Chapter 151: Shadow War

The restrictions on the relay attendant had already been removed in haste, but his body convulsed violently a few times before going still, eyes bulging. Black blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Duan Hu looked embarrassed. “Master Dao, I was careless.”

They had run back and forth and gone to considerable trouble to pin down a target, hoping to force out the hand behind him. Instead, Duan Hu had ruined it. He was deeply ashamed.

Niu Youdao casually snatched a piece of clothing from the room, tossed it to the floor, and quickly nudged it with the tip of his foot until it lay beside the relay attendant’s neck, preventing the blood from reaching the floorboards. Only then did he turn back.

“You can’t be blamed. Who would have thought a spy planted at a relay station would actually be a death-sworn operative? Still, be more careful next time.”

“Yes.” Duan Hu nodded awkwardly. The job had indeed been mishandled.

Niu Youdao swept his gaze around the room. “Search carefully. Don’t miss anything suspicious. Put everything back exactly as you found it.”

“Yes!”

Duan Hu immediately began opening chests and rummaging through cabinets. Niu Youdao did not remain idle either, though he did not rush to put his hands on anything. Instead, he paced slowly through the room with his hands clasped behind his back, examining everything.

Before long, Duan Hu found the birdcage hidden in the loft beneath the roof. Several Goldenwing feathers lay inside. Niu Youdao lifted the cage and inspected it, then had Duan Hu return it to its original place. A folded sheet of paper was found beneath the bedding.

Duan Hu opened it and froze. “Master Dao, look!”

Niu Youdao had been crouching beside the relay attendant’s body. He looked up, took the sheet, and slowly rose as his pupils contracted sharply at the portrait.

“Does it look like me?”

Duan Hu studied it. “The face is at least seventy or eighty percent similar. Add Master Dao’s hair tied behind your head, and it’s ninety percent.”

Niu Youdao’s expression gradually turned grave. He knew ink painting and calligraphy. He could even authenticate old paintings and antiques. In certain areas he was genuinely an expert.

One glance told him that this portrait had not been drawn by hand. It had been printed.

He slowly turned his head toward the poisoned black blood at the dead attendant’s mouth and said, “Stop searching. Restore everything. Take the body away and dispose of it cleanly. Leave no trace.”

“After that, disguise yourself and come back to this relay station. Find a way to bribe a few of the relay attendants and ask about this man’s background.”

“Understood.” Duan Hu nodded.

Niu Youdao put away the portrait, went to the window, checked outside, then flashed through while no one was looking and vanished into the forest behind the station.

Several li away, he reunited with Yuan Fang and Black Peony.

Black Peony immediately asked, “Master Dao, how did it go?”

Niu Youdao took out the portrait and passed it over between two fingers. Black Peony unfolded it. Yuan Fang leaned his head in beside hers.

The moment they saw the person depicted, the two looked at one another.

“Master Dao, this was found inside the relay station?” Yuan Fang asked.

Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, Niu Youdao gave no answer. He had already sunk into thought.

There had actually been a portrait of him inside that relay station.

He had suspected something before, but seeing it with his own eyes still exceeded his expectations. The implications weighed heavily on him. The portrait had been printed.

Printing required carving a block. No one would go to that much trouble for a handful of copies.

That meant there had to be large numbers of portraits bearing his likeness. Why would the hand behind the scenes produce so many? Naturally, to find him. And then there was the relay attendant. He had actually been a death-sworn operative. There were two kinds of such men. One kind fought to the death in battle.

The other carried secrets too important to be allowed to leak. This relay attendant was clearly the latter. Niu Youdao had no enemies inside the State of Zhao.

It came back to the same conclusion as before: anyone willing to reach into the State of Zhao to kill him was either the Yan court or the Song family.

Given that, whose man was this death-sworn operative carrying state-level secrets?

Would the Song family, merely to deal with him, plant an ordinary non-cultivator who carried secrets important enough to die for? Unlikely.

The covert clash several days earlier had already hinted that the opposing force was far from ordinary.

The Song family possessed considerable power inside the State of Yan, but not enough to gather manpower quickly at will in some remote corner of a foreign state. That should have been beyond the Song family’s capabilities. Taken together, the clues were almost shouting the answer.

This man belonged to the State of Yan’s secret personnel planted inside the State of Zhao.

And once Niu Youdao connected that with the large number of printed portraits, another realization followed.

The State of Yan had mobilized state power to search for him. Once they found him, naturally they intended to eliminate him.

This was the consequence of killing an envoy of the State of Yan. It also solved another question that had been troubling him.

Why had the people buying his life not simply contacted the three sects already pursuing him?

Because the State of Yan’s covert personnel inside the State of Zhao could not casually expose themselves. They were unlikely to maintain ordinary contact with men like Gao Sucong who were openly hunting him.

As for the portraits in the Liuxian Sect’s hands, Niu Youdao did not know whether they came from the same printing block as this one.

But since both sides possessed his likeness, he already had a suspicion.

Either the Song family had obtained portraits from the court, or the court had obtained them from the Song family.

Lei Zongkang, who had been waiting outside, eventually guided Duan Hu and Wu Sanliang back.

Duan Hu jumped down from his horse and hurried to Niu Youdao, cupping his hands.

“Master Dao, I spent a few gold coins and got the story from one of the relay attendants. The dead man was called Zhao Da. He used to work in a nearby city driving horses.”

“Later, a wealthy local gentleman took a liking to him and helped arrange a relay-station post. He only arrived here a little over ten days ago.”

“A little over ten days ago...” Niu Youdao murmured.

He raised one hand. “Map.”

The others had apparently grown accustomed to his habit of demanding maps at the slightest opportunity.

Yuan Fang took it out and, together with Duan Hu, stretched it open in front of him. Niu Youdao stared at the dense web of roads.

He did not know whether only this one relay station contained an informant, or whether every relay station did.

He would have preferred to believe only this station had one, and that he had simply stumbled across it by chance. But he knew that was merely comforting himself.

Nor did he know whether the State of Yan had spread a net throughout the State of Zhao because it had confirmed he was inside the state, or whether similar nets existed in every country.

He had never stood high enough to look down from the perspective of state power.

He did not know how vast such power truly was, or how far its reach could extend.

But when he thought of the many relay stations along the road into the State of Han—the destination toward which he was traveling—unease rose in him. He could avoid relay stations and travel on foot. He could disguise himself.

To reduce attention, the group could even split up and travel separately. But all of that would bring endless inconvenience. They could not spend every journey hiding and dodging forever.

And there was still the question of how many copies of his portrait had spread out, and into whose hands. Avoid one net, only to blunder into another? The thought left a heavy weight in his chest.

“Duan Hu. Wu Sanliang. Lei Zongkang.”

Niu Youdao called the three over and pointed to the map.

“Disguise yourselves. From this fork, take three separate routes.”

“Along the way, do not skip a single relay station. Bribe relay attendants one by one and ask whether any new personnel like Zhao Da have joined recently.”

“Mark the locations of the relay stations on your maps.”

“Three days from now, at this exact time, return here and rendezvous.”

He could not yet determine whether informants had always been present in the relay-station system and Zhao Da was merely an exception, or whether something else was happening.

The three men did not understand what he was trying to accomplish. If relay stations were dangerous, why not simply avoid them? Why fixate on investigating them?

Still, all three cupped their hands. “Yes!”

“Spend money along the road to exchange horses at the stations,” Niu Youdao ordered. “Let the horses rest, not the men. Leave immediately.”

“Yes!”

The three obeyed. They disguised themselves on the spot, altering their appearances, then rode out of the forest. At the nearby fork, they split up and departed along three different roads.

After they left, Niu Youdao did not remain where he was either.

He led the others farther into the mountains and concealed himself well away from the rendezvous point...

At Chizhou Prefectural Capital, inside the study of the Quan residence, Quan Shaokang sat behind his desk with a taut expression.

“Still no news?”

One relay station had reported to its supervising County Relay Administrator that a relay attendant had suddenly disappeared. No one knew where he had gone, and he had not returned home either. On the surface, it was merely a missing person.

But the moment word spread upward, it immediately alarmed this side. They knew the missing attendant’s true identity.

Quan Qiao, the steward, replied, “The relay station is still searching. They don’t know whether he may have become lost in the mountains.”

Quan Shaokang said, “He sent a report, and then immediately vanished. Do you really think it could be that coincidental?”

“There’s a good chance he already fell into Niu Youdao’s hands.”

Quan Qiao hesitated. “His only duty was to send a report. He would never make any unnecessary move beyond that.”

“There are so many relay stations along the road. How could Niu Youdao possibly lock onto that particular station, much less identify him specifically?”

“It seems unlikely.”

Quan Shaokang slowly rose. “Hard to say.”

“This Niu Youdao is not ordinary. I sensed that from the first exchange.”

“Inside Duyun Mountain’s sphere of influence, with his level of strength, he still managed to make Duyun Mountain back down, abandon the killing job, and even pay money. That alone tells us something.”

“The second time, the same relay station and the same informant spotted him again. Yet when we mobilized manpower afterward, no one could find any trace of him.”

“There was something wrong with that second appearance at the station.”

“He was probably already suspicious and had come back deliberately.”

Quan Shaokang left the desk and paced with his hands clasped behind his back. After a few turns, he stopped abruptly.

“For safety, notify the immediate handler of the missing operative to relocate at once.”

“Also contact every operative inside Chizhou currently carrying out the same relay-station assignment. All of them are to enter silence immediately.”

“Every handler in direct contact with those operatives relocates as well.”

Quan Qiao said, “The people above us...”

“Execute it immediately,” Quan Shaokang cut him off. “I’ll explain to our superiors.”

“Yes!”

Quan Qiao accepted the order. Three days later, the appointed time was approaching.

Inside a mountain valley, Niu Youdao first sent Black Peony out to meet Duan Hu and the other two. Then he summoned Yuan Fang.

“I’ll observe from somewhere else. You conceal yourself along the route and watch whether anyone is following them.”

“If no one is following, come back here, set fire to the pile of firewood I stacked behind the valley yesterday, and then join them.”

“If someone is following, don’t come back at all. Go directly here.”

He pointed to a location on the map.

“I’ll meet you there.”

“Understood.”

Yuan Fang understood the purpose and quickly left. Niu Youdao swept one last glance around the area, then vanished into the depths of the forest as well.

So when Black Peony returned with Duan Hu, Wu Sanliang, and Lei Zongkang, they found the valley completely empty. They searched everywhere and found no one.

With no other choice, Black Peony called loudly, “Master Dao! Master Dao...!”

Only after quite some time did Yuan Fang’s voice answer.

“What are you shouting for? Master Dao has business elsewhere. He’ll be back soon.”

They turned. Yuan Fang emerged from the forest to one side.

A little later, Wu Sanliang suddenly pointed behind the valley. “Look. Smoke!”

Everyone looked over. Sure enough, a column of smoke was rising beyond the ridge. They immediately flew over to investigate.

Behind the mountain, they found a heap of firewood burning fiercely. No one was there.

Before long, Niu Youdao came gliding out of the forest carrying several cleaned wild chickens, rabbits, and other game. He handed them to Black Peony.

“Roast these. Everyone worked hard. Consider it a reward.”

[End of Chapter 151]