Han Xuhan walked back to his hut following Yuen Zhou and Xiao Wu's departure, not close enough for them to notice what he was doing, nor far enough for them to not know where he was at the moment.
The road that led to their huts was a twisty one, giving him plenty of chances to play out his sneaky game with the sect's representatives. There were two phases of his plan.
Phase A: Zhanxian would go donning a cloak to complete the transaction. Tun Shi Tian would mix in with the flocks of birds returning home inside the woods and act as a scout. If anything goes wrong, Zhanxian would use a whistle Xuhan had provided him with to alert both Xuhan and Tun Shi Tian. If Xuhan heard the whistle, he'd cancel the summoning cycles and make Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian return to his dao base before anything could happen to them.
Phase B: If the operation went smoothly and nobody tried to mess with his minions for the time being, they'd run to a small grove nearby where Xuhan had prepared some equipments for a displacement spell. Regardless of whether anybody would track them down or not, Xuhan wouldn't take any chances. Any object brought from the other party would go straight down the spell formation to the realm of laws.
But from the looks of it, one of his minions had just blown the whistle, making Xuhan retract them back into his dao base as soon as he had heard it. Now he could only hope that they had managed to glean some information while running back. More importantly, what exactly had happened that made his minions quit the plan for phase B? Did they get attacked? By who?
Whoever it was, they'd never find where Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian were...hehehe.
Right when he was about to jog and catch up with Xiao Wu, a strange sight caught his attention.
A giant, glowing red snowflake shape made of pure qi was hovering on top of the woods where they had executed the operation. It floated there soundlessly, spinning around a perpendicular axis. The next second, his senses were hit by the most terrifying shockwave of a familiar substance roiling about.
Qi, more than he had ever seen in one place in his life, forming gargantuan swirls that surrounded the mountains and woods, they shot upward at the spinning snowflake like furious serpents.
They formed a whirlpool large enough to cover miles of region around the sect.
Booming, dull soundwaves ripped apart the silence amidst the mountains as the movements of the qi became more and more stupefying.
The color red dominated the sky, blocked out the stars, and lit up the mountains like a fallen fragment of a sun. Han Xuhan felt the qi inside his body whirl restlessly as if eager to join the vast fiery sea overhead. Shouts of alarm rose throughout the sect. Elders and disciples rushed outside their homes, screams of fear and exclamations came with it.
Dazed, Xuhan stood still and watched it unfold. His head buzzed, a layer of extra fear enveloping his heart as the realization dawned over him. What kind of expert had he pissed off? And what exactly were they doing now that they had lost his minions' trail?
As another booming sound made the snowflake in the sky break apart into countless arrow-like pieces, Xuhan started backing up. The arrows disappeared soon toward all ten directions as if looking for a target. Xuhan backed up faster and faster until he had gone past Xiao Wu and Yuen Zhou, both of whom were still gazing at the sky and didn't pay much attention to him.
Once he had overtaken them, Xuhan started sprinting at full speed, heading for his hut. He had no idea if the fireworks in the sky were some sort of ritual or spell to look for his minions, but he wasn't about to wait to see whether they found him as the source of his minions. He could try to cast a displacement spell and hide in the realm of laws from his hut if that's what it took to escape an enemy that powerful.
A minute later, Han Xuhan sat inside his bedroom and sank into a deep meditative state, his consciousness focused on stimulating the large dome on top of his dao base. As it represented his accomplishments in the language of laws, it also made itself into a doorway for him to enter the realm of laws where his spawn point was located; a function that had only been recently unlocked after he had mastered the displacement spell. Since then, he hadn't needed to wait for Brother BB's summons to spawn into the realm of laws.
As his consciousness discovered itself within the circular room after a few seconds, Xuhan focused on the mouth of the tunnel in front of him that led to brother BB's spawn point and yelled out loud.
"Yo, big brother! I require some assistance here!"
But nobody answered back. This was honestly the first time Xuhan had tried to actively contact that guy. He had always assumed that the mysterious mind infiltrator was present inside the realm of laws 24/7. But as seconds turned into minutes, Xuhan realized that his planning skills were far from becoming flawless. He had overlooked this one very plausible situation completely. And this mistake might become the last one he would ever make.
Panicking, Xuhan shouted for him a few more times. But no responses came back. Distraught and regretful, Xuhan retracted his consciousness and opened his eyes. No one had come looking for him following some sort of tracker or divination methods...yet.
The only other course of action he could see was to interrogate Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian. And that's what he immediately proceeded to do. His consciousness returned back inside his dao tower, this time focusing on looking for his minions' 'rooms'.
Zhanxian, as usual, was floating inside in his tiny avatar state. Seeing Xuhan appear again so soon, the skeleton floated over toward him eagerly.
"Boss! We did it! I managed to flip through the information they provided while running! Just like you said, I also burnt everything I was wearing at that time with the Blackfire stove before I blew the whistle. Little Tian threw the stove in the stream before you canceled our summoning spell. The operation has been an absolute success!"
"Yeah! With me watching over the operation, how could it be a failure?" Tun Shi Tian screeched with excitement from the other side of the hall.
"Well, excuse me for not putting much trust in the reading capabilities of an undead who couldn't recognize half the alphabets in our language a month ago," Xuhan said dryly. However, a tiny stream of relief started flowing inside his heart. Judging by the reactions of his minions, it didn't seem like anything too dreadful had happened. Otherwise, Zhanxian would be the first to complain.
"You can mock me for not being a retarded musclehead-" Zhanxian began to speak, only to be cut off by Xuhan.
"Zhanxian, you don't have muscles."
"But you have no right to mock my intellect!"
"Yeah, and you have no right to name me little Tian either-"
"Shut up, little Tian!"
"Keep quiet when your seniors are talking, little Tian."
Simultaneously, the bird was at the receiving end of two withering glares. Although the glares didn't seem to affect its spirit in any way, the little bird had come to know Xuhan well enough to understand that its master was a vile, petty human full of hypocrisy. It knew not to provoke his ire, and so little Tian fell silent.
"Tell me what happened in there," Han Xuhan ordered, refocusing on Zhanxian.
The skeleton began its tale, speaking at length about how terrifying and dangerous the dark woods were after sundown, how hard it was to navigate through the incredibly dense trees and shrubs and grass and roots, how intimidating and powerful the cultivator who had come to negotiate with him was, how that cultivator seemed to be threatening them a few times throughout their exchange, how Zhanxian's gut feeling told him that he was being followed by a horde of monstrous cultivators when he was trying to escape at his fastest speed, how many times he had stumbled and fallen during his sprint...
"Okay, okay, okay, I get it. First of all, how do you get gut feelings?" Xuhan tried to point at Zhanxian's miniature form and realized with much frustration that he didn't have hands in his current form.
"You don't have a gut, you lying brat!
I can tell what happened now just fine. You two were supposed to follow phase B of our plan if the operation ran smoothly. But you two smartasses got cold feet at the last second and decided to abort the mission and ended it following phase A. You blew the whistle after getting spooked for no reason and made me cancel your summons, huh ?"
"Zhanxian, you useless waste of space! You gave it all away!" Tun Shi Tian cried.
"You idiot!" Zhanxian facepalmed upon seeing Tun Shi Tian's admission of guilt.
Han Xuhan didn't know whether to throw a hissy fit or sigh profoundly and give up trying to struggle against all the shit life kept throwing at him. After a few moments of deep contemplation, he decided to reign in his anger and spent quite a while calming his heart. It took a near superhuman effort, but somehow he managed to do so. Surprisingly enough, it appeared that dealing with these two idiots for so long was somewhat helping him become much better at disciplining his thoughts.
"Now tell me what was written on those papers," he said in the end, putting a stop to the ongoing bickering session between Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian.
"The man you're looking for is named Fang Xie. His cultivation is at the...what was that word...? Oh right, 'Dao Integration' realm!"
"...Which realm is that? And why did he appear mentally unhinged if he's a cultivator?" Han Xuhan asked, dumbfounded.
"Don't ask me what that realm is, they didn't write that on the document. There were some details about his approximate height, weight, and other useless physical traits. Apparently, you can meet him directly and with guaranteed safety if you agree to make another deal with the person who completed this mission. Also, they seemed pretty interested in knowing your identity too. The paper contained some rough details of where to find our target. Get me a map of the regions surrounding this sect and I'll show you where he can be found," Zhanxian answered confidently.
Feeling slightly relieved that the mission rewards had not been wasted, Xuhan brought Zhanxian out from his dao tower and gave him a map he had bought a while ago to familiarize himself with all the potential escape routes out of the continent.
"Here, this is the area he is usually active in. As a cultivator, he might not always be available for a chat, a fact that our information provider put great emphasis on."
Han Xuhan's eyes narrowed as he observed the area Zhanxian had pointed towards. It was the town he had grown up in. So that's the reason he had stumbled upon the man that day. It wasn't just a coincidence. This Fang Xie was a cultivator who had definitely noticed him due to his cultivation. If he was somehow related to the disappearance of the orphanage, then chances were that he knew who Xuhan was, and that was the exact reason why he had come to chat that day.
But this dao integration realm...
"Did the papers say if this Fang Xie is affiliated with any sects or organizations?" He asked Zhanxian in a low voice.
"No, but that reminds me of one last thing. The information provider cautioned us about contacting Fang Xie, with good reasons too."
"Why?"
"He's a madman, it says. He had some freak accidents of suffering continuous mental demons during important breakthroughs. He isn't so unstable that you'd lock him up, but he's definitely pretty crazy and cruel."
"Why does it seem like you're exaggerating, minion?" Xuhan asked, his heart sinking as he remembered the man's behavior when he had met him.
"No, I'm not! I'm telling you the truth! You want to die? That's fine, but please don't take me down with you. At least trust my words when it comes to my personal safety," Zhanxian indignantly replied.
"That's exactly why I feel like you're exaggerating," Xuhan muttered.