That peach blossom petal was an eerie red, wedged tightly in the shadow of the window lattice like a congealed blood bead.
Every hair on Cheng Xi's body stood on end! The early spring chill had yet to fade from the Xianyang Palace gardens—where had such brilliantly blooming peach blossoms come from? He lunged to the window, and his fingertips touched the petal—cold, slick, and possessed of a heart-palpitating resilience that did not belong to any plant.
[High-energy warning! Residual spatial distortion detected... bzzz... analyzing... attributes: wood-element demonic power/disguise... target has departed...]
The system's alarm was sharp and brief. Demonic power? Disguise? Someone—or rather, something—had just been outside the window! Had it left this petal as a warning? A marker? Or... some ritual he could not understand?
"Lord Chang'an?" Zhao Gao's cautious voice came from outside the hall. He had clearly been startled by the commotion at the window.
Cheng Xi swiftly wrapped the petal in his sleeve. Taking a deep breath, he suppressed his pounding heart. "It is nothing! The wind is strong. I was only closing the window." He tried his best to keep his voice steady, but cold sweat had already soaked his back. Lu Buwei? Ying Xi? Or... something even more terrifying behind that vague and ethereal "gaze"? The darkness of this deep palace was far more suffocating—and far deadlier—than he had imagined.
He hid the strange petal in a concealed compartment beneath his pillow, unable to shake the cold, slick sensation lingering on his fingers. Ying Xi's troublemaking had been temporarily resolved, but a greater shadow had already enveloped him. He needed power. He needed to escape this prison where he could only passively endure blows as soon as possible!
His gaze fell once more upon the black wooden chip and the twisted silver shamanic script engraved on it. Spatial Anchoring... east of Xiaoshan...
"Director of the Central Chariot Bureau," Cheng Xi complained casually to Zhao Gao the next day as he rubbed his sleepy eyes while being attended during his morning wash, "those wooden and iron contraptions from Royal Uncle are terribly dull. They are piled in the corner of the hall and in the way. I heard there are miscellaneous books and scrolls left behind by alchemists of the previous dynasty in the palace stores? Nothing but vague Gibberish Symbols. Could you bring them for me to pass the time?"
Zhao Gao's movements paused almost imperceptibly. His narrow eyes swept across the opened wooden chests in the corner before settling on Cheng Xi's still-youthful face. Then his customary respectful smile appeared. "Lord Chang'an has refined tastes. Those things from beyond the mundane world have gathered dust for years. Since my lord does not disdain them, this servant shall fetch them at once."
His efficiency was astonishing. By afternoon, several dust-covered bamboo slips, several pieces of tortoiseshell and beast bone, and a damaged Silk Manuscript with scorched, curled edges as though it had been snatched from a fire were piled atop Cheng Xi's desk. The bamboo slips mostly recorded absurd legends of immortal mountains beyond the seas; the tortoiseshell and beast bones bore blurry sacrificial divinations. Only that damaged Silk Manuscript captured all of Cheng Xi's attention.
The Silk Manuscript was scorched black, its material neither silk nor hemp. It felt cold and tough in hand. The remaining portion was drawn in dark red pigment, seemingly cinnabar mixed with some kind of mineral powder, forming countless twisted, intersecting lines and indecipherable symbols. The lines followed bizarre paths, and the symbols were intricate. At first glance, it appeared chaotic, yet it faintly carried a heart-palpitating rhythm.
[High-Dimensional Energy Diagram discovered (damaged)... structural analysis initiated... energy consumption intensifying...]
The system interface in his mind was instantly filled by the Incomplete Formation Diagram! Pale blue streams of light surged madly, attempting to dismantle and reconstruct those broken lines and blurred symbols. The severe expenditure sent needle-like pain stabbing through Cheng Xi's temples, and his vision repeatedly darkened.
[Warning! Energy nearing depletion! Forcibly terminating analysis!... Diagram type determined: ancient spirit-gathering/defensive composite formation diagram (core area missing 71%)... key runes: three... associated principle: Earth Vein Activation... bzzz...]
A broken formation! More than seventy percent of its core was missing! Yet the system had still extracted three relatively intact core runes from those traces and deduced their basic effect—drawing upon faint earth-vein energy, gathering and converting it into a thin energy barrier!
Cheng Xi's heart raced, and his mouth went dry. Spirit gathering! Defense! This was exactly what he needed most right now! Even if it was only damaged and its effects were weak, it meant he had truly touched the threshold of this world's Supernatural Power!
Suppressing his headache and dizziness, he threw himself toward the desk. He seized a wolf-hair brush Meng Tian had recently improved, its tip sharper than before, dipped it in thick ink, and began madly copying onto a sheet of plain silk without a care for anything else! Following the paths of the three complete runes branded in his mind by the system, his brush flew like dragons and snakes!
As the first stroke fell, the ink beneath the brush tip actually recessed slightly, and a faint ripple spread across the plain silk!
As the second stroke connected, the candles in the hall flickered without wind, their light and shadows swaying!
At the instant the third stroke was about to close—
Boom!
An invisible immense force slammed violently into Cheng Xi's chest! His entire body was like a man kicked head-on by a galloping warhorse. Sweetness flooded his throat, and blood sprayed over the unfinished rune! His vision sank completely into darkness, leaving only a piercing buzz in his ears! His body flew backward out of control and crashed heavily into a cold hall pillar!
"Cough... cough, cough..." Cheng Xi curled up on the floor, coughing up bloody foam as though his internal organs had shifted out of place. The wolf-hair brush in hand had long since snapped. The bloodstained plain silk drifted to the floor, and the three unfinished runes upon it were twisting and boiling strangely, struggling like living things as they gave off an unsettling scorching aura and the stench of burning.
Backlash! The terrifying backlash of a damaged formation diagram! If the system had not terminated its analysis in advance, if he had not merely attempted the barest outline of the three core runes... he would likely have been nothing more than a charred corpse by now!
The hall doors were violently thrown open. Zhao Gao rushed in with the guards, and when he saw the wreckage in the hall and Cheng Xi curled up and coughing blood, his expression changed drastically. "Lord Chang'an!"
Chaotic footsteps, startled cries, shouts... Cheng Xi's consciousness blurred, and he only felt someone lift him up. Amid the chaos, his fingertips seemed to touch something cold and hard—the black wooden chip embedded with silver shamanic script! At some point, it had slipped from his sleeve and fallen beside the bloodstained plain silk.
Just as his fingertips touched the wooden chip—
Buzz!
The twisted silver shamanic script on the chip suddenly lit up with an almost imperceptible glimmer of silver! A faint yet incomparably pure, cool aura flowed from his fingertips into his nearly shattered meridians! The agonizing pain in his chest and the roar in his mind were actually soothed slightly by that trace of aura!
"Quick! Summon the Imperial Physician!" Zhao Gao's voice held unprecedented panic.
Before completely losing consciousness, Cheng Xi used up his last trace of strength to curl his fingers and clutch the life-saving wooden chip tightly. In the last moment before his consciousness began to sink into darkness, he seemed to see a glaring red figure flash and disappear atop the withered branch of the bare old locust tree outside the window.
At midnight, Cheng Xi slowly awoke amid the heavy scent of medicine. His chest still ached dully, but that cool aura had protected his Heart Meridian. The Imperial Physician diagnosed him with "an evil wind entering the body and sudden anger attacking the heart," then prescribed a potent calming decoction. Zhao Gao personally kept watch at his bedside, his expression grave.
The hall had already been cleaned. The bloodstained plain silk was nowhere to be found. Only the black wooden chip that had saved his life remained in his palm, as warm and smooth as ever.
In the deeper stillness of the night, a figure in black appeared before the bed like a ghost.
Ying Zheng.
He stood with his hands behind his back, his dark robes nearly blending into the shadows of the hall. Only his eyes shone astonishingly bright beneath the dim candlelight, like cold flames burning in an abyss. He looked down at Cheng Xi, whose pale complexion had not yet recovered. After a long time, he finally spoke, his voice very low, each word like an ice awl drilling into the bone:
"The Luban Lock... you can make it whistle. The Gibberish Symbols of the previous dynasty... nearly cost you your life."
He leaned forward slightly, his shadow completely enveloping Cheng Xi, carrying an invisible pressure. "Royal Brother, what exactly are you looking for?"
Without waiting for Cheng Xi's answer, his gaze swept across Cheng Xi's tightly clenched left hand—the corner of the black wooden chip was exposed between his fingers. Ying Zheng's eyes abruptly narrowed, then returned to the unfathomable depths of a still pool. He left behind only one final, icy sentence, echoing through the dead silence thick with the scent of medicine:
"Some doors, once opened, cannot be closed."
Before you continue