Chapter 86: Changing the Pattern

Lin Yuan spent the next morning walking around the developed part of Blackstone. Covering the entire territory would have taken far too long and accomplished very little, so he followed the western boundary before cutting back toward the road entrance, the Travelers’ Market, Qiao Ren’s shop, and the tavern.

He had walked these paths countless times, but today he was paying attention to different things.

From the fifth formation post, he could see the tavern entrance across most of the courtyard. Anyone standing farther west would easily notice when someone left the building. The market offered more cover, with several stalls and unfinished structures breaking the line of sight between the road and the tavern.

Qiao Ren’s shop stood close enough to the main road that someone entering through the proper entrance could reach it without crossing any monitored boundary.

The formation protected the places it had been designed to watch, but it could not tell him what someone was doing on an open road. Adding another formation every time he discovered a weakness wasn’t a solution either. He had already spent enough spirit stones learning how quickly security could become expensive.

For now, he would work with what he had.

Qiao Ren found him standing beside the unfinished entrance frame.

"You’ve been staring at buildings all morning."

"I’m thinking."

"That usually gets expensive."

Lin Yuan ignored the remark.

"If the formation rings tonight, don’t run toward the boundary."

Qiao Ren’s expression changed slightly. "What do you want me to do?"

"Wait."

"For what?"

"For whoever is watching us to get impatient."

That earned him a longer look.

Lin Yuan gestured toward the road. "Every time the warning sounds, someone expects us to look west. I want to see what happens if we don’t rush over there."

Qiao Ren glanced toward the entrance. "You think someone will come through the road while we’re distracted?"

"They might."

"And if nobody does?"

"Then we lose an evening."

After considering that, Qiao Ren shrugged. "I’ve lost evenings for worse reasons."

They kept the plan simple. If the formation sounded, Qiao Ren would wait before stepping outside with a lantern and making himself visible near the courtyard. Meanwhile, Lin Yuan would stay away from the obvious route and watch what happened.

Anything more complicated risked falling apart the moment something unexpected occurred.

Back at the tavern, Su Mei was checking food supplies while Xiao Lan sat nearby sorting clean bowls into uneven stacks. Lin Yuan gave them their instructions.

"If the warning sounds tonight, stay inside."

Xiao Lan looked up. "We already did that."

"Do it again."

"What if someone comes through the front?"

"Lock the door after the last customers settle in. Don’t open it unless you recognize whoever is outside."

Su Mei nodded immediately, while Xiao Lan took slightly longer.

Lin Yuan pointed toward the wooden pole leaning beside the wall. "And that stays inside too."

She followed his gaze. "I wasn’t going to do anything."

"You were holding it with both hands last time."

"It was nearby."

"That explanation hasn’t improved."

Su Mei turned away, but not before Lin Yuan noticed her smile. Xiao Lan returned to sorting the bowls, apparently deciding the discussion was over.

There was little else he could prepare without turning Blackstone into something it was not. The tavern and market stayed open, and travelers continued using the road as usual.

If someone was watching, Lin Yuan wanted Blackstone to look ordinary. Mostly because it still was.

A group of four merchants arrived before noon. They bought lunch, argued over the price of wine, and spent nearly an hour inside Qiao Ren’s shop before leaving with more cultivation supplies than they had probably intended to purchase.

Later that afternoon, a family traveling with a small caravan stopped for water. Two wandering cultivators also arrived, asking whether the rumors about a spiritual vein were true.

Lin Yuan told them no.

They rented the last available room upstairs anyway.

By late afternoon, he had almost managed to forget what he was waiting for. Then another caravan arrived from the west, carrying bundles of medicinal plants and several sealed wooden crates.

Lin Yuan watched the wagons enter through the marked road. The formation remained silent, exactly as intended.

The caravan leader ordered food for twelve people but chose not to rent rooms. His group planned to leave early the next morning, so they would sleep near their wagons instead.

That meant more people outside overnight, though Lin Yuan wasn’t sure whether that made things better or worse. More witnesses could discourage an attack, but they also made it harder to tell who belonged where.

He kept that thought to himself.

Dinner passed normally. When the final customers finished eating, Su Mei cleared the tables while Xiao Lan carried dishes into the kitchen.

Lin Yuan stepped outside to check the courtyard. Three caravan fires remained lit, with men talking quietly beside two wagons. Farther away, someone repaired a harness beneath a hanging lantern.

Nothing seemed unusual.

He returned inside, and the tavern doors were closed for the night. As Blackstone gradually settled into silence, Lin Yuan found a place near the counter and waited.

The first hour passed without incident.

Then the formation chimed.

A clear metallic note came from the receiving plate behind the counter. Su Mei stopped what she was doing, and Xiao Lan turned toward Lin Yuan. Neither moved toward the entrance.

At least they remembered.

Lin Yuan listened carefully. No answering sound carried from the restricted site, which meant the warning had likely come from the western boundary.

He picked up the low-grade artifact he had prepared earlier and moved toward the rear of the tavern.

"Same plan."

Su Mei nodded. Xiao Lan, however, glanced toward the wooden pole.

Lin Yuan looked at her until she folded her arms instead.

Good enough.

He slipped outside through the rear exit. Qiao Ren’s shop remained dark as Lin Yuan moved behind the nearest building and found a place where he could watch the road without being easily seen.

The formation did not ring again. Several breaths later, a light appeared near Qiao Ren’s doorway.

The merchant stepped outside carrying a lantern and began crossing part of the courtyard at an unhurried pace. From the western wasteland, it would look as though someone had finally responded to the warning.

Qiao Ren made himself visible but stayed well away from the boundary. Hidden between the buildings, Lin Yuan kept his attention on the road.

A minute passed, then another. One of the caravan guards shifted beside a wagon and threw another piece of wood onto his fire. Apart from that, nothing happened.

Lin Yuan began to wonder whether the plan had accomplished anything.

Then he noticed movement near the road.

Someone was coming through the proper entrance.

At first, there was nothing particularly strange about that. The trade road did not close at night, and travelers occasionally arrived late after misjudging the distance between stops.

But this person carried no lantern. There was no visible pack, and no beast followed behind.

The figure walked along the edge of the road rather than its center, slowing as soon as Qiao Ren’s lantern came into view.

Lin Yuan remained still.

Instead of approaching the tavern, the newcomer veered toward the market, moving carefully between the shadows.

Lin Yuan stepped out from behind the building.

"Looking for a room?"

The figure stopped about twenty paces away. Under the moonlight, Lin Yuan could make out a man dressed in dark traveling clothes, with a cloth covering the lower half of his face.

The stranger did not reach for a weapon, and neither did Lin Yuan. For several seconds, they simply watched each other.

"The tavern’s closed," Lin Yuan added.

The man’s gaze shifted briefly toward the building behind him.

"Wrong road."

His voice was low.

Lin Yuan glanced at the straight trade road.

"That happens."

The stranger said nothing.

Across the courtyard, Qiao Ren had stopped moving. His lantern remained raised, but he made no attempt to approach.

The man took one step backward, then another. Lin Yuan made no move to stop him.

After a brief hesitation, the stranger turned and walked toward the entrance.

He did not run.

That bothered Lin Yuan more than if he had.

Someone who accidentally wandered into Blackstone at night might apologize, ask for directions, or at least appear confused. This man had done none of those things.

He had entered quietly, moved toward the market, and turned back the moment someone noticed him.

Lin Yuan remained where he was until the figure passed beneath the unfinished entrance frame and continued west along the road.

A moment later, another warning rang from the tavern. No answering sound came from the restricted site, leaving the western boundary as the likely source.

The man on the road did not react. He simply continued walking until the darkness swallowed his figure.

Someone else was out there.

Qiao Ren approached once the second chime faded.

"That was convenient."

Lin Yuan kept his eyes on the western road. "He came in while you were visible."

"And someone crossed the formation when he left."

"Yes."

Qiao Ren rested one hand near the short blade beneath his robe. "Want to follow him?"

"No."

Following a suspicious man into the open wasteland at night, especially when he appeared to have companions, would be an excellent way to make the next morning very complicated.

Qiao Ren seemed to reach the same conclusion. Neither suggested pursuing the stranger again as they returned to the tavern.

Su Mei opened the door after hearing Lin Yuan’s voice outside. Xiao Lan was still inside, and the wooden pole remained exactly where he had left it.

At least that was progress.

"Someone came through the road," Lin Yuan said.

Both women moved closer as he described what had happened. Su Mei listened without interrupting, while Xiao Lan frowned.

"He said he took the wrong road?"

"Yes."

"There’s only one road."

"I noticed."

"What did he look like?"

"Dark clothes. Face covered."

"That sounds suspicious."

"It wasn’t an improvement."

Lin Yuan sat at one of the nearest tables.

His suspicion from the previous night had been right. The warning drew attention west, and someone had used the permitted road while Blackstone appeared distracted.

Whoever was watching them had moved beyond simply testing whether the formation worked. They were searching for a way around it.

Su Mei rested one hand on the back of a chair. "Did he reach the market?"

"No."

"Was he heading there?"

"It looked like it."

Qiao Ren had followed them inside and heard the question.

"My shop."

Lin Yuan looked at him. "Maybe."

"Or the stalls."

"Maybe."

Neither possibility was good.

The five travelers had asked about stock kept overnight. Now that someone had approached the market under suspicious circumstances, the connection was becoming harder to ignore.

Still, Lin Yuan had not seen the masked man’s face. He had no intention of treating suspicion as proof.

Xiao Lan glanced toward the windows. "What do we do tomorrow?"

"Open the tavern."

She stared at him, but Lin Yuan continued before she could object.

"If we close everything because someone walked through the road, whoever is watching learns they can shut Blackstone down without even attacking."

That did not mean they would ignore what had happened. From tomorrow onward, no one would investigate a warning alone. Qiao Ren would keep his blade close, and the staff would know exactly which doors remained locked after dark. Lin Yuan would also pay closer attention to anyone arriving without a caravan after sunset.

These were simple precautions, but they were practical enough to maintain without disrupting business.

Blackstone could not spend every night waiting for an attack. At the same time, Lin Yuan could no longer pretend the danger was only a possibility.

Morning arrived without another warning.

After sunrise, Lin Yuan returned to the western boundary with Qiao Ren. Near the fourth formation post, he found a fresh footprint just inside the monitored line. Like the earlier marks, it appeared to have been left deliberately.

Nothing else had been disturbed.

Someone had triggered the formation around the same time the masked man used the road.

Qiao Ren crouched beside the print. "That makes at least two."

"At least."

"Could be more."

"Yes."

Qiao Ren stood and looked west, but the wasteland offered no answers. They headed back toward the developed area.

Breakfast smoke was already rising from the tavern kitchen. One of the caravan groups was preparing its wagons, while two early customers waited near the Travelers’ Market for a stall to open.

Everything looked ordinary, and Lin Yuan wanted to keep it that way.

The people outside had been testing whether Blackstone could be distracted. They had discovered a weakness, but Lin Yuan now knew what to watch for.

He couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t try again. He could, however, make their next attempt much harder.

Before returning to the tavern, Lin Yuan looked at Qiao Ren.

"Keep the blade close tonight."

Qiao Ren nodded.

Lin Yuan intended to do the same.