraits of He Jin, Hou Yang, and the others.

”Shopkeeper, have you seen any of these people?”

Twelfth Madam Luo glanced through them and pointed at He Jin’s portrait.

”I’ve seen him.”

Zhang Yingbo’s eyes lit up.

”When?”

Twelfth Madam Luo recalled what she knew.

”A while ago, at least ten days.

”He came to the wine shop once and never showed up again.”

Ding Songyan, hidden in the east wing, felt relieved on hearing this, and oddly wanted to laugh.

Twelfth Madam, with that honest face of yours, you can pull the wool over people’s eyes with half-truths!

Being knocked out by you does count as seeing him, and the back courtyard really is part of the wine shop, but strung together like that, Miss Zhang will only think He Jin came to the wine shop to eat and drink.

Twelfth Madam is more flexible than I’d imagined these days, but it fits the impression she gave back when I had no guess about her identity, things like ”I’m Luo Mingyin,” ”I have some connection to Ditai.” Right, she’s using a disguise and a fake name already, so bending the truth a little to fool people doesn’t weigh much on her conscience... Ding Songyan sat on the east wing bed, tracking events outside through the Chaos Realm and his two ears.

He had chosen to hide rather than meet Zhang Yingbo with Twelfth Madam, naturally for fear she would ask, ”Young Hero Ding, why are you in the back courtyard of the wine shop?”

In that case, Ding Songyan wouldn’t know how to answer. Telling the truth, whether ”I came to ask Twelfth Madam for martial arts guidance” or ”I specially came to talk about He Jin and Hou Yang with Twelfth Madam,” would expose secrets. Lying would be no better: a young, strong man appearing in the back courtyard of a mature, charming female shopkeeper would raise doubts in Zhang Yingbo’s mind even if she said nothing, and once she asked around at Prince Kang’s estate, wouldn’t she learn that Young Hero Ding and Twelfth Madam Luo were ”hooking up”?

When she returned to the Phoenix Terrace Study, discussing today’s investigation and combing through all sorts of rumors for clues, she might mention it in passing, and then the whole Five Saints Sect would know the gossip too.

In that case, if Twelfth Madam’s true identity were ever exposed, ”name” really would harm ”reality”!

Ding Songyan didn’t want to take that risk. He could have explained it as ”going to the wine shop to ask around,” but better to hide if he could.

But in the eyes of the watchtower people, sneaking around looks even more like an affair. Aren’t you supposed to be open and aboveboard, Young Hero Ding? Why hide in the east wing? Sigh, you can’t have it both ways... Ding Songyan couldn’t help sighing. If he weren’t afraid of Senior Sister misunderstanding, he honestly wouldn’t care, and it would even keep Demoness Ji focused on severing his worldly ties with Twelfth Madam.

Zhang Yingbo did the math quickly and found that He Jin’s visit to the wine shop had been before Wu Zheng took refuge with the Five Saints Sect.

So he was searching for Wu Zheng?

With a preliminary judgment, Zhang Yingbo changed her question.

”Shopkeeper, were there any other unusual things during that time?”

Twelfth Madam Luo said truthfully, ”A few outsiders kept turning up in the nearby streets and even peeked into the back courtyard.

”But starting five or six days ago, they stopped coming.”

Ding Songyan had worked it out too. Around the third or fourth day after the Five Saints Sect took in Wu Zheng, the group searching for him seemed to have given up.

Zhang Yingbo noted this down and smiled brightly.

”Thank you, Shopkeeper. There’s one more thing I’d like to ask.”

”What is it?” Twelfth Madam Luo was pleasant but not very interested.

Zhang Yingbo chose her words.

”Shopkeeper, have you seen a couple in the nearby streets who might be hidden masters?”

The hidden masters who had saved Wu Zheng might know where He Jin and Hou Yang were.

And I wouldn’t try to trace their identities, only treat them as ordinary people when gathering information, as I’m doing now.

”A couple?” Twelfth Madam Luo’s brows moved slightly. ”Haven’t seen anyone like that.”

Zhang Yingbo couldn’t hide her disappointment but politely thanked Twelfth Madam Luo and turned and left the back courtyard.

Only then did Ding Songyan come out of the east wing and say to Luo Mingyin, making conversation for the sake of it,

”Twelfth Madam, you should have looked at Miss Zhang’s face a few more times and acted more appreciative. That’s the normal reaction of any ordinary person, man or woman.

”It’s only because Miss Zhang’s jianghu experience is still shallow. Otherwise, thinking it over, she’d feel something was off: that shopkeeper doesn’t seem much affected by All Colors Under Heaven Gather Unto You.”

Twelfth Madam Luo glanced at the fellow and drawled a little.

”Worthy of being the Sage-Severing Way leader’s Second Brother.”

”Twelfth Madam, that’s a low blow!” Ding Songyan looked wronged.

He took the opportunity to collect a few more mocking jabs and scoldings before leaving the back courtyard.

See? Twelfth Madam’s mood has improved a little more.

Thinking that there was no lead at all on He Jin and Hou Yang’s whereabouts and that he alone certainly lacked the means to track them, Ding Songyan went into the estate’s side courtyard and said to Li Baima, who was practicing, and Wu Mo and Fan Chunlin, who were watching him,

”Brothers, don’t blame me for not looking out for you. A chance to do a favor for Miss Zhang has come!”

”Miss Zhang Yingbo?” Fan Chunlin shot to his feet.

Ding Songyan nodded solemnly.

”That’s right.”

He told his three colleagues that Zhang Yingbo and other Five Saints Sect disciples were searching for He Jin, Hou Yang, and the others, and that he had Miss Zhang’s permission to help find them.

”Then we’ll pool the useful information we find and take turns reporting back to Miss Zhang.

”After that, you’re on your own.”

”On our own? Getting to say a few words to Miss Zhang would satisfy me. A man has to know his place,” Fan Chunlin said, a little awkwardly.

Wu Mo and Li Baima said the same.

Where’s your drive? A martial artist needs that fire... Ding Songyan did not say this aloud nor stir them up further.

Wouldn’t that just cause Miss Zhang trouble?

Knowing where to draw the line mattered.

Using Manifesting the Way and its Virtue and his precise control of body and strength, Ding Songyan copied the portraits.

He couldn’t reproduce them perfectly, but they captured seventy or eighty percent of the original’s essence, enough for passersby to recognize He Jin, Hou Yang, and the others.

Li Baima and the other two each took a stack of portraits, left the estate, and spread out around the Treasure Market to ask around separately. They got along well, because Brother Ding had said they would pool the useful information and divide it among everyone, so there was no worry about anyone hogging the credit, and no need to fret about bad luck leaving anyone empty-handed.

Two hours later, the four met up outside the courtyard where He Jin, Hou Yang, and the others had hidden.

”This is rather odd,” said Fan Chunlin, who had plenty of experience in tracking matters.

”How so?” Li Baima and Wu Mo looked at him.

”One day, the neighbors still saw people going in and out of this courtyard, all of them the ones in the portraits. The next day, it was empty,” Fan Chunlin said, looking at Ding Songyan. ”No one heard anything at night, and no carts or horses came and went.”

Li Baima thought for a moment and said, ”Isn’t that normal? He Jin and Hou Yang are Grandmasters, and their subordinates are no pushovers either. Of course they could slip away quietly past ordinary folks.

”I went into the courtyard just now and found no clothes or belongings left, so they took them with them, didn’t they?”

He leaned toward the idea that He Jin and the others had long since fled the Treasure Market area.

Fan Chunlin shook his head slowly.

”If no one was stopping them, why would they sneak past the neighbors and look guilty, needlessly drawing suspicion? If it were me, I’d leave with a big show to lay a false trail.”

Ding Songyan preferred Li Baima’s explanation. It meant He Jin and the others had gone on the run, that the Five Saints Sect and Prince Shen’s men wouldn’t catch them anytime soon, and that he needn’t worry any more about Twelfth Madam being forced out of the Flame Capital.

But as Fan Chunlin said, He Jin and the others had come and gone normally for a good while and hadn’t even hidden their faces. Why would they leave so secretively, leaving an even deeper impression?

Ding Songyan thought for a moment, entered the courtyard again, and went through it room by room.

Apart from a few chairs knocked over and some items not neatly arranged, there was nothing worth noting.

If a third party took them, then the whole process made hardly any noise and left no obvious traces...

He Jin and Hou Yang are both Dharma Realm Grandmasters, with several Great Proliferation Realm subordinates. What realm and what martial art would it take to capture or kill them without a sound, and how many companions would that need?

And He Jin is skilled at the Five Elements Escape Art...

The more Ding Songyan thought, the eerier it felt, and it left him strangely uneasy.

After leaving the courtyard with Li Baima and the others, Ding Songyan said to them with a smile, ”Though we haven’t gained much, we can tell Miss Zhang our own guesses.”

Fan Chunlin and the others beamed with joy and, a little nervous, began discussing who would say what.

As they headed toward the Treasure Market, Ding Songyan’s gaze casually surveyed the surroundings.

About thirteen meters away, a person in a thick dark cloak was walking toward a street corner.

In the Chaos Realm, the figure was naturally outlined.

A cloak? Ding Songyan looked over, and as he focused, the appearance of the person hidden under the cloak was reflected in his sea of consciousness.

Around fifty, with yellow-black leopard markings on his face, and two ox horns on his head sawed noticeably shorter.

He Jin!

He Jin actually showed up?

Ding Songyan was about to use Candle-Star Pupils when the person who seemed to be He Jin noticed, suddenly sank, slipped into the ground from the shadows at the street corner, and quickly vanished without a trace.

The Five Elements Escape Art... Was that really He Jin? Ding Songyan’s expression didn’t change, but his gaze froze slightly.

He Jin actually appeared on his own?

Whether he’s gone on the run or been captured, there’s no reason for him to come back to his old hideout and spy on the Five Saints Sect’s investigation.

If he fled, with his traces wiped clean, he’d certainly hide as far away as possible!

If he was captured, did the people who caught him let him go?

Let him go... Ding Songyan suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

Did He Jin choose to pledge allegiance?

”Pledging allegiance” requires a guarantee... and this style of appearing right in front of me...

Ding Qingyan, are you itching for a spanking again?