Chapter 220 - Strange Happenings (1/2)

'Yangdi...?' a deep frown appeared on his forehead.

”Accept call.”

*Beep*

The video connected. Yangdi was sitting in his room behind a desk, a bunch of papers and scrolls scattered around him. There were deep circles around his eyes and he looked exhausted.

”Yo, it's rare for you to call me. Everything okay?” Hao Xuan asked but he knew if Yangdi was calling him of his own accord, it was never good.

His dislike for Hao Xuan was quite apparent which he didn't even bother hiding.

”You're finally out. I've been calling every single day for the last few weeks. We need to talk,” Yangdi replied while rubbing his temples like an overworked husband.

Hao Xuan propped himself up against the headboard upon seeing the serious expression on Yangdi's face.

”I just got out yesterday. What's up?”

Yangdi shook his head, ”Not over the network. They might be listening. In-person. Hurry back.”

*Click*

And with that he hung up without even waiting for a reply. Hao Xuan stared at his watch for several seconds before getting up. He took a shower, sent Black and White back to the mind palace, and continued his journey.

He was getting a bad feeling about all this. First what Gong Zan had said, then Yangdi, and even First had said something similar just before he went through the rift.

Five days later he was standing at the periphery of Fortuna. He only stopped once in 5 days to rest for a few hours to get back as quickly as possible.

He stored away Bai and went in on foot.

On the way, he saw several guards marching across the outer districts, which was...unusual.

As he got closer to the city wall, the traffic increased as well. He was going through district 4 and the main road was almost jam-packed with people.

Mostly human, there were thousands of carriages taking the left side of the road, while the right had people on foot and beasts.

It took him close to 2 hours to reach the gate. If he had used the military clearance he could have cut through everything but he didn't want to draw attention to himself or announce his arrival.

The security had been tightened a lot and he had to go through two security checks before he was allowed entry. But everything went fine and he used his own identity to get into the city.

There were guards everywhere. And not just city guards, but people from many of the other units like the Spearhead and the Ten thousand were roaming the streets as well.

Keeping his head down, literally, he cut across myriad of streets to finally reach Yangdi's area.

It's there he went into an empty street and jumped into one of the many giant courtyards to get to Yangdi's home.

A few seconds after he had already gone away, a man casually entered the street. He saw it was empty, looked around for any signs of movement before quickly scurrying away in a panic.