Chapter 149: Circles Upon Circles

The mountain terrain was rugged and difficult to traverse, especially with horses in tow. After a great deal of trouble, the group found a valley and concealed themselves there.

Their sudden shift from traveling onward to hiding in emergency shelter was naturally because Niu Youdao had sensed danger.

The unexpected assassination attempt had shown him a level of danger he had never encountered before. It lay completely outside his calculations. With no idea what was happening, he genuinely did not dare continue forward.

Until he understood the matter, he did not even know where the danger came from or how anyone had managed to lock onto him. He was far too passive.

Once the people and horses had settled in, everyone occasionally glanced toward Niu Youdao, who seemed weighed down by thought.

He stood beside a stream with both hands resting on his sword, gazing up at the crescent moon hanging above the valley.

Yuan Fang edged over. “Master Dao, are we hiding here for now?”

Niu Youdao did not react. Only after a while did he finally say, “Give Black Peony fifty thousand to reimburse her.”

“...”

Yuan Fang was speechless. If he had known, he would never have come over to start a conversation.

Black Peony, who had heard him, came over instead. “Master Dao, there’s no need.”

Niu Youdao said nothing. He remained lost in thought. Yuan Fang took out fifty thousand in gold drafts, stuffed them into Black Peony’s hands, then moved farther away.

Black Peony looked at the gold drafts in her hand. Seeing that Niu Youdao was thinking and having come to understand something of his temperament, she did not disturb him. If he gave it to her, she would take it.

A sudden flurry of wings and startled birdcalls snapped Niu Youdao back to himself. He turned sharply.

“There’s a cave here.”

Duan Hu, who had been scouting the valley, flashed back. He had discovered a natural cave and gone inside to inspect it, only to startle the birds roosting there for the night. The group went to look.

It was indeed a cave—more precisely, a fissure split into the mountainside. It was not large. The entrance formed a slanted triangle, and the opening extended only two or three zhang inward.

After stepping inside and examining it, Niu Youdao said, “Bring the map.”

Duan Hu pulled the map from the bundle on his back. There was no table here, so Wu Sanliang lent a hand. The two stood opposite each other and stretched the map taut between them. A Moon Butterfly clung to the rock overhead, illuminating it.

Standing before the map with his hands resting on his sword, Niu Youdao traced their route backward with his eyes until his gaze finally settled on Duyun Mountain.

Who wanted him dead?

At present, his enemies amounted to only a few groups. Broadly speaking, there were the Song family’s people, and then there was the court of the State of Yan, which had become involved after he killed Song Long. Aside from those two sides, he genuinely could not think of anyone else who would come all the way into the State of Zhao to take his life.

This latest, precisely placed interception had already proven that someone was watching him and could accurately lock onto his route of travel.

Who was watching him?

How were they doing it? If he could not understand how he had been detected, then at any moment he might walk straight into someone else’s net. He did not dare take another reckless step.

At present, the pursuers he knew about were the Liuxian Sect, Fuyun Sect, and Lingxiu Mountain. Aside from them, the party most likely to know his approximate route was Duyun Mountain.

But judging from Yun Huan’s behavior and reactions when they met, Duyun Mountain could probably be eliminated. Before his visit, Duyun Mountain was unlikely to have known he would come. If they had received advance word and meant him harm, they would never have let him leave. Keeping him there would have been effortless, and none of what happened afterward would have made sense.

Therefore Hou Qingtian’s explanation was credible. Duyun Mountain had received the assassination job only after Niu Youdao left.

The three pursuing factions could also be eliminated. If they had been able to track his precise route, they could simply have cut across country and intercepted him themselves. There would have been no need to borrow Duyun Mountain’s hand.

That meant there was a third party capable of accurately tracking his movements.

And for this third party to seek out Duyun Mountain, there were only two possibilities: either it lacked people on hand capable of killing him, or distance prevented such people from reaching him in time. One more point was also certain.

This third party had no way to contact the pursuing forces from the Liuxian Sect and the other two factions. Otherwise, there would have been no need to hire Duyun Mountain.

Then how had the third party learned his route so precisely?

First they had to discover him. Only afterward could they arrange surveillance.

Niu Youdao directly ruled out the possibility that he had been picked up in the Star-Plucking City region. There were several reasons, but the simplest was the same problem the three factions faced: no one there could easily know his precise direction after he left.

That meant he had most likely been spotted only after leaving the Gobi and grasslands and entering the official road network. The first prerequisite for spotting him was recognizing him. That was what he found strange. Were there people in this region who knew him too?

In the State of Zhao, he knew very few people, and very few people knew him. The chance of running into one of them in such a remote area was simply too low. Surely he had not somehow repeated what happened in Jinzhou when he ran into Chen Guishuo?

The Liuxian Sect had recognized him because they possessed his portrait. Could someone along this road also have his portrait?

Niu Youdao extended a hand and swept it repeatedly along the route they had traveled. “Did any of you notice anything unusual along the way? Think carefully. Don’t overlook any irregularity, no matter how small.”

In truth, his own thoughts had already turned toward the relay stations along the road.

Few travelers passed through remote regions like this. The places where people were most commonly encountered were precisely those relay stations.

The others thought for quite a while, but none could recall anything suspicious.

Black Peony asked, “Master Dao, does your visit to Yun Huan at Duyun Mountain count? Or the interception afterward?”

“No.”

“Then nothing unusual happened. After we left Star-Plucking City and entered the official roads, apart from those two things, we barely stopped at all. The only real pause was when we changed horses at a relay station.”

“Mark the location of that relay station on the map for me. Also mark Yun Huan’s lair, Yunxiao Cave Residence, and Three Bends, where we were intercepted. Make the positions as accurate as you can.” Niu Youdao turned toward Yuan Fang. “Take out the charcoal pencil.”

Yuan Fang had kept the charcoal pencils with him all along. In his eyes, they were tools that could make money with a few strokes. He took one out and handed it to Black Peony.

Black Peony conferred with Duan Hu and the others and fixed the relay station’s location beside the official road. It was not difficult to remember. The station had been unusually large, a major junction station near a fork in the road, so its position was easy to identify.

Yun Huan’s lair lay on one of Duyun Mountain’s principal peaks. They found that peak and circled it.

Three Bends was even easier. They had been intercepted at one particular bend in the road, so the location was obvious.

“Master Dao, done.” Black Peony turned toward him.

Niu Youdao took the charcoal pencil from her and studied the map carefully.

By modern standards it was far from precise, but compared with the abstract maps he remembered from ancient times in his previous life, it was remarkably accurate. He suspected the widespread presence of cultivators made surveying far more convenient.

He laid his sword scabbard across the map and measured the distance between two points. After converting the distance, he marked a proportional scale along the scabbard with the charcoal pencil.

Then he used that makeshift scale to measure the marked positions of Duyun Mountain and Three Bends, checking how accurate his chosen scale was.

The entire sequence of baffling movements left the others looking at one another. None understood what he was doing.

Niu Youdao lowered the scabbard and stood before the map. “Where do you think the intermediary contacted by whoever bought my life would be located?”

Black Peony gave a bitter smile. “How could we possibly know that?”

Niu Youdao’s gaze, however, had settled on Chizhou Prefectural Capital.

Slowly, he said, “You two use spiritual power to keep the map taut.”

Duan Hu and Wu Sanliang obeyed. Niu Youdao laid his sword horizontally between Chizhou Prefectural Capital and Yunxiao Cave Residence.

Using the measured distance, he divided by the approximate flight speed of a Goldenwing and derived a rough travel time. With the charcoal pencil, he wrote a number beside the map—a number none of the others understood. He pointed one finger at Chizhou Prefectural Capital.

The charcoal pencil, held by his spiritual power, slowly floated away from his fingers and moved to Yunxiao Cave Residence. Spiritual power began to rotate.

Shhk!

The charcoal pencil swept around the map, drawing a circle centered on Chizhou Prefectural Capital. Niu Youdao drew the pencil back into his hand.

He silently calculated the time from their departure from the relay station to their departure from Duyun Mountain, subtracted the travel time he had just derived, and multiplied the remainder by the Goldenwing’s approximate flight speed. That produced another rough distance.

Once more he set the scabbard against Chizhou Prefectural Capital as the starting point and marked that distance in an arbitrary direction.

Then, with Chizhou Prefectural Capital again as the center, he sent the charcoal pencil floating to the new point.

Shhk!

Another circle appeared. Niu Youdao drew the pencil back and looked toward the relay station.

The edge of the newly drawn circle enclosed the station, though not perfectly. There was an error between the result and his guess. That did not matter.

If there had been no error at all, that would have been strange.

Messages took time to relay and resend. Their estimates of time were imperfect. The map itself was not precise. He needed only a rough verification, not exact coordinates.

After that, one circle after another appeared beneath the charcoal pencil. Shhk. Shhk. Shhk.

Niu Youdao repeatedly used the sword scabbard to measure those circles, while recording strings of strange numbers beside them that no one else could understand. Only after quite some time did he stop.

He planted his sword before him and stared at the map.

“The relay station where we changed horses has a problem. That should be where we were discovered.”

The others looked at one another.

Niu Youdao continued slowly, “The message should have been sent about half an hour after we left the relay station. After it reached Chizhou Prefectural Capital, it remained there for about one hour before the intermediary sent word on to Duyun Mountain.”

“If my calculations are right, both the person who bought my life and the intermediary are inside Chizhou Prefectural Capital.”

The others were speechless. He spoke as though he had witnessed the whole sequence with his own eyes.

Black Peony tried asking, “Master Dao, it looked as though you were already focused on Chizhou Prefectural Capital from the beginning.”

“At first, Chizhou Prefectural Capital was only a hypothesis.”

Niu Youdao looked at the map.

“A business that trades in human lives cannot survive unless it can keep both buyers and sellers under control. And being able to contact manpower at any moment and solve problems for clients is not something one individual can accomplish. There must be an organization behind it.”

“I don’t know how large that organization is, but its primary hub is unlikely to sit in some tiny place near Duyun Mountain. Its location should possess enough geographic reach to influence the surrounding region.”

“Combine that with the approximate distances suggested by the message-transmission times, and Chizhou becomes highly suspicious. So I used it as the hypothesis and tested it.”

“The final calculations are reasonably consistent in both time and distance.”

“Therefore the Chizhou hypothesis stands.”

[End of Chapter 149]