"So they won't have given up hope just yet. As long as the hour hasn't passed, they won't leave early."
The mirror reminded him, "That's all assuming Mr. Mai hasn't tipped off the mastermind. What if they've already contacted each other?"
"There's no harm in trying; at most, we'll have wasted a bit of effort. Even if we're winking at the blind, what's the big deal?" Who couldn't afford such a minor trial-and-error cost? It wasn't him footing the bill anyway. "Besides, by my deduction, they probably haven't seen Mr. Mai at all."
"Why?"
"He doesn't even live here, yet every clue we got from him points straight to Baishaqu. Isn't that interesting?"
The soul-snatching mirror asked in surprise, "He doesn't live in Baishaqu? Didn't that old gatekeeper in Shuanglu Town say he always came over from Baishaqu?"
"If he lived here permanently, why didn't he buy a house or land?" He Lingchuan said softly. "In Baishaqu, he only stayed at inns—several different ones, and Zhongsun Mou has records of all of them."
"So Baishaqu isn't his residence, but the mastermind's permanent base."
The mirror found it incredible. "Wait a minute. Are you saying Mr. Mai was the one who drew us here?"
"What else?" He Lingchuan had suspected as much ever since receiving the *Records of Reverence for the Gods*, and this recent series of events had only deepened his hypothesis. "He guided all the clues here. Why would he ruin it beforehand?"
He paused briefly. "Besides, we can verify it right now."
The mirror was puzzled. "What do you plan to do?"
He Lingchuan put down the work in his hands and stood up. "Call it a day."
***
The second quarter of the Hour of the Sheep arrived.
Chaohu Teahouse was down to only twenty percent occupancy.
The matchmaking meeting, which hadn't been terribly high-class to begin with, had concluded. The two parties seemed to have parted on bad terms, each paying for their own tea before leaving.
Only two tables remained occupied.
Just then, a figure in white came up the stairs, slowing their pace while sweeping their gaze around the tower interior as if looking for someone.
Counting both tea patrons and sightseers, there were only seven people on the fourth floor, easily taken in at a glance.
As he looked at them, the others looked at him as well.
Like the other tourists, however, he did not take a seat. He merely walked over to the outer veranda along the pagoda's edge and made a circuit, seemingly taking in the scenery.
He wore clothes of Yanghu White and was very tall, with broad shoulders and long legs, wearing a veiled hat on his head. The contraption was basically a wide, conical bamboo hat with netting draped around its brim to block the wind and sun.
Baishaqu was surrounded by water, which meant plenty of mosquitoes along the shores, so fishermen and travelers often wore hats like this; it was nothing unusual.
Yet this hat's netting was extremely dense, largely concealing his face and revealing only a faint outline.
After completing a circuit, the man walked over to the counter, picked up two bags of dried sweet potatoes, weighed them in his hand, took a small piece of loose silver from his waist, and tossed it to the waiter.
In doing so, a red jade thumb ring on the white-clad man's right hand was exposed.
"I'll get your change, sir."
Just then, the two tea patrons had also finished their conversation and were about to get up when the waiter accidentally dropped a few copper coins onto the floor. Crouching down to pick them up, he inadvertently glanced upward.
The motion was purely subconscious, but after pulling back his gaze, he seemed to recall something. He looked up again, his eyes widening in a daze, forgetting even to stand up.
The white-clad man naturally did not miss this reaction.
Stepping back, he swept a glance across the tea room, then abruptly turned to head downstairs.
The waiter scrambled to his feet and called after him, "Hey, guest, your change!"
The white-clad man paid no heed and vanished in the blink of an eye.
The elderly patron walked over to settle his bill and asked the waiter, "What's the matter with you?"
"His... his face..." The white-clad man was already gone down the stairwell, yet the waiter kept staring toward it. "He looked familiar, like I've seen him somewhere before?"
While they were speaking, two craftsmen from the repair crew nearby walked over to ask him for a cup of tea.
After descending the tower, the white-clad man stood by the entrance of Chaohu Pagoda, glancing left and right.
Just then, several constables happened to walk past. Taking the cue, he lowered his head, pressed down on his veiled hat, blended into the crowd on the street, and hurried off toward the east.
Chaohu Pagoda was surrounded by several rows of low buildings, a mix of residences and shops, which made the tower stand out like a crane among chickens.
Only a dozen-odd breaths after the white-clad man left the pagoda, three men emerged from the low buildings across from it. Dressed as commoners, they maintained an unhurried pace, heading east as well.
Yet the white-clad man walked faster and faster, slipping like smoke into a livery stable at the corner of the street.
In barely a breath, before the three behind could catch up, the white-clad man had already led out a chestnut horse.
Evidently, he had boarded it there beforehand.
These livery stables offered rentals as well as boarding and caretaking services, making them exceedingly convenient.
Chaohu Pagoda lay in the outskirts, where the roads had few traffic restrictions. The white-clad man swung into the saddle and galloped off, pulling farther and farther ahead of the three men trailing him.
The fellow was remarkably vigilant; the instant he detected something amiss in the tower, he resolved to leave Baishaqu directly, refusing to linger for a moment.
His behavior clearly exceeded everyone's expectations.
The three trailing men had no idea what he had encountered in the tower, but having received their mission, they had no choice but to duck into the livery stable to buy horses and give chase in haste.
They had originally intended to rent three mounts, but renting horses required paying deposits and registering paperwork, which was both troublesome and time-consuming. Having no other option, the three gave up on renting and simply tossed down silver to buy them outright.
That was far more direct.
However, one of them did not have enough money on hand and had to borrow from his companions to scrape together the amount before they could secure the horses.
With this delay, quite a bit of time slipped by.
Fortunately, the white-clad man was not riding at a breakneck gallop, so as they mounted and pursued, they were able to slowly close the distance.
A magpie in the sky was also following the white-clad man, alighting on treetops and rooftops from time to time.
Seeing the distance between them shrink to less than a hundred feet, the three were just about to speed up when, without warning, more than a dozen riders burst out of the woods beside the road. All were dressed as soldiers, and their leader pointed at the white-clad figure, shouting, "Found him! That's the one!"
Hearing the chaotic hoofbeats behind him, the white-clad man glanced over his shoulder from horseback, said not a word, and lashed his horse into a run!
"Halt, or you'll be killed without mercy!" the pursuers shouted.
The white-clad man fled even faster.
Beside the road lay sorghum fields thriving with lush growth, transformed at this time of year into a boundless green canopy.
The white-clad man simply spurred his horse into the field.
Baishaqu produced sorghum liquor in abundance, so the outskirts were extensively planted with the crop, whose stalks reached ten to fifteen feet in height. Once the white-clad man and his horse plunged inside, he only had to lower his head, and it became nearly impossible for his pursuers to spot him; they could only track him by sound.
This boundless expanse of fields was a giant labyrinth; anyone who entered would quickly lose their bearings.
The three men deliberately stayed several lengths behind the soldiers, arriving a couple of paces late.
The dozen-odd soldiers naturally charged into the sorghum fields as well, vanishing into the green screen in an instant, leaving only the sounds of shouting voices and neighing horses.
The three men halted before the sorghum field, looking at each other.
To pursue, or not to pursue?
Their superiors had ordered them to keep close tabs on him and bring him back if possible. If they couldn't bring him back, then...
The leader thought for a moment and said decisively, "After him!"
The soldiers might lose their way, but they wouldn't, because the magpie monster had been guiding them all along. With eyes in the sky, this labyrinthine green screen would instead help them track their target and cut off the soldiers.
One of them wheeled his horse around to ride back and report, while the other two fixed their eyes on the black-and-white form of the magpie wheeling in midair and charged straight into the sorghum field.
They had ridden barely seventy or eighty paces when a mountain of flesh abruptly appeared ahead.
The two urgently reined in their horses, but one of them couldn't stop in time.
With a loud crash, man and horse tumbled over.
The mountain of flesh turned its head, its face full of muddled panic.
It turned out to be a wild ox hiding in the green canopy to gorge itself, assuming the tall sorghum stalks would conceal its presence. Who could have foreseen that two blind fools would come charging in from outside and slam right into its rear end?
Believing it had been caught red-handed, the ox panicked first. Kicking up its hooves, it thundered off into the distance.
Plowing ahead like a bulldozer, it flattened huge swathes of sorghum in its wake.
Instantly, countless birds swooped down from the sky, squabbling to gorge on the sorghum ears that had fallen to the ground.
"Damn it!" the two men cursed.
There were so many birds, chattering everywhere with little bodies fluttering in all directions, that they instantly lost sight of where the magpie was.
They had no choice but to keep pursuing in the original direction.
After riding another dozen-odd paces, the birds in the field suddenly startled en masse once more, their flapping wings creating a deafening flurry.
A goshawk swooped down, pinning some unfortunate creature to the ground amid the stalks.
Chaos reigned all around—the howling wind, human shouts, horse neighs, and bird cries made it even harder for the two to gauge their direction.
Suddenly, the sorghum stalks to their left rustled sharply, distinct from the wind. Immediately after, a scorched-brown figure pounced out, swift as lightning.
The horse neighed in terror, rearing up on its hind legs.
Yet the rider on its back was already tackled to the ground.
Only then did a deafening roar explode beside the men's ears.
A fierce tiger was actually crouching within the green canopy!
The instant the tiger demon appeared, it clamped its jaws firmly onto the prey's shoulder, pinned down his collarbone with a massive paw, and gave its head a gentle twist.
With a crisp *crack*, the man's shoulder joint dislocated.
It all happened far too fast; from the tiger's strike to its success took less than a breath and a half.
Before the pinned man could even come to his senses, he had lost all ability to fight back, only to find a bloody maw right before his eyes, sharp fangs gleaming with a chill light.
Terrified, he screamed at the top of his lungs.
The other rider raised his saber and slashed toward the tiger's back. Who would have guessed that the tiger seemed to have eyes behind its head? With a sideways roll, it evaded the strike without losing a single strand of fur. On the contrary, the prey clamped in its jaws was dragged along in a violent half-twist, howling like a slaughtered pig from the sheer agony.
At a glance, the rider knew they had walked into an ambush. With no thought of rescuing his companion, he moved to wheel his horse around and flee.
Yet he saw men and horses closing in from all directions, encircling him completely.
The white-clad man they had been chasing stood right at the front, using his veiled hat as a fan to cool himself with a couple of flaps. "Aren't you going to dismount and surrender? Do you want to lose an arm, or a leg?"
This person was, of course, Young Master He.
Hemmed in on all sides, with the tiger's suppressed, low growls rumbling behind him, the man's eyes darted wildly, clearly harboring other thoughts.
He Lingchuan said at once, "Don't get any crooked ideas. Your companion will confess, so dying will just be a pointless waste!"
The companion's groans of pain continued, but his voice was full of vigor; he certainly didn't sound close to death.
The man finally gave up hope. Jumping down from his horse, he raised his hands and said, "I surrender, don't kill me!"
The soldiers swarmed forward and bound the two men tight as dumplings.
Only then did He Lingchuan step forward and ask, "Whose men are you?"
Chapter 484