Xiao Fei was inexplicably ambushed and trapped, and it was clear someone was orchestrating it from behind the scenes.
With both parties involved now dead and unable to testify, he had no leads to find the mastermind.
After being shot, the masked man, knowing he was doomed, chose to self-destruct.
The damned fellow's storage bag was also blown to smithereens, leaving only a ghost mask.
Xiao Fei picked up the mask and examined it, finding no special markings on it.
He wiped the bits of flesh stuck to the mask, put it on, and found it fit quite snugly.
He sensed its function: wearing the mask had no effect on him, but it could block others' divine sense probes.
Xiao Fei found a hidden spot, changed his clothes, circled the desolate mountains, and finding no one else, flew towards Tian Tong City.
Back in Tian Tong City, the shop was as usual. Huang Feifei sat behind the counter, bored and waiting for Xiao Fei's return.
"Young Master! You're back!"
The moment Xiao Fei walked into the shop, Huang Feifei's spirits immediately lifted. She stood up from behind the counter and went to brew some spirit-nourishing tea for Xiao Fei.
In the time it took Xiao Fei to sit down and drink a pot of spirit-nourishing tea, he had recovered from the two battles he had just experienced.
His consciousness entered the spatial dimension. The corpse of the young man was still lying there, with a storage bag hanging from his waist.
He had left in a hurry and hadn't had time to examine it.
Xiao Fei took off the storage bag and poured its contents out. There were many miscellaneous items.
There were over twenty thousand high-grade spirit stones, as well as treasures like Dharma artifacts, spirit herbs, and spirit ores.
Among them was a palm-sized token, bearing only a sequence of numbers resembling an identification number.
"3287"
Beyond that, there was no information Xiao Fei desired, nor any other Jian Mu ore.
Just then, a cultivator hurried into the small shop.
"Fellow Daoist Ji Zhuo, what brings you here in such a rush?"
This cultivator, named Ji Zhuo, was a regular customer of the shop. They had interacted many times, and over time, they had become familiar with each other, maintaining some contact.
"Fellow Daoist Xiao! I just learned some unfavorable news about you and rushed over to inform you."
In their past interactions, Ji Zhuo had proven to be upright and warm-hearted.
Both Xiao Fei and Huang Feifei had a good impression of Ji Zhuo. At this moment, Huang Feifei had already prepared a pot of hot tea for Ji Zhuo.
"Fellow Daoist Ji, please sit down and have some tea before you tell me."
"Thank you, Fairy Huang!"
Ji Zhuo accepted the tea handed to him by Huang Feifei, took a shallow sip, and then spoke again.
"It's like this, I just received news that someone intends to assassinate you, Fellow Daoist Xiao. You must be extremely careful."
"Thank you for the information, Fellow Daoist Ji. May I ask where you obtained this news? Who is targeting me?"
Xiao Fei had just been ambushed and was filled with pent-up anger with nowhere to vent. He desperately wanted to know who was behind the attempt on his life.
"I'm not entirely sure who it is. I learned of it through a secret underground assassination channel."
Since he mentioned a secret underground channel and didn't specify, implying he didn't want others to know, Xiao Fei didn't press further.
"Thank you for your guidance, Fellow Daoist Ji!"
"To be honest, Fellow Daoist, I was ambushed today and almost died."
Xiao Fei then gave a brief account of the two ambushes he had encountered earlier that day.
He did not reveal his combat strength, merely attributing it to sheer luck, a fluke that allowed him to kill the two.
This left both Huang Feifei and Ji Zhuo sighing in amazement.
Huang Feifei, in particular, was seething with anger, but with an outsider present, she did not show it.
"Fellow Daoist Ji, could you reveal where you got this information?"
As she spoke, Huang Feifei produced a jade box and offered it to Ji Zhuo.
She was now extremely wealthy and often presented high-grade treasures.
"Fellow Daoist Huang, there's no need! I'll tell you."
Ji Zhuo verbally refused, but his hands were honest as he accepted the jade box and put it into his storage bag.
"There's a secret market in Tian Tong City. Have you two heard of it?"
Xiao Fei and Huang Feifei both shook their heads.
Although they had lived there for a hundred years, they were still not very clear about some of the hidden aspects of Tian Tong City.
They had changed locations, had no subordinates to command, nor their own intelligence network.
In terms of keeping abreast of information, they were naturally far inferior to their past days on the Eastern Continent.
"This secret market has always been controlled by the Xing family. Besides trading rare treasures, one can also hire assassins for assassination missions."
"I saw someone posting a bounty mission inside today, offering a high price for Fellow Daoist Xiao's head."
Ji Zhuo then elaborated on some details to the two of them.
"Fellow Daoist Ji, could you take us to see it?"
Upon hearing this, Ji Zhuo's face showed a look of difficulty.
"It's not that I'm unwilling to help, but one needs a token to enter the secret market. The Xing family issues very few tokens to outsiders. I went through great hardship to obtain one."
Xiao Fei then recalled the "3287" token he had obtained from the young man and quickly produced it.
"Is this it?"
Ji Zhuo glanced at it and nodded in confirmation.
"Precisely. So, Fellow Daoist Xiao already has one. I was merely showing off my limited abilities."
"I just obtained it and haven't had time to study how to use it yet."
"Since you have the token, Fellow Daoist, then it's settled. This item doesn't recognize the person..."
...
A day later, Ji Zhuo led Xiao Fei into a back door of a general store after paying a sum of spirit stones.
After passing through a long, winding passage, they were greeted by what appeared to be a miniature city.
There were streets, shops, and stalls.
Many cultivators were setting up stalls there, selling miscellaneous items they no longer needed. These individuals were at least at the Nascent Soul stage, with some even being Void Refinement realm powerhouses.
"Follow me, Fellow Daoist. The place where bounties are posted is ahead."
Xiao Fei had already put on the ghost mask he had just acquired and followed behind Ji Zhuo.
Ahead stood a large tree, with many wooden plaques hanging from it.
As Xiao Fei approached, he saw that these wooden plaques listed various bounty missions.
Some were bizarre, while others were normal.
"My cute little white tiger pet, raised for 1500 years, has gone missing. Anyone who can find it will be rewarded with ten thousand spirit stones."
"Seeking information on a ten-thousand-year-old spirit herb, bounty of 2000 spirit stones."
There were many bounty missions here, most of them dealing with rather peculiar matters.
Xiao Fei searched for a long time before finding a seemingly normal assassination mission, which was to kill Xiao Fei himself.
If the cultivator who posted the mission knew that Xiao Fei was currently standing before the tree, examining the mission to assassinate him.
If Xiao Fei were to reveal his identity at this moment, it was likely that other cultivators would attack him en masse.