Chapter 687: Discovered
Editor: Atlas Studios
Fei Bai could not get close to the High Sage Temple at all. Now, the area within a five-kilometer radius of High Sage Temple was under martial law. The tenants and villagers living in this area were actually imprisoned. Fei Bai felt that something was amiss. Even if the guards of High Sage Temple were alarmed by the intruder, wasn’t this overreacting?
There was no reason for them to make such a big move just for a couple of people whose motive was unknown, right?
After some thought, Fei Bai and a guard decided to bribe an ordinary soldier on patrol. Only then did he know that someone had barged into High Sage Temple yesterday. But before he could break through the door, he was pursued by the Gao family’s soldiers. Strangely though, High Sage Temple, which had been silent since the rebellion, suddenly opened the door and asked the Gao family to hand over those who had barged in. The people on both sides even fought. Even if those people had turned into corpses, the people from High Sage Temple still insisted that the Gao family hand over the corpses.
That was as much as an ordinary soldier could know.
When Fei Bai brought the news back to look for Qi Haoran, the latter narrowed his eyes. “The Dali Emperor came to High Sage Temple, but the temper’s elders refused to appear. They only protected his and the Empress’ lives. Now, they suddenly appeared to snatch some corpses?”
Fei Bai nodded. “I also find it strange. Unfortunately, the place is heavily guarded by the Gao family’s soldiers now. It took a lot of effort to make that soldier speak. But since that person is just an ordinary guard, that’s as much as he knows.”
Qi Haoran turned to look at the “dumpling” lying on the grass pile. He raised his chin and asked, “Have you found out his identity?”
Fei Bai shook his head. Not only could he not find out his identity, but he also couldn’t find out any information about the unknown man at all.
After all, this was not Great Qi, so they had to face a lot of inconvenience in getting things done here. In Great Qi, they could just go to the government office to check the documents, or they could openly visit and investigate. It was very easy to find out someone’s identity. In Dali, however, they had to hide their identities. The only thing that could be used to identify this person was his face, for he carried nothing that revealed his identity.
Therefore, he walked around and vaguely asked the people near High Sage Temple, but no one had seen such a person before.
However, Qi Haoran’s heart skipped a beat. He asked, “You said that you went to investigate his identity?”
“Yes, because he also wanted to barge into High Sage Temple, I think he might have lived nearby, so I went to ask around, but no one has seen him.”
Qi Haoran lowered his eyes and pondered. Suddenly, he stood up and said, “Pack your things immediately. We’ll leave immediately.”
Although Fei Bai and the others were surprised, they immediately packed up and erased all traces. They carried the “rice dumpling” and quickly left the dilapidated temple.
Qi Haoran paused at the fork in the road and immediately pointed at the forest opposite the river. “Let’s cross the river and enter the mountains.”
The group carefully crossed the river, erased their traces, and entered the mountain.
Not long after they left the dilapidated temple, a team of soldiers broke in. Gao Yuan stared maliciously at the straw pile on the ground and asked, “How is it?”
The scout in the lead hesitated for a moment before replying, “There are no traces of anyone stopping here. Most likely, someone has erased the traces. But even though the traces can be erased, the smell can’t be erased. General, we have a few hounds in our army that are very useful. Why don’t you wait for a moment, General? We’ll go back and get a hound.”
Gao Yuan frowned. “How much time will this take?”
“Sharpening of the knife doesn’t delay the cutting of firewood, General. We can’t find any traces of them now. Even if we wanted to chase them, we wouldn’t know which direction to go in.”
A little frustrated, Gao Yuan waved his hand and said, “Then quickly get someone to get the hounds. I’ll wait here.”
Gao Yuan walked back and forth in the dilapidated temple twice and asked his deputy beside him, “Can’t you detect any traces?”
The deputy looked around the temple and shook his head slightly. “I can see traces of someone having lived here, but upon closer inspection, those traces appear to be very ordinary. It was as though they were left behind by beggars or passers-by.”
Gao Yuan snorted and said, “That’s really terrifying. There seems to be some traces, but then again those traces are nothing of value.”
Gao Yuan waited with a cold expression for nearly 45 minutes before the hound was brought over. Seeing the hound spin on the ground for a long time, Gao Yuan pointed at the pile of straw on the ground and said, “Let the hound smell that pile of straw.”
He had a nagging feeling that the pile of straw was too natural-looking, as if no one had ever sat on it before. However, if he were the other party and came to the dilapidated temple to settle down, the pile of straw would obviously be the best choice since there were no chairs or resting places. Therefore, the pile of straw should be the place where the most smell was left behind.
However, Gao Yuan did not know that his guess was only 50% correct. That pile of straw had indeed been used by someone. If not for that injured person, that pile of straw would definitely have been Qi Haoran’s territory. However, with the injured, plus the fact that Qi Haoran was angry that the other party had caused them to be discovered, he only stood there and glanced at the injured person before turning to leave.
As for the others, they would not take the initiative to approach an unknown person and risk getting disliked by their masters. Hence, other than the person who applied medicine and bandaged the ‘dumpling’, there was only the smell of the injured on the grass pile. This smell of Chinese medicine lingered most strongly. Thus, the faint smell that belonged to Qi Haoran was more or less overlooked by the hound.
The hound was very clever. It followed the strongest smell and quickly caught up to the river. However, after crossing the river, the smell faded a lot. The hound sniffed for a long time before entering the forest. Then, it circled around the mountain non-stop and finally returned to the lower reaches of the river. After crossing the river, it entered the mountains and circled around before coming out again to the lower reaches of the river and crossing the river…
Gao Yuan’s face was ashen. At this moment, no matter how stupid he was, he realized that he had been tricked. He was so angry that he kicked away the scout holding the hound and snapped angrily, “Useless thing. Men, mobilize the army and surround this mountain. Even if you have to dig three feet into the ground, you have to find them.”
The people behind looked at each other and could not help but persuade in a low voice, “General, we have to keep a low profile. Moreover, considering our army has to quell the rebellion and surround High Sage Temple, we can’t spare much manpower now.”
“General, why don’t we mobilize two teams of elite soldiers to chase after them? Each team will bring along two hounds. Even if those people can take a detour, with our two teams taking turns, can’t we catch up to them?”
Gao Yuan thought for a moment and agreed. His eyes were filled with gloom as he said in a low voice, “I didn’t expect him to have such a capable person by his side. No wonder he could escape.”
At this moment, Qi Haoran and the others were so tired that they collapsed to the ground. Fei Bai poked the “dumpling” that was still unconscious and sighed. “This guy sure has it easy. He laid down comfortably all the way here. Fourth Master, how many more detours do we have to take?”
Qi Haoran narrowed his eyes and asked, “There’s no need to take any more detours. There’s a village along the river. Let’s find something to hide our scent.”
Qi Haoran looked at the person lying on the ground and said, “I wonder who this person is. He’s quite lucky. There’s a river not far away. Otherwise, we might not have been able to shake off the people behind.”
Although they could erase traces and hide it from the eyes of others, they definitely couldn’t hide it from the hound’s nose. It was upon reaching the river that Qi Haoran remembered that Fei Bai had said that everyone within a five-kilometer radius of High Sage Temple had been arrested. Since the other party valued the people who wanted to barge into High Sage Temple so much, they definitely wouldn’t easily give up on this guy whose whereabouts had been leaked. That was why Qi Haoran wanted to use this river to weaken the smell and shake off the men tracking them.
Although this method was useful, it was troublesome and the effect was slow. If the other party ruthlessly sent a large number of people, they would definitely be discovered. If things came to that, they would probably really have to enter the forest.
Chapter end
