Chapter 149: A Very Bad Idea

High above the silent streets, completely merged with the deep gloom of a high stone eaves overhang, Ye Chenxue moved like a fleeting phantom.

Her lightfoot technique was so pristine, refined, and weightless that the soles of her cloth boots made less sound against the ancient clay tiles than the nighttime breeze rustling through the trees. Her inner Qi was pulled tightly inward, thoroughly suppressing her spiritual signature so that to any observer below, she was nothing more than a passing trick of the moonlight.

Several dozen meters below on the damp cobblestone street, both stalkers were practically running for their lives.

Driven by the overwhelming, lingering terror of their interrogation at Lu Feng’s estate, the two covert scouts moved in an erratic, desperate sprint. Yet despite their near-hysterical panic, years of shadow-work had ingrained habit into their bones; instinct compelled them to take every anti-tracking maneuver they knew.

They doubled back through narrow dark alleys, zig-zagged through empty red-light streets, ducked under hanging laundry lines, and paused behind thick stone pillars to scan the high roofs for pursuers.

For the better part of two full hours, the two scouts led their unseen tail on a relentless, exhausting chase through the darkest veins of Crimson Vale. They checked every shadow, switched paces, and crossed sector boundaries, thoroughly convinced that their intricate evasive route would shake off any potential eyes.

They had no idea that Ye Chenxue was not following them with her physical sight.

She was tracking the subtle, lingering threads of their erratic, panicked footprints left behind in the night air from forty yards above. No matter how many sharp corners they cut, how many dead-end lanes they traversed, or how often they paused to scan the dark, her cold, precise spiritual sense remained locked onto them like an inescapable iron chain.

As the third hour approached, the surrounding architecture began to shift dramatically. The wide, paved avenues and elegant brick residences of the upper districts dissolved into the decaying, lawless clutter of the city’s lower border zones.

Here, the stone streets gave way to unpaved, muddy lanes flanked by rotting wooden shanties, low-tier gambling dens, and unlit storehouses. The clean scent of night air was replaced by the sour, heavy stench of stale spirits, wet river sediment, and coal smoke.

The two scouts finally slowed their pace, catching their ragged breaths as they turned into a pitch-black, narrow dead-end alley near the lower drainage canals. At the far end of the lane stood a small, nameless pub—a run-down, single-story tavern constructed of warped dark timber, featuring shuttered windows and a single, flickering tallow lantern hanging over a heavy, wooden door.

Ye Chenxue perched silently on the wooden edge of a high water tower overlooking the lane, her dark robes fluttering gently in the freezing wind. She watched with cold, unblinking eyes as one of the stalkers offered a fast and coded knock against the wooden door before slipping quietly inside.

Instead of rushing in after them, Ye Chenxue remained utterly motionless. She simply waited with infinite patience.

Ten quiet minutes passed.

Finally, the tavern’s door creaked open once more. Stalker One and Stalker Two stepped back out into the alleyway, their faces looking visibly paler and more shaken than when they had entered. They exchanged a few hurried, tense whispers, cast anxious glances down the dark lane, and then split up, sprinting off in opposite directions toward the city boundary.

Ye Chenxue didn’t pay the fleeing scouts a single glance. The small fish had served their purpose; they had faithfully guided her directly to the fisherman’s nest.

She waited until the sound of their frantic footsteps vanished entirely into the distance before she detached herself from the high water tower. She floated down through the night air like a falling leaf, her boots touching the damp earth outside the tavern door without generating a single whisper of sound.

Without hesitation, Ye Chenxue reached out and pushed the heavy wooden door open.

The iron hinges groaning loudly broke the stagnant silence inside. The tavern’s interior was small, low-ceilinged, claustrophobic, and filthy. Thick clouds of harsh, cheap tobacco smoke and the bitter, stale stench of low-grade grain spirits hung heavy in the warm air.

Overturned stools rested against sticky floorboards, and the only light source came from the dying embers of a stone hearth and a single, dripping tallow candle sitting on the far counter.

Sitting on a high stool behind the counter, lazily counting a small stack of silver coins beside an unstopped jug of cheap liquor, was a heavily built, broad-shouldered man.

He was completely bald. Under the dim candle flame, dark, intricate ink tattoos stretched across his scalp, winding down the back of his thick neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his rough leather vest—beast motifs and jagged array lines etched deeply into his skin.

Without bothering to look up from his silver coins, the bald tatted man growled in a rough, gravelly voice. "Bar’s closed, broad. Get the hell out before I throw you out on your face."

Ye Chenxue let the heavy timber door swing shut behind her, the iron latch clicking firmly into place.

"I am not here to drink," she said, her voice smooth, flat, and chillingly serene in the enclosed room. "I am here for you."

The bald man’s thick fingers paused over his stack of silver. He slowly raised his head, his small, bloodshot eyes narrowing as they settled on her.

When his gaze fell upon Ye Chenxue’s striking appearance—her pristine dark robes, her porcelain skin, and her cold, piercing blue eyes—a brief flicker of deep hesitation crossed his features. He froze slightly, his brow furrowing as a strange, instinctual alarm bell began to ring softly in the back of his mind. He was certain he had never seen her face before, yet a deep, primal impulse told him that something about her presence was violently, dangerously out of place in a hole like this.

"Who the hell are you?" the bald man demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous rumble as he pushed himself up off his stool. His right hand drifted casually down toward a short, heavy iron cleaver resting beneath the bar. "What business do you have with me?"

Ye Chenxue didn’t answer right away. She simply began walking toward him, her footsteps slow, measured, and completely unhurried.

With every single step she took across the sticky floorboards, the ambient temperature inside the tavern plunged at a terrifying, unnatural rate.

Crack... crackle...

A brilliant white layer of crisp, feather-like frost began to bloom rapidly across the legs of the wooden tables. The stale air in the room condensed instantly, turning into a thick, swirling white mist with every breath exhaled. The dying embers in the stone hearth sputtered and died in seconds, replaced by a suffocating, arctic draft that made the room’s ancient timber frames creak under the sudden, intense stress of the cold.

The bald man’s eyes widened as the air in his lungs turned to literal ice.

Ye Chenxue closed the distance without making a sound, pulled out a high wooden stool directly beside him at the counter, and sat down gracefully. She adjusted the folds of her dark robe and turned her head toward him, her face resting mere inches from his tatted neck.

"Why," Ye Chenxue asked, her voice carrying the calmest, most pleasant tone she could muster, "were you sending people to monitor the people from the Lu Feng estate?"

The moment those exact words left her lips, and the moment her unrestrained spiritual presence brushed against his senses at point-blank range, a lightning bolt of pure, unadulterated shock struck the bald man’s mind.

That presence...

Memory flooded his brain with terrifying, crystalline clarity. He remembered a few nights ago—standing near the outer gates of Lu Feng’s compound under the guise of a stumbling, incoherent drunkard. He remembered the exact second a cold, suffocating, invisible weight had washed over him from inside the estate wall, making his knees tremble so violently he had nearly dropped his act and fled in absolute panic.

It was this exact presence. The icy, unyielding aura of an absolute monster hiding in plain sight.

Panic, raw and animalistic, swept through his veins, completely overriding whatever logic or training he possessed. Driven by a desperate, cornered survival instinct, the bald man didn’t try to answer or negotiate.

Instead, his hand shot out with blinding speed, grabbing a heavy, thick-bottomed glass liquor bottle from the wooden counter beside him. With a guttural, terrified roar, he swung the heavy glass bottle with all the physical strength in his upper body, aiming it straight at the side of Ye Chenxue’s head!

SWOOSH!

The heavy glass cut through the freezing air—and stopped dead in its tracks.

Ye Chenxue hadn’t even turned her body. Her left hand had moved like a strike of blue lightning, her slender, porcelain fingers clamping around the bald man’s thick wrist mid-swing with the absolute, unyielding power of a mountain vise. The bottle hovered an inch from her temple, completely immobilized in mid-air.

The bald man’s muscles bulged, his tatted neck veins popping against his skin as he tried with all his power to force the bottle down—or even pull his arm back. But her grip didn’t budge a single millimeter. It felt as though his wrist had been encased inside a solid block of ancient stone.

Ye Chenxue turned her head slowly, her icy blue eyes locking onto his terrified, sweat-drenched face. She looked at him with an expression of quiet, almost pitying disappointment.

She shook her head gently.

"That," Ye Chenxue murmured softly, her fingers tightening around his wrist until the bone beneath began to groan under the sheer pressure, "was a very bad idea."