The Mass Grave at the fourth watch of the Zi hour was even colder than expected. Ye Fan pressed his back against the old locust tree trunk at the edge of the earthen slope, his fingernails digging almost into the bark. He could clearly hear the roaring of his own blood in his ears, yet not a single sound of insects could be heard. This unnatural silence was the result of the "Wind-Listening Array" deployed by the Iron-masked Man.
The talent of the Unity of Heaven and Man flowed within him, and a new branch of the old peach tree inside his Inner World suddenly trembled violently. Ye Fan's pupils constricted—the stench of rotting leaves he had sensed three breaths ago was now unexpectedly mixed with a trace of ambergris. That was the special incense supplied exclusively to the Great Chu Imperial Palace; even the Meridian-Restoring Pill he had given to Qín Wǎnshuāng carried this faint, lingering sweetness.
"The seventh sacrifice," the hoarse laughter of the Iron-masked Man still echoed in his ears. Ye Fan remembered the porcelain shards he had stepped on while climbing the earthen slope just moments ago; their glaze was identical to the Ru ware tea cup in Wang Ba's study. It turned out that the dilapidated temple at this Mass Grave was not the hiding place of the Iron-masked Man at all, but a flaw deliberately exposed by him. The real lair should be located...
Chapter 175