"Hoo!"
Ye Feng let out a breath, his face appearing relaxed after dealing with someone who had been bothering him, but his heart felt heavy.
Jipi Asan losing track of Ye Feng at this three-way intersection and then being ambushed by Ye Feng was not an accident, but a deliberate choice by Ye Feng.
Of course, dealing with Jipi Asan, who had been eyeing him from the vegetable market and intended to rob and kill him, was not Ye Feng's main objective.
What he truly wanted to know was the person that Xiao Xiao had sensed, who had been tracking them both, constantly changing direction, and whom Ye Feng had spent an entire afternoon trying to find.
The small alley Ye Feng was currently in had two diverging paths ahead, only one path behind, and a blocked wall to Ye Feng's right.
From Jipi Asan's recent vantage point, the alley behind Ye Feng was clearly visible. If someone were indeed tracking him and Xiao Xiao, they wouldn't be standing openly in the alley, nor would they be in front of Ye Feng. That would leave only the low wall on the other side of the alley.
Therefore, as soon as Jipi Asan spoke, Ye Feng turned his head to look back, not at the alley behind him, but at the low wall beside the alley.
Although Ye Feng's movements were quick, when he turned his head, he only saw a fleeting black shadow...
The person tracking Ye Feng and Xiao Xiao was not only a master of stealth but also extremely quick to react!
If Ye Feng's body hadn't been enhanced, giving him eyesight far superior to ordinary people, he might have dismissed the black shadow as an illusion or the normal movement of shadows as dusk approached.
"Little sprout, it's getting dark, let's leave here quickly!"
Ye Feng suppressed the gloom and shock in his heart, grabbed Xiao Xiao's hand, and quickly walked towards the other side of the alley.
"Okay, Hollow Stem brother!"
...
After Ye Feng and Xiao Xiao's figures had disappeared from the alley entrance for some time, a black figure flickered and instantly appeared before the deceased Jipi Asan.
The black figure glanced briefly at the thoroughly dead Jipi Asan, then turned towards the direction Ye Feng and Xiao Xiao had left, a slight frown on his face.
The next second, the black figure rapidly became transparent and disappeared from the spot in a moment.
...
Around seven in the evening,
Ye Feng and Xiao Xiao did not return to the hotel they had stayed in the previous day, but instead chose another relatively inconspicuous small hotel.
The previous hotel required a deposit of 5 Arcane Origin Coins, but Ye Feng couldn't afford to worry about that anymore.
Although it was a small hotel, the room was quite large, even larger than the one Ye Feng and Xiao Xiao had stayed in the previous day, as if two rooms had been combined.
However, the facilities in the hotel were clearly much simpler, and even the lighting was dim. Ye Feng took out a solar-powered hanging lamp, which finally made the room brighter.
Inside the room,
"Here, little sprout, have a pastry. I just bought it today; it seems to be a specialty of Tyrannosaurus Base!"
Ye Feng took out a box of pastries from the large bags he had been carrying all day.
"Wow, it's shaped like a dinosaur..."
...
On the other side,
Inside a villa with many armed guards on the perimeter,
A lean man in a black robe was speaking with a man wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a centipede-like scar on his right arm. It was the black shadow and Xu Xiong that Ye Feng had seen during the day!
"Little Sprout and Hollow Stem?"
After hearing the lean man in the black robe's report, Xu Xiong frowned slightly.
"Yes, these two people did call each other that during the day!"
The lean man in the black robe nodded and continued, "Regarding these two, Little Sprout is fine, but that young man named Hollow Stem is very vigilant."
"Lai Pi Asan from Fishbone Street had been following the pair since the vegetable market, likely intending to rob and kill them. Not only were they discovered, but they were also ambushed... It was a fatal blow with one strike, and I was almost discovered myself!"
The lean man in the black robe quickly described the situation.
"You're saying these two wandered around the Tyrannosaurus Base during the day, bought a bunch of things, then Hollow Stem, at some point, grabbed a watermelon knife and lured Jipi Asan out at a secluded corner, killing him?"
Xu Xiong's frown deepened as he listened.
"Yes, that watermelon knife likely belonged to a member of the Red Thunder Gang from Watermelon Street. At the time, Jipi Asan even mistook Hollow Stem for a member of the Red Thunder Gang because of it."
"And judging by the large bags they were carrying, they likely don't have any spatial rift fragments or anything similar!"
The lean man in the black robe replied after a brief recollection.
"Alright, I understand. Continue to keep an eye on these two!"
After listening, Xu Xiong paused for a moment and said to the lean man in the black robe.
The lean man in the black robe said nothing, quickly turned, and walked directly towards the door. After leaving the room, his figure flickered and disappeared from the spot.
Inside the villa room,
"Qiu Li, what do you think?"
Saying this, Xu Xiong looked towards a screen in the room.
As his voice fell, a graceful, youthful, and beautiful girl of eighteen or nineteen years old, Han Qiu Li, walked out from behind the screen.
"It's hard to say... The young man called Hollow Stem's answers today were almost seamless and very clever!"
"He gave us hope of buying sanitary napkins, and at the same time, pointed out that he had someone behind him who could be contacted urgently if his life were in danger... And that person was very powerful and had only left here a few days ago..."
Han Qiu Li recalled her conversation with Ye Feng in the afternoon and also frowned.
...
The next day,
After Ye Feng and Xiao Xiao woke up, they ate breakfast in the room, then picked up their bags and opened the door to leave.
At the turn of the stairs, Ye Feng suddenly shouted to the rear, "Friend who's been squatting all night, come out. Take me to Han Qiu Li's place. The things she needs have arrived!"
As he spoke, Ye Feng lifted several large packages he was carrying, all filled with sanitary napkins.
"Doing business is about 'integrity.' I believe I've been fully sincere and have been upfront with you."
"But sending people to tail me doesn't seem like you trust me, does it?"
"And last night, you moved from the 8 o'clock direction outside our door to the 12 o'clock direction, then to the 3 o'clock direction... You even went under our room's balcony. Aren't you tired..."
Seeing that the other party refused to appear, Ye Feng spoke again, and this time he revealed the other party's movements from the previous night.
Of course, Ye Feng hadn't fabricated this; Xiao Xiao had told him.
"Sir, you misunderstand. Commander Xu was worried that you might be carrying a large sum of Arcane Origin Coins and might encounter villains, so he dispatched me to protect you in secret!"
"I didn't expect to be misunderstood by you!"
As his voice fell, a lean man in a long robe appeared in Ye Feng's field of vision. The robe looked very light and was similar in color to the hallway wall.
At this moment, Xiao Xiao gently tapped Ye Feng's hand three times.
Ye Feng immediately understood, as this was a pre-arranged signal between him and Xiao Xiao, indicating that the person who appeared was the tracker she had sensed yesterday.
"Let's go, take me to where Han Qiu Li is. It's called the Tyrannosaurus Trading Hall, right?"