Gu Chi's fingers moved lightly a few times inside his sleeve.
Before long, the little device wrapped around his wrist tapped his arm in a rhythmic pattern. Gu Chi understood. He sent the message through Secret Sound Transmission: [Grand Craftsman Bei is ready to build the bridge. The enemy hasn't caught on yet.]
Building a chain bridge without alerting the enemy was no easy task.
Bei Jiu had been entrusted with the mission at a critical moment and had pledged to fulfill her military order or face punishment.
Before leaving, she had also left behind a little device: the metal ornament wrapped around Gu Chi's wrist. At first glance, it looked like a red-gold bracelet strung with more than twenty round beads. In truth, Shen Tang considered it a crude version of a "walkie-talkie." The Directorate of Imperial Manufactures had originally tried to recreate the seismograph described in the Word Spirit as "eight feet in diameter" and "shaped like a wine vessel," hoping to monitor earthquakes across Kang's territory. As it turned out, they failed to make the seismograph but stumbled upon a new material instead.
This new material was highly sensitive to Heaven and Earth Qi.
Later, Bei Jiu turned it into a short-range communication device.
The two sides could use literary or martial energy to move the little beads on their bracelets, and the corresponding beads on the other bracelet would move in turn. As long as they agreed in advance on what encrypted message each bead represented, they could decipher the right information from the beads' movements.
Unfortunately, its range was extremely limited.
Still, it had one notable advantage: it was very discreet.
It was even much safer than Secret Sound Transmission.
Shen Tang lowered her eyes to watch the fighting below and sighed, chastising herself: [I