The cold spring rain fell in dense, grey sheets, drumming a heavy rhythm against the clay tiles of Willow Alley. In the deep of the night, the streets were empty of mortals, the lanterns extinguished to save oil, leaving the narrow lanes to the dark and the damp. Fang Lin stepped out of Uncle Zhang's broken wooden doorway, his simple, dark mortal cotton robes immediately drinking the moisture. In his hand, he carried a simple wooden staff, a common tool used by mortal travelers to test the depth of mud on the roads, concealing his true balance. His shown cultivation remained locked at the absolute baseline of a mortal youth, but beneath his skin, his three-path meridians were alert and silent.
He turned his face toward the south.
To a normal cultivator, the heavy rain would have washed away all physical traces of the abductors within minutes. The mud would collapse, the footprints would fill with water, and the scent of the passage would dissolve into the wet earth. However, Fang Lin did not rely on mortal senses. He closed his eyes and activated his Peak-Solid Soul, sending out a thin, thread-like pulse of divine sense that crept along the wet stones like a spider's web.
He felt the trace immediately.
It was a faint, foul resonance of water Qi, a silty, damp energy that smelled of rotten reeds and stagnant riverbeds. This energy was left behind by the abductors' water-spirit beast bone compass and the black wave technique they had used to strike down Uncle Zhang. The compass had drawn upon the water veins of the area to locate Xiao Chuan's special constitution, leaving a greasy, spiritual footprint that the heavy rain could not wash away. To Fang Lin's divine sense, this residue was like a bright oil slick on clean water, showing the exact path the three grey-robed men had taken.
"They did not even bother to mask their tracks," Fang Lin thought, his narrow eyes opening in the dark. "They believe that in this mortal alley, there is no one who dares to offend them."
He walked forward, his steps quiet and swift.
As he moved, he guided a tiny, microscopic thread of Frost Qi from his second meridian path, circulating it through his limbs. The cold energy lowered his skin temperature until it matched the freezing rain, preventing his body heat from radiating into the night air. This meant that any thermal-sensing beasts or detection arrays the abductors might have left behind as lookouts would perceive him only as a cold drop of water falling through the mist, keeping his approach completely hidden.
He followed the trail of foul water Qi out of the residential lanes and toward the southern edge of the city.
The ground here grew soft and uneven, the stone cobbles giving way to packed black clay that grew slicker with every step. Along the margins of the path, Fang Lin's divine sense caught another physical clue. It was the faint, wet indentations of heavy leather boots, the deep ridges in the mud containing tiny fragments of silty, black marsh mud. This mud was different from the clean lake sand of Willow Alley; it was the heavy, dark clay found only near the deep southern wetlands where the reeds grew thick and the water was stagnant.
"They came from the marshes, and they went back to the marshes," Fang Lin noted, his mind locking the geographic details together. "The Black Water Alliance has its roots in the deep reed beds."
After half an hour of rapid travel, the smell of fish and wet timber grew thick, and the sound of rushing water became a steady roar.
Fang Lin halted at the edge of the southern docks.
The docks were a sprawling, chaotic maze of wooden piers, creaking bamboo walkways, and floating houseboats packed together like dry leaves in a gutter. Even in the middle of the night, the area was not entirely asleep. Flickering oil lamps hung from the eaves of low-roofed taverns, casting long, orange reflections across the wet planks of the piers. Boatmen yelled through the rain, securing cargo rafts laden with ironwood logs, and the smell of cheap rice wine and wet dog was heavy in the air.
Fang Lin stood in the obscurity of a large wooden crane, his Peak-Solid Soul sweeping the area.
The trail of foul water Qi led straight down the central pier, but it grew faint near the main shipping slipways, where the constant movement of boats and the washing of the lake currents had scattered the energy. He needed to find the exact boat they had used, or at least the channel they had taken.
"A fast smuggling boat with three grey-robed men and a child," Fang Lin thought, his eyes scanning the dark water. "They would not have used the main public docks. They would have departed from a private slipway controlled by the local gangs."
He stepped onto the creaking planks of the central pier, his wooden staff tapping lightly against the wood.
Before he could take ten steps, three figures stepped out from the shelter of a collapsed thatch roof, blocking his path. They were large, rough-faced mortals wearing greased canvas cloaks to keep off the rain, their belts holding long, rusty fish-scaling knives. They were lookouts for the Mud-Claw Gang, a local gang of dock thugs who collected tribute from the fishermen and acted as the eyes and ears for the cultivators of the Black Water Alliance.
"Well, look what the rain washed in," the leader of the thugs muttered, stepping forward. He had a broad, red face and a thick nose that had been broken many times. "A little mortal insect. What is a green sprout of a kid doing down here in the mud at midnight?"
"I am looking for a boat," Fang Lin said, his voice flat and carrying no emotion. "A black-sailed boat that left an hour ago with three men in grey robes."
The three thugs exchanged a quick, amused glance. The leader laughed, a wet, rattling sound that smelled of stale garlic.
"A boat? Sure, we got lots of boats," the leader said, reaching out to tap the chest of Fang Lin's dark cotton robe with a dirty finger, his touch leaving a smear of dark soot. "But the dock tax tonight is three silver coins for passage, and five silver coins for questions. A mortal has no status here, and a trash kid like you has no backing. If you don't have the silver, you can leave your warm clothes behind and crawl back to your alley."
Fang Lin looked down at the dark smear on his chest, then back at the thug's red face. He did not show any anger, his heart remaining as cold and steady as the deep lake.
"You are right," Fang Lin said, his voice quiet and calm. "A mortal is indeed low in the docks, and a trash kid has no backing here. But where did the black-sailed boat go?"
The thugs exchanged a bewildered look, the leader's grin faltering slightly. They had expected the young kid to either cry, run, or shout defensive threats, but this quiet agreement disarmed their immediate momentum, leaving them confused by his lack of fear.
"You're a deaf one, aren't you?" the thug on the left growled, trying to regain his footing as he drew his rusty scaling knife. The metal blade gleamed dull in the rain. "In these docks, strength is the only law, and the weak have no right to speak of rules. Maybe we need to cut your ears off so you can hear us better."
He stepped forward, the knife held low, ready to slice.
Fang Lin looked at him, his dark eyes empty of light.
"Who were you at my age, to speak of cutting ears?" Fang Lin asked, his voice flat.
The simple question struck the thug like a cold wind, breaking his confidence for a split second as he tried to find an answer, his stride freezing in hesitation. In that brief moment of doubt, he lunged forward, but his movement was clumsy.
Fang Lin did not draw a weapon. He did not wave his hand or unleash a loud shout. He simply took a half-step to the right, his movement a swift, silent slip that made the thug's knife pass through empty air. Before the thug could balance himself, Fang Lin's left hand shot out like a striking heron, his fingers locking around the thug's wrist with the force of an iron vice.
He did not use his full physical strength, but he circulated a controlled pulse of Frost Qi through his palm.
"Ah!" the thug screamed, but the sound was immediately choked in his throat.
The cold energy entered his wrist instantly. This meant that the moisture in the air around his hand froze into a stiff, white sleeve of ice, and the blood within his veins turned to solid frost in a fraction of a second. The extreme cold ran up his arm, causing his muscles to seize and his bones to turn as brittle as dry clay, the rusty knife dropping from his frozen, blue fingers and clattering against the wet wood.
The other two thugs froze in shock, their eyes widening as they saw their companion's arm turn white and stiff in an instant.
"Cultivator!" the leader gasped, his red face turning a pale, sickly yellow. He tried to draw his own knife, but his hand shook so violently that he could not grip the handle.
Fang Lin did not let go of the first thug's wrist. He looked at the leader, his eyes cold and dark under the hood of his outer disciple robes.
"Where is the boat?" Fang Lin asked, his voice carrying a quiet authority that made the wooden planks beneath their feet seem to shiver.
"The... the southern channels!" the leader stammered, dropping to his knees on the wet wood, his greased cloak dragging in the mud. "They took the fast black-boat from the third slipway! They are grey-robed masters from the Black Water Alliance! They don't report to us, they just gave us ten copper coins to keep the pier clear!"
"What is their destination?" Fang Lin asked.
"The Black Reed Channels!" the leader cried out, his voice cracking with terror as he saw the white frost beginning to creep up his companion's shoulder. "Their branch fort is at the center of the channels, behind the three-tree island! I swear by the lake, that is all I know! We are just lookouts, we don't dare ask the masters anything!"
Fang Lin released the first thug's wrist.
The thug collapsed onto the pier, clutching his frozen, white arm and weeping in silent pain, the skin of his wrist already cracked and showing no blood under the ice. The other two thugs did not look at him; they kept their faces pressed against the wet wood, their bodies shaking in the cold rain.
"If you speak to anyone of my visit," Fang Lin said, his voice quiet as he looked down at them, "the frost will find your hearts."
"No! We won't say a word! We saw nothing!" the leader sobbed.
Fang Lin did not wait for their promises. He turned and walked down the pier, his wooden staff tapping against the creaking wood as he headed toward the third slipway.
The slipway was a narrow, dark channel situated between two rotting timber storehouses. A small, simple wooden skiff was tied to an iron ring on the post, its single wooden oar resting on the bench. It was a common fisherman's boat, light and silent. Fang Lin untied the hemp rope, stepped onto the wet wood of the skiff, and pushed off from the post using his staff.
He did not use the oar.
Instead, he guided a faint trickle of his Frost Qi to circulate through the water behind the skiff. By freezing a thin layer of water behind the boat and letting the ice expand, he created a silent, backward pressure that pushed the skiff forward through the dark water without making any sound of splashing. This meant that he could travel faster than a mortal rowing, his skiff cutting through the black waves like a silent water beetle.
He had to maintain stealth at all costs. Because he feared the unknown, if his enemies discovered him, they might use Xiao Chuan as leverage. Fang Lin definitely did not want to see such a scene.
He guided the skiff away from the dock lights and into the wide, misty waters of the lake.
The rain continued to fall, the wind howling across the open water, but Fang Lin sat steady in the center of the skiff, his eyes fixed on the dark horizon. Ahead of him, the misty silhouette of the southern marshes began to rise from the water. The marshes were a vast, dense maze of tall reed beds, floating logs, and narrow channels that stretched for dozens of miles, a wild territory where the magistrate's laws could not reach.
As he entered the first channel, the tall, green reeds rose on both sides of the boat, blocking out the light of the distant city and leaving him in absolute darkness.
He did not light a lamp.
Using his Peak-Solid Soul, Fang Lin adjusted his perception to the darkness, his divine sense spreading out to feel the movement of the water and the wind through the reeds. The air inside the channels was stagnant and heavy, the foul water Qi from the abductors' compass still lingering in the narrow passages, guiding him like a cold thread through the maze.
"They think they are safe in this swamp," Fang Lin thought, his hand resting on the wooden staff, his knuckles white in the dark. "They think the mist and the reeds will hide their crimes."
A cold, quiet anger burned within his chest, his Frost and Stillness pathway humming in response to his intent. He knew that the Black Water Alliance was not a simple group of thugs; they had cultivators at the Spirit Foundation stage, and their leader was rumored to be a peak Core Formation expert who was cruel and ruthless. Yet, as he looked at the dark water sliding past the skiff, his heart was as still and heavy as basalt.
He would find them, and he would show them that even a mortal alley had claws that could tear their throats.
The skiff glided deeper into the Black Reed Channels, disappearing into the thick grey mist of the rainy night, leaving no wake behind on the cold, dark water.
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