The Blue Silver Emperor Right Leg Bone lay quietly in Tang Hao's palm.
The entire bone was suffused with a faint golden halo.
That light was thin, like amber pierced through by morning sun.
It was not dazzling, but carried an unusually steady rhythm.
Bright, dim, bright, dim, as if something deep within the bone were beating against stone walls again and again, sending out fine, dense tremors only Tang Hao could feel.
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
Tang Hao lowered his head and looked at his palm, his gaze falling on that spirit bone. His fingers curled slightly, his fingertips touching the warm, smooth surface of the bone.
That tremor traveled up through his palm, spread along his arm all the way to his chest, like a string being plucked over and over, stretched too tight and ready to snap at any moment.
"What's happening... Ah Yin..."
His lips moved, his voice hoarse and dry.
The light in his palm was still pulsing steadily, neither fast nor slow, yet carrying an order that chilled his back, as if something were slowly being drawn away to that rhythm.
He could not tell where this emotion came from. He only knew that the hand holding the spirit bone was trembling slightly.
He gripped the spirit bone tightly, his knuckles turning white, his nails almost digging into the patterns on its surface.
"Ah Yin, could it be that Gu Linyuan..."
He did not finish, because even he could not explain how that thought had surfaced.
In his mind appeared the figure sitting in the rocking chair in the Peach Blossom Forest, then the outline of Ah Yin bending down, the hem of clothing lifted aside, and that face branded countless times into his memory.
He had not seen those scenes with