Chapter 1704 - 309: Burning Incense to Track

"Mm. Since she's already made a move on you, that proves she still has a team, and that team definitely isn't just sitting around doing nothing. They'll investigate on their own, and they should have dug up some clues already about Second Master Zhao's… special fetish. Drop this bit of gossip, and it'll make your identity even more convincing."

"Next, we go outside, first notify Run Sheng and Ah You to rendezvous and get ready, then wait for them to show up."

"Mm, and they're the ones who made the first move."

Second Master Zhao held his illegitimate son by the hand and stormed out.

In the past, similar scenes had happened many times. It was as if Second Master Zhao was doing it on purpose, dragging the child born of his mistress into the residence, to piss off his wife, and at the same time, to piss off the old man.

There were already rumors in the second courtyard that the Second Madame was so enraged she was shouting she'd kill herself.

When they reached the main gate, before the gatekeeping house servants could help open the Array to go out, Tan Wenbin simply waved his hand, and at the same time Li Zhiyuan activated the Zhao Family's Secret Technique. The light and shadow in front of them rippled, and the two walked straight out.

"Hoo..."

He stopped and couldn't help wanting to let out a long breath; this kind of role-playing was really exhausting.

But immediately, Tan Wenbin swallowed that breath back down, because he sensed a pair of eyes fixed on him.

"Brother Xiao Yuan, we've already been locked onto."

"Mm."

"Then next..."

"Light the incense."

"Got it."

Li Zhiyuan took out his little Compass, looking extremely reluctant and aggrieved as he glanced at Tan Wenbin. Tan Wenbin snatched it away and spat a couple of curses at him.

Then Tan Wenbin pulled out a stick of incense and stuck it onto the Compass. Once the incense caught flame, Tan Wenbin held the Compass in his right hand and walked quickly in one direction.

Li Zhiyuan followed behind in a fluster, afraid his "father" would just toss him aside once he was done using him.

A normal person walking down the street with a Compass and a stick of incense burning on it would naturally strike a lot of people as strange.

But from the perspective of someone tailing a Xuanmen practitioner, this kind of behavior couldn't be more ordinary.

On the rooftop of a building very close to the Zhao Mansion, Run Sheng lay there with his eyes closed.

Lin Shuyou sat there with an old brick mobile phone placed in front of him, alongside a small black incense burner with an unlit incense stick in it.

Suddenly, the tip of the incense glowed and began to burn. Smoke rose and, with no wind, pointed in a direction.

"Run Sheng."

Run Sheng opened his eyes.

Lin Shuyou said, "It's not the brick phone ringing, it's the Path-finding Incense lighting up. We keep our distance and follow."

Run Sheng gently twisted his neck and said:

"Let's go."

...

Li Zhiyuan and Tan Wenbin arrived at a derelict area where demolition had started but then been halted.

This was a good place for a fight.

If, when the other side showed up, they conveniently laid down a miasma on the perimeter to isolate the sound so as not to disturb ordinary people, that would be even better.

"Brother Binbin, I'll trouble you to work a bit harder and look around."

"Mm." ℯℯ𝘭.

They couldn't just stand there without moving and wait; that would be way too obvious.

Tan Wenbin held the Compass and began slowly searching through the ruins.

Li Zhiyuan wanted to follow, but Tan Wenbin suddenly turned back and kicked, then raised his foot and booted some rubble off the ground toward him. The stones hit the boy, and Li Zhiyuan shrank back, found a patch of concrete, and sat down trembling, hugging his knees.

The boy's palm quietly pressed to the ground below, and he began setting up an Array.

Once Tan Wenbin had walked some distance away, Li Zhiyuan stood up and continued to follow.

But whenever the distance closed too much, Tan Wenbin would turn back and glare at him, and Li Zhiyuan would be so startled he'd crouch down again and continue Array Formation.

Just like that, over and over—Li Zhiyuan crouched for a while, then when his "father" got far enough, he'd get up to catch up; once he got close, he didn't dare go further, so he crouched down again.

Each node was laid down one by one, but never connected, so even though they knew someone was tailing them, with this style of Array Formation, the other side could never catch on.

He'd thought they could maintain this rhythm all along. Li Zhiyuan didn't mind laying more work under this wasteland; after all, while waiting for people to come "kill" him, he was idle anyway.

But an unexpected little twist still happened.

Half the ruins had been fully demolished, while the other half of the buildings were only half torn down. These spots often ended up with vagrants living in them.

Tan Wenbin sniffed. From the second floor ahead, where there was no roof and only a red plastic tarp covering it, came the smell of a corpse.

The death was within a day; decay hadn't started yet, so there was no stench.

People have a scent on them, and the smell of the living and the dead are completely different.

Tan Wenbin hesitated. The body up there was definitely not part of the plan and couldn't have been left by that team.

So it could only be an accident.

Tan Wenbin asked in his heart, "Brother Xiao Yuan, there's a corpse on the second floor over there."

"Go take a look."

"Okay."

Having gotten permission, Tan Wenbin walked under that building, carefully avoiding the exposed rebar around him, and went up the broken staircase.

Outside the plastic tarp on the second floor were pots, bowls, and chopsticks, and a small gas cylinder—signs that someone had been living here.

Tan Wenbin reached out and pulled the tarp aside. Inside lay a female corpse.

She was dressed quite fashionably and was definitely not a vagrant. There was an electric wire wrapped around her neck, leaving clear marks on her skin, showing she'd been strangled to death.

"Brother Xiao Yuan, after killing her, the murderer left immediately. The scene hasn't been obviously disturbed."

Li Zhiyuan sat outside the ruined building, silently listening to Officer Tan's on-the-spot analysis of the scene.