Hunting Him

"Master, you're so cruel!" Heileen pouted angrily as she pulled to and fro Xu An's shoulders.

It stopped after the third round and Xu An's eyes were spinning as he felt dizzy.

"Right, Master. This is for you," said Heileen as she pulled out something behind her, it was covered in white cloth. Xu An could not tell what it was.

Xu An grabbed it as he accepted it without hesitation.

"Thanks, what is this?" Xu An asked but Heileen did not hear what he said.

"Aiyayai, no basic courtesy at all," said Heileen helplessly. Shouldn't the appropriate thing to do was to deny humbly and then Heileen insisted.

But...

Xu An opened the gift as he uncovered the white cloth and revealed what was inside.

"This…" Xu An was baffled and quickly fell in love with it at the first sight.

It was a dagger with beautiful artistic carvings on its hilt. A blue gem was also embedded there.

Xu An grabbed the handle and did simple sword moves as he gradually got used to it. It did not take long.

"Un! This sword is good but it might be better if it's a gun," Xu An nodded with satisfaction but then complained.

"If you don't like it then give it back," said Heileen as he extended out her right hand.

Hearing that, Xu An quickly put the dagger back to the scabbard and placed it underneath his robe. For he was afraid Heileen snatched it back.

"I did not say I like it. Thank you, Heileen," spoke Xu An with deep gratitude as he smiled.

Heileen smiled as she said, "If you're happy with it then fine. Right, Master. Aren't you in a hurry?" Heileen ended her words with a question.

"Ah, I forgot!" Xu An turned his body around and quickened his pace as he entered the forest. He ran as he left a trail of dust and left Heileen alone.

Heileen was a bit surprised that her Master just left her.

"Eh?" She blurted out a confused interjection as she slightly tilted her head to the side. She foolishly stared in Xu An's direction.

"Damn it, it's dark already. I can't see what's ahead!" Xu An said as his voice slightly intensified.

The surrounding was already dark and Xu An barely could see anything. Thankfully, the moon eased up the darkness by a bit. He relied on spiritual senses at this point.

He was like a bat which the latter used echolocation

He stopped his pace as he felt like he lost his way. He looked around before continuing by going to the right.

This happened a few times but not always to the right, sometimes left, go straight, and even went back.

Finally, he ran out of energy as he rested himself against the trunk of a dead tree.

Huff… Huff…

Panting could be heard from his mouth. His heartbeat was pumping greatly.

"This tree, I remember it," Xu An smiled as he recognized it. He always went in and out of the forest so he knew some landmarks which lead to his hut.

The moon was rather bright. It seemed Lady Luck was on his side. Should it not be for the moonlight, who knew if Xu An could find this dead tree?

Anyway, some of the landmarks were even built by him. For example, after he found the dead tree. He went to the right and found a strange tree shape that looked like a J.

He walked straight and found another landmark, which was a big boulder that looked like the face of someone

Not sure if that was creepy or artistically disturbing. Regardless, it helped greatly as he knew he was getting closer to his hut.

As he walked for a few minutes, he found a light source ahead of him.

Xu An slowed his steps as he hid in the bushes. He wanted to observe what or who had the light source.

Some animals in the forest attract prey with light and they were nasty ones. They looked like something straight out from horror movies.

"Did he enter this forest? Isn't it dangerous and prohibited by the law to enter it?" A woman's voice asked.

"It did but there is the possibility that our target, Granger Redwood AKA Xu An, hides here somewhere," a man's voice replied as he informed the woman.

"Why did we have to chase him to this place? He is still looking for us and he is not our biggest obstacle to our plan. Why don't we just target the big fish instead? They have a higher chance of disrupting our plan!" said the woman as she was clearly annoyed.

"It is Father's order. We do not know what is in his mind."

The warm light got closer to Xu An before it stopped right in front of him. Xu An depicted two figures.

One was a bulky man wearing tight black clothes which highlighted his chest muscles and abs. His body was ripped from top to bottom yet he was not macho.

The woman had brown skin. She wore two teardrop model earrings and their color was green.

She had long hair to her waist and had exquisite facial features.

"The boss will get mad," said the man, denying her suggestion by reminding her of the consequences.

"It'll be fine! I know the boss very well! He'll forgive us if we catch the bigger fish!"

"...fine but if we fail. I'll blame this on you," decided the man after being temporarily silent.

"All right!" She was excited as the man had agreed with her idea.

"So who's our target?" The man asked.

"I wanted to target Chin Sha but that guy is wanted after he steals one of the treasures of the Zhang Clan. It would be hard to catch him as those government dogs are involved," she paused as she pondered. After a few minutes of thinking, she recommended, "Why not Xu Yang?"

They abruptly heard a rustle on the bushes coming from their right. They hurriedly pointed their lamp at it so as to investigate it.

They were coming closer and closer.

Xu An looked around as he was rather calm instead of panicked. Nevertheless, that did not mean he was waiting to get caught. He had to get out of there, now!

"Who's there?!" The man yelled as his tone pitched but there was no response. The man and the woman looked at each other before nodding.

The man gave the lamp to the woman as he took the initiative to check out the bush. He also prepared himself for the worst as he walked closer and opened the bush!

The woman moved the lamp closer to the bush to get a better light and view.

"There is nothing here," said the woman as she frowned.

"But whoever or whatever it is disappeared using teleportation before we found him," said the man.

"Indeed, I feel qi and space fluctuation. The fact the person could teleport, it's probably someone in the late stage of cultivation. But that should be impossible. Why would they run?"

The man and the woman were somewhere between the Fifth Core of Sky to the next stage whereas those who could teleport without using a sacred technique were someone three stages ahead of them.

There was no need to run away, right? That person could kill them like crushing an ant!

"Or it's someone weaker than us and learned a teleportation technique. Interesting, we have to catch them!" Suggested the woman as she was taken by her greed.

If they could force this person to spill out the teleportation technique, they would earn massively!

A teleportation technique that was learned as early as possible was a huge advantage. It was like finding your passion early on. Which meant you know what you're going to do with life.

"We don't know anything about the other party. It could be they followed us and by pretending to be clumsy as they showed themselves to us. They make us think that we should catch them.

"Once we have that line of thought in our mind, we will do our best to find them but unknowingly fall into their trap.

"Reaching this point, I am confident the other party would show themselves once in a while as they lured us somewhere, to trap us," the man speculated and the woman had her eyes wide open.

"You think that far ahead? I guess having good muscles does not necessarily mean bad in the head department," the woman teased playfully.

The man snorted before continuing to look around the bush. He scanned from left to right and found something hidden in the bush.

Reaching out his hand to grab it, it was a wooden figurine that was charred black. The face could not be depicted.

"I sensed a strong space fluctuation from it. Looks like we found out how they disappeared. They swap places with this thing," said the man as he smiled. He found the answer behind the mysterious person's disappearance!

It was a rather good feeling to solve a mystery by finding the clues and evidence on the scene.

Xu An was just above them as he observed.

"What is this guy? Is he a detective? But his muscles…" Xu An said as the edge of his lips twitched. This was the first time he had seen someone smart with muscles.