He took two steps to the edge of the couch and squatted down, reaching out to lift her collar. Snow Empress shrank back slightly but did not dodge. Yin Wujou pulled down the collar of her outer robe two inches, seeing that the bluish-gray color spread along one side of her neck to her shoulder, the color being darker than the side of her neck, like the thick layer of ink that settles at the bottom after being dropped into clear water.
"What is this?" His voice suddenly became very flat. That flatness was not calmness, but rather a kind of emotion that had been suppressed to the extreme and had stopped fluctuating.
Snow Empress looked down at her shoulder. "Backlash from the array's power," she said, her tone similar to when she casually mentioned "steamed buns for dinner." "When the array was activated, I was sitting in the very center. The power in all the patterns had to pass through my body before flowing into the ground. The water elemental energy flowed through my spiritual meridians, and the array's suppressive power also passed through my body. After it all passed, some residual power remained in my meridians, seeping into my skin and flesh, hence this color."
How long does it take to get a refund?
Snow Empress was silent for a moment. She looked up at Yin Wujou, and beneath the clear light in her eyes floated a very faint layer of something, which he couldn't immediately discern—perhaps hesitation, perhaps something he didn't want to identify. "In three to five days," she said, "After the residual power in your meridians dissipates, the color will fade."
Yin Wujou stared into her eyes for three breaths. Then he stood up, turned around and walked to the huge wooden table on the west wall. He unfolded the parchment spread out on the table, lit two oil lamps, and moved them to the corner of the table. The orange light illuminated his face, making his features distinct, and his jawline taut as if cut by a knife.
"Lie down for a while." He didn't turn around, but held a fine brush dipped in cinnabar in his hand, pausing it briefly above the parchment. "I'll trace the lines I just noted down, and we'll talk after you've rested enough."
Snow Empress didn't lie down. She pulled her collar back and leaned against the back of the couch, closing her eyes for a while. The hall was so quiet that you could hear the faint crackling of the oil lamp wick and the Yin Wujou rustling of Yin Wujiu's brush tip on the parchment. He drew very slowly, pausing for a long time with each stroke, sometimes stopping only when the vermilion at the tip of his brush had bled into a small dot on the paper before continuing. The footsteps of Daoist Yun outside the hall had already faded into the distance; he had probably returned to his side hall to rest.
After a while, Snow Empress opened her eyes and looked across the vast emptiness of the hall at Yin Wujou Wujiu in front of the wooden table. He was hunched over the table, the light of the lamp oil shining on his face from below and to the side, casting long shadows on his eye sockets and cheekbones. She saw him suddenly stop writing when he was tracing the main line, and he remained frozen in that position for several breaths before slowly putting the brush back on the brush holder.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Yin Wujou didn't answer immediately. He stood in front of the wooden table, looking down at the parchment. His back stiffened for a moment before he turned to face her. When he turned his face, his expression was normal, and he even slightly tugged at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes were wrong—she had seen that kind of look overflowing from the depths of his pupils before. In the cave at the bottom of the sinkhole, when he squatted down and looked her in the eye to say "yes," his eyes looked exactly like that.
"It's nothing," he said. "The pattern has branched off; I didn't notice the direction of this stroke just now. Let me push it again."
Snow Empress looked at him without speaking. She stood up from the couch and walked steadily to the wooden table, standing beside him and looking down at the parchment. The vermilion lines were densely spread across the parchment, some old lines drawn before that night, and some newly added. She saw that on the outermost ring of lines of the main array, a thin, almost invisible branch line extended diagonally from the edge, circled three times in the corner of the parchment, and then merged into a small circle. That circle was painted heavily, with a slightly raised dot of vermilion at the very center.
"When was this dish made?" she asked, pointing to the circle.
Yin Wujou's gaze lingered on the spot where her fingertip was pointing, paused for a moment. "The ones from the past two days, I haven't finished working on them yet," he said. "Let's look at them together after I've filled in all the patterns I noted down tonight."
Snow Empress didn't ask any further questions. She stood beside him and watched him finish tracing the remaining lines one by one, occasionally reminding him when he hesitated with his strokes—"That curve is slightly to the left, with two thin lines underneath. You missed them on the paper." Yin Wujou filled in the missing lines as she suggested, his pen moving slowly across the paper, gesturing twice in the air before each stroke.
As the last stroke was completed, the water clock inside the bronze ball, used for timekeeping, had just run out of its last few drops of water. Yin Wujou placed the brush back on the shelf, and as he straightened up, a slight clicking sound came from his back. He rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze rising from the parchment and sweeping around before landing on Snow Empress's face. The oil lamps in the hall had been burning for most of the night; most of the oil had been used up, and the flames were shorter than before. The orange light shone from the side of his face, hiding her bluish-gray neck in shadow.
"Go back and rest," he said. "I'll take care of the rest."
Snow Empress looked at him. "You've seen that side quest," she said.
Yin Wujou's fingers stopped rubbing the back of his neck. He looked at Snow Empress, his lips moved, but he didn't say a word.
"You saw it," Snow Empress repeated. "That branch line was drawn in three circles in the corner of the parchment, merging into a single circle, which was painted with heavy cinnabar. It wasn't drawn a couple of days ago; it was drawn tonight in the cave before you had me sit in the center of the formation. You were squatting outside, finishing the last few strokes before coming in to find me."
Yin Wujou slowly leaned against the edge of the wooden table. His hands braced against the edge, his knuckles turning slightly white from the pressure. "Yes," he said, "I drew it."
What is the meaning of that side story?
Yin Wujou lowered his head and looked at the corner of the parchment. The orange light from the side cast long shadows of his eyelashes on his cheekbones, making his expression appear blurry and distant. He remained silent for a long time, so long that Snow Empress thought he wouldn't answer, before he finally spoke, his voice hoarse like sandpaper rubbing against wood.
"The branch line detaches from the outermost ring of patterns on the main array, forming an inverted funnel shape, converging the power of the entire array into its center." He spoke slowly, each word seeming to be squeezed out from the depths of his throat. "If the center falls into the array's core, the array will transform from a structure releasing suppressive power outwards into a collapsing, pulling structure inwards. All the power will be drawn towards the center, dragging what's in the core down to the deepest part of the earth."