Chương 57: Following the trail

Bai Yun stood up and quickly walked to the innermost area. As he walked, he felt two more of his marks disappear. By the time he reached the innermost area, only half of the stone seats were left.

Bai Yun had changed his appearance by then. He reached the entrance of the innermost rea in no time. Once inside, Bai Yun sat down on one of the stone seats and pretended to absorb the flames. He even pretended that he was finding it a bit difficult to do so. But in truth, Bai Yun was having all of his senses spread around the innermost area trying to find the person who took the stone seats.

Bai Yun immediately locked onto one person. He was walking around carelessly looking as if he was also trying to look into the mystery of the hell pit. But Bai Yun only smirked when he saw his acting.

According to the Assassin God, all assassins had to be good actors. Sneaking in and killing someone was only a single way to kill someone. Sometimes the easiest way to get inside a target's place of living was to be invited in. At those times you would need to blend in seamlessly, lest doubt arise. Only such an assassin was worthy of the name. Thus this philosophy, along with the ability of the Assassin God's technique meant there were lots of teachings on acting in the legacy. Bai Yun scoffed when he saw the way the person was moving. It was amateurish at best.

When the mysterious stranger faced him, Bai Yun quickly used the recording jade to capture his face. Then Bai Yun watched as he neared a stone he had marked and bent over as if to inspect the seat. People were used to this by now and simply turned away. Bai Yun was the only person paying attention to him. Thinking that no one was watching him, Bai Yun watched as he quickly replaced the stone with a stone of his own with practiced ease. The flame barely flickered when the switch was made. It was not his first time he had done this.

Bai Yun watched as he went around the room replacing the stone seats. All this time, Bai Yun was doing pretty well with his acting. Bai Yun had deduced the time the stranger would take in order to finish up and leave, and Bai Yun was acting so that he could give up and leave alongside him. He was pretending to be sweating and shaking with pain by then.

Soon enough, the stranger had finished collecting all the stones and started to leave, while pretending to be saddened by the fact that he couldn't find any clues.

Bai Yun watched as he got closer, and got up from his seat. He was sitting only a short distance from the entrance, so the stranger would have to pass through him to get to the door. Bai Yun sighed, got up and moved to the door. He was hobbling the whole time he was on his way. The two of them reached the door at the same time. Then Bai Yun pretended to stumble and fell towards the stranger. The stranger reached out to hold him instinctively.

"Thanks." Bai Yun mumbled.

"It's okay. First time here?" The stranger smiled as he looked at Bai Yun. Now that he had completed his mission, he was quite free and relaxed. He had been doing this for months and had not run into any problems. Thus his confidence had grown.

"Is it that obvious?" Bai Yun smiled.

"There are not a lot of people who cannot handle the flames here once they get used to it. You are the exception here." He laughed.

Bai Yun thanked the stranger for one final time, and the two of them quickly separated. Bai Yun took a step back to inspect the place where the closest marked stone was, only to see that it was replaced by an empty stone. Bai Yun slowly made his way through the floor and exited the hell pit. By then not only had he lost the stranger, but he had also returned to his original looks.

As he stood there Bai Yun smiled as he felt the tracking mark that he had placed on the stranger.

There was no way that the Assassin God's legacy did not have a tracking technique. The stumble and fall of Bai Yun were intentional. He had used that time to place the racking mark on the stranger. It was a complex mark that could only be placed by someone who cultivated in all three paths at the same time. There was no way that anyone at the qi step could see through the tracking mark.

But there were indeed some faults with the technique. The distance the mark could be tracked was not too great, and you needed to have physical contact to place the track, at least in the initial stages of cultivation.

Bai Yun looked at the direction the tracking mark was pointing to. With a start, Bai Yun realized that it was going to the place where one could take a clan bus. There was no way Bai Yun could allow the stranger to escape his range. So he cast wind motion and chased after the stranger.

Bai Yun reached him just as the clan bus was arriving. Bai Yun had changed his appearance and clothing by now, so he did not recognize him. Bai Yun entered the same bus as the stranger. To Bai Yun's surprise, he realized that the bus was heading towards the gates of the Bai clan. He used his soul tendril to keep track of the stranger. He saw that the stranger was heading outside the clan.

Bai Yun frowned when he saw this. This meant that whichever force was responsible for the theft of the hellfire was not internal to the clan. This did not bode well.

The bus reached the gate of the Bai clan after some time. By now dusk had fallen. Bai Yun left the Bai clan following the stranger.

Bai Yun took a slightly different route from the stranger, only to change his appearance and follow him once again. He then sped up and walked by the stranger, slightly ramming into him in the process. He had used this collision to remove the tracking mark. If the tracking mark was simply kept, then there was a chance that someone in the soul step or higher would find out and he couldn't take the chance. If some kind soul step cultivator was to warn the stranger, things would get dangerous. He could not take that chance.

Bai Yun watched as he walked a good distance, and then entered a cafe. Bai Yun changed his appearance and entered the cafe after the stranger. He then watched him from the corner of his eyes.

But after a while, Bai Yun had to leave. Both he and the stranger were pretty much the only people in the cafe that were sitting alone. The cafe seemed to be one that was frequented by the youth of Yellow City and most of them were in the qi condensation or foundation establishment realm. As Bai Yun walked past the stranger, he reapplied the tracking mark, as there were no soul step cultivators nearby.

Bai Yun then walked out and hid himself around the corner. He used both his god sense as well as the Assassin God's technique to hide his presence. Since it had gotten dark by then, there were a lot of places to hide, or cafes similar to the one the stranger was in to step in when he got tired.

After a long wait, at about an hour to midnight, Bai Yun finally felt some movement from his tracking mark. Bai Yun quickly chased after the stranger and caught up to him and removed the tracking mark once again. He then followed the stranger through the road of Yellow City, changing appearances a few times along the way. By now the traffic had gone down by quite a bit.

Bai Yun followed him to a deserted part of the city. Here the streets had long gone dark, and there was barely any light. It was now only a few minutes until midnight. Bai Yun watched the stranger enter a dark house in the middle of the street. There was nothing special about the house. It was similar to the other houses in the street. But Bai Yun was getting a weird feeling from this house. It was not only his god sense, but even his experience and perception were also giving him a warning. 'There must be something quite dangerous inside.' Bai Yun thought.

Not wanting to waste his time, Bai Yun quickly checked the house out from multiple directions. After a while, he saw no restrictions or formations placed on the house, which surprised him. It was just a normal house and not a secret hideout. This place was probably just used for this one single meetup. He saw that the house had three entrances. Not wanting to miss anything Bai Yun took out a few recording jades and placed them pointed at the house. He then hid in the shadows on the roof of the house opposite to it, having a clear view of the main gate.

Bai Yun was patient. He watched as three more people came and went into the house. Two of them were in the foundation establishment realm, whereas the third was in the core formation stage. Not a single one of them felt Bai Yun. He waited patiently on the roof. There was no movement from the house from then on.

Finally, after an hour, he heard some motion coming from the front entrance. He watched as six people exited the house. Then they all split up and went in different directions.

Bai Yun shook his head when he saw them move. You should always exit from a secret meeting separately. This will only draw attention to yourself. They must be amateurs.

Bai Yun quickly took the recording jade that was pointed at the main door and placed a new one there. He figured that he could collect the recording jades later, by which they would have captured any other information he could have missed now. After this Bai Yun followed the stranger he had followed here. Not only was he from the Bai clan, but he was also the weakest of them at only the seventh stage of qi condensation. All the others were at the foundation establishment stage or above.

Soon after they were alone. All the others had left, and the street was deserted. Bai Yun was hidden in the shadows a short distance behind the stranger. He was returning to the clan. Soon they would be back in more busy streets.

He knew that he would have to make a move if he was going to make a move at all.

Bai Yun was wondering if he should kidnap the stranger and interrogate him himself.

If he were to interrogate the person then there would be may problems. First of all, it would be very difficult to capture him silently considering his cultivation level. Next was the problem that he did not have a suitable location to interrogate him in.

But there was also a problem if he was to simply let him go. From what he saw in front of the house, this was a large operation. If he turned him in now, there was a possibility that he would be tipped off and would escape. He would also tip them off if he failed in his capture.

In an instant, Bai Yun decided on the course of his action.

He would capture him first and think about the consequences later.