The lanterns in Blue Stone Slab Alley swayed in the wind, casting a dim, yellowish glow. The tip of Ye Fan's shoe had just brushed against the moss at the mouth of the alley when Ma San's voice, thick with dampness and chill, poured into his ears.
"That old man said the array core opens at the Hour of Zi tonight. We have to lure the fellow surnamed Ye there." Ma San's black silk short jacket brushed against the peeling vermilion doorpost, the dark red birthmark on the back of his neck looking like a patch of congealed blood in the moonlight. "The demon tide is just a diversion; the main point is to make him stumble into breaking the seal—by then, every last resident of Qinglan City will be dead, and the Xuanyin Sect will spread the word that he colluded with evil cultivators..."
Ye Fan's fingers tapped lightly against the Jiuxiao Huanpei at his waist, the zither's vibration rippling through his palm and straight into his Inner World.
Chapter 146