Chapter 561: Mysterious Pattern
Now that he had the piece of cloth in front of him, Bai Yunfei began to rummage around his person for a moment before finally pulling out a black cloth. Pulling the drawstring open, he overturned the bag and allowed for almost a hundred space rings to come clattering out onto the table.
The Violet Soul Ring’s effect allowed for it to store other space related equipment as long as the ones being stored didn’t have a cumulative capacity larger than the Violet Soul Ring itself. At the beginning, Bai Yunfei was fine with storing them in there, but with time, the amount of space rings he had was far too many to store, and since he didn’t have enough fingers, Bai Yunfei decided to just put them all in a bag around his person.
And where did all these space rings come from? Spoils of war from those who tried to kill him, of course.
His stunt in the Soulbeast Forest had been where most of his space rings were found. By scavenging all the ones where the Carnivorous Treeflies were around near the Crack in the Sky, Bai Yunfei had roughly two hundred of them.
Bai Yunfei shook his head in dismay when he looked at the rings. One by one, he started his search.
With each ring picked up, Bai Yunfei would have his soulsense peer into it and search around its inner contents. If it didn’t contain what he wanted, he placed it to the side and replaced the ring with another. And another. Repeat…..
It wasn’t until nearly half of the space rings had been searched when Bai Yunfei’s eyes lit up, “Found it!”
In the one space ring currently held in his right hand, there was a white piece of cloth that was of equally shabby make as the first one. There was grime and dirt on it, but the black scribblings on it looked quite strange still.
This piece of cloth was extremely similar to the piece of cloth on the table!!
……
Back in the Crack in the Sky, Bai Yunfei had found this grimier piece of cloth among the space rings he found. At first, he figured it to be a ‘map’ of some sort and was excited to find out what it contained, and if it was a ‘treasure map’ of all things. But even after discerning the scribblings for a good part of the day, Bai Yunfei hadn’t a clue about it. The markings on the cloth didn’t match with any geographical terrain he was familiar with, and he couldn’t see any type of ‘path’ to speak of.
There was very clearly a bigger picture, so to speak, but whether it was a treasure map was still unknown. Finding the other parts of this cloth seemed impossible to Bai Yunfei, so he gave up on it and stored it away somewhere for him to eventually forget.
But then the other night in Casino Jin, Bai Yunfei’s eyes laid upon a near identical piece of cloth in the pile of things the young man had. It was only by accident that Bai Yunfei saw it, and he had first mistaken it for a regular handkerchief at first, but then he realized it looked very familiar to the piece he had in his own possession.
The second piece to the cloth had came to him!!
And that was why Bai Yunfei decided to play one last round with the man and took his items away.
He had wanted to look into the strip that one night, but with the ambush on their way back to the casino and his ensuing injury, Bai Yunfei forgot about it until now.
Now that he placed the two strips of cloth together, Bai Yunfei could confirm that they matched up to form a better picture. He could feel himself grow excited. Was this really a treasure map?!
Bai Yunfei could at the very least confirm that the two pieces of cloth were by no means random or ordinary. Even if it wasn’t a treasure map, it was still hiding another secret of sorts. The pattern on the cloth was….definitely special in some way.
At a detailed glance, Bai Yunfei could see that the two cloths matched perfectly together. The lines followed from one piece to the other and fitted perfectly!!
Excited to an unnatural degree, Bai Yunfei felt his own guesses finally start to confirm themselves. There was definitely some type of ‘treasure’ behind this!!
“I can’t….believe I have so much luck like this!”
Bai Yunfei exhaled slowly. He had heard many a stories where a person had found a legendary treasure map of sorts and found their treasure after searching so painstakingly hard after it. Those type of legendary stories had been ridiculed by many as being just myths, but here Bai Yunfei was with something ‘similar’, and Bai Yunfei couldn’t feel any more delighted about it.
But after another ten minutes of looking, Bai Yunfei felt himself growing disappointed again….
The two pieces of cloth indeed matched with one another, but—Bai Yunfei still couldn’t find anything familiar on it.
If the writing on the cloth could be described as being ‘scribbles’ before, they were just undecipherable now.
Furthermore….
“It’s still missing two pieces?!”
Bai Yunfei felt helpless now. Though the pieces matched up with one another, Bai Yunfei could see that it was still incomplete as a whole….
If he wasn’t wrong, there was still another two pieces left. This was a four-pieced map!!
The disappointment hit Bai Yunfei greatly. The pieces of cloth still had no use like before. He was missing half the pieces, and so that meant he was no better than before. The map was useless.
After a long sigh of sadness, Bai Yunfei decided to think about what the patterns could possibly represent, and what the pieces of cloth were potentially hiding. He had a few ways to try and guess: use soulforce to see if there’d be a reaction, heat the cloth up, use water, expose it to the sun, or even try upgrading it, but none of them worked.
“Damn!! What a waste of time…”
Bai Yunfei cursed to himself out of disappointment. Throwing the pieces of cloth down onto the table, Bai Yunfei sat there to think. If he had found a second piece, who’s to say there wasn’t a third or fourth piece potentially in the remaining space rings he had? Perhaps there’d be something that might help him divine its secrets….
But his search was pointless. Angrily flopping onto his bed, Bai Yunfei decided to sit down and train instead.
……
Because Mo Huangkong said that only one class per week was fine, Bai Yunfei was free to use the rest of that week to plan his next class. And since there was an entire week before the next one, Bai Yunfei could relax and take it easy until then.
No longer needing to worry about fighting others for his eating and living, or having to worry about sudden ambushes or whatnot, Bai Yunfei was truly experiencing what life was like in Zheng manor as a ‘young master’. It was blissful to say the least. He could be changed with a life of his hand and fed with the opening of his mouth, and Bai Yunfei was sure that if he really wanted to bed one of the maids, there’d be no problem with that.
For the next few days, Bai Yunfei rarely ventured out from his room, preferring to stay there to either train or to study a few things such as the Illusion Stone and how to control it. He had already a decent over it.
Preparations for his next class was already done as well, with most of the lesson plan thought out and prepared for.
Zheng Kai would come by every so often, each time wanting to head out with him. Because of the most recent ambush outside of Casino Jin, the curfew his family imposed onto him was even harsher than before. He was still only to head out with Bai Yunfei, but several other guards would accompany them too.
There was also the one elder of his with the family name of Qin. Bai Yunfei had seen him before as the elderly man who was with him all the way back in Talus City. He hadn’t known just how strong the man was before, but he did now. This man was an early-stage Soul King.
With a Soul King as his guard, there was most definitely not a chance that Zheng Kai or Bai Yunfei would come across any further troubles.
On the third day, Bai Yunfei had only just finished up his nightly training from before when he stepped outside to breathe in the fresh morning air. Zheng Kai chose then to pop into his courtyard with an excited smile.
“Haha!! Yunfei! Good news! We can finally head outside today!” He called out to him.
Bai Yunfei didn’t know what to say. Was him being able to head outside of the manor really ‘good news’? Bai Yunfei himself could at the very least head out whenever he wanted….
Curious, Bai Yunfei asked, “Did your family ‘lift’ your curfew?”
“Nah,” Zheng Kai waved his hand, “I’m saying you can head outside to relax again. Hehe, you have to go, and I’ll be there to ‘look after’ you.”
“I have to go?” Bai Yunfei repeated, “Why do I have to go?”
Zheng Kai chuckled, “Because….someone’s here to invite you to eat with them.”
“Oh? An invitation? From whom?”
“The first prince!”