"You've untied all my wires," she said. "This time it's truly clean."
Yin Wujou stood beside her, watching the star with her. The short blade in his sleeve still carried a faint trace of blood, and the chill of the blade seeped into the panel of his wrist, but his hand was warm. He stretched out his hand and opened it in the evening breeze to look at his palm—it was clean, without any lines or marks.
"Let's go," he said, "To get some soup."
They walked towards the kitchen. Daoist Yun lifted the lid of the pot in front of the stove, and the steam from the pork rib soup billowed up, covering the windows of the entire small kitchen with a layer of white mist. The warm aroma of the soup wafted out of the window, mingling with the fresh scent of the grass and trees in the yard, weaving a thick and soft fragrance in the late autumn night.
Snow Empress paused at the kitchen doorway and glanced back at the well deep in the courtyard. On the stone rim of the well was the jade box she had left by the pit earlier— Yin Wujou had brought it up for her. The lid of the jade box was ajar, and the two ice-blue crystals inside had completely lost their color, turning into two small, transparent stones lying quietly at the bottom of the box.
She reached out and closed the jade box, tucked it into her bosom, and then pushed open the door to the kitchen. A wave of heat rushed towards her. Daoist Yun was placing two bowls of soup on the table, while Yin Wujou was already sitting on half a bench, breaking open a steamed bun. The firelight from the stove illuminated the three of their faces, making them glow red. White mist was still climbing up the windowpane, blurring the autumn night outside into a dark, indistinct hue.
Snow Empress sat down opposite Yin Wujou and took the bowl of soup he pushed towards her. The oil on the surface of the soup rippled in circles in the bowl. The ribs were stewed until they were very tender, and the bones and meat separated at the slightest touch. She lowered her head and took a sip. It was so hot that she slightly shrank her neck, but she didn't stop and took a second and a third sip.
Yin Wujou sat opposite her watching her drink the soup, and broke off a piece of steamed bun and soaked it in the soup to eat slowly. Daoist Yun busied himself bringing out side dishes and setting out a table, and finally sat down with his own bowl in hand. He tapped his chopsticks on the rim of the bowl twice before picking up a piece of pork rib.
"Tomorrow," Daoist Yun mumbled, a rib in his mouth, "I'll go to town and buy two catties of Shaoxing wine, and also cut half a catty of braised beef. Do you want some?"
Snow Empress glanced at Yin Wujou. "Drink," she said.
Yin Wujou finished the soup in his bowl and gathered the crumbs of steamed bun from the table into his palm. "Drink," he said.
The fire in the stove crackled, and a Mars flew out of the stove door, landing on the muddy floor and going out. The steam from the pork rib soup was still rising, filling every inch of the small kitchen. Outside the window, the sky was completely dark, and one by one, the stars broke free from the twilight and hung on the tops of the old locust tree branches, sparkling like someone had scattered a handful of freshly ground ice in the late autumn night.
The ticking sound of the bronze ball in the hall stopped at some point.
It wasn't broken. It was still running, its infallible central mechanism meshing steadily within, but the sound had dissipated, swallowed by a grander silence—the array continued to operate deep within the circular pit, its low hum seeping up from the earth, passing through stone slabs, layers of soil, well walls, and passageways, enveloping the entire foundation of the Daoist temple in a dense, gentle low-frequency vibration. The ticking of the copper ball blended into it, like a drop of ink falling into clear water, quickly disappearing, but the ink remained.
Snow Empress has awakened.
The first thing she noticed when she opened her eyes was the warmth beside her. Yin Wujou was sleeping on the wooden bed to her right, turned to face her, one hand resting on the edge of the bed, his fingertips almost touching her sleeve. The embers of the stove cast a dim, flickering light through the crack in the door, and by that light she could see his silhouette with his eyes closed. His breathing was shallow and even, his brow slightly furrowed, as if he were still drawing some patterns in his dream.
She didn't move. She lay there, taking a few breaths to readjust to the state of her internal body. Her meridians were spacious, like a riverbed that had been thoroughly dredged, clean and flat, without any silt, knots, or foreign objects. The area around her heart meridian was especially clear—that place had been pierced by a blue nail for who knows how many years, and she had forgotten what it felt like not to feel pain. Now it was empty, beating steadily and powerfully, each pulse pumping clean blood out steadily, circulating it through her limbs and bones before returning.
clean.
Thoroughly clean.
She slowly let out a breath. As the breath rose from the bottom of her lungs, it encountered no obstruction, no stagnation from the Spirit Line around her throat, no tension from the array forcing every breath to be precise to the inch. She even felt that her body was lighter than before, as if a heavy, soaking wet fur coat had suddenly been stripped off, and every pore on her skin was silently exhaling.
She turned over, facing Yin Wujou. The wooden bed was very narrow, with less than a foot of space between them. The bed creaked slightly as she turned over, Yin Wujou's fingers twitched on the edge of the bed, and then he opened his eyes.
Neither of them spoke when their eyes met. Yin Wujou's eyes gleamed faintly in the darkness—a subtle luster that remained deep within the pupils of those who had awakened their Spirit Vision, like the reflection of candlelight on water. When he looked at her, his gaze lingered on her face for a moment, then naturally slid down to the base of her neck before returning to his own.
"Does it still hurt?" he asked, his voice slightly hoarse from just waking up.
"It doesn't hurt," Snow Empress said. "I can't feel anything at all."
Yin Wujou withdrew his hand from the edge of the bed and propped himself up to sit up. He hadn't taken off his outer robe; he had slept there all night in it, leaving several deep creases on the hem. He reached up and gathered his hair from the back of his neck to one side, glancing at the pale light filtering through the window cracks—it was just dawn, and the embers in the stove at the other end of the kitchen hadn't been tended yet. The cool night air was seeping in through the Sisi in the door and window.
"Where Daoist Yun?"
"He's squatting in the courtyard," Snow Empress said. "I woke up an incense stick earlier than you and heard him sweeping fallen leaves outside. After he finished, he squatted by the well, lost in thought. He's probably chopping wood now."
Yin Wujou Daoist Yun, wrapped in an old cotton robe patched seven or eight times, was squatting beside the woodpile, chopping at an old elm tree stump with an axe. Morning mist hung close to the ground, and most of the old locust tree's Yezi had fallen, the dew making the bare branches appear black.
He glanced back at Snow Empress. She was still lying in bed, the blanket only covering her knees and below. The collar of her thin shirt had loosened slightly as she turned over, and the wound below her collarbone, from which he had cut her with the tip of his knife the night before, had healed to just a faint pink line, almost invisible. She was also looking out the window, her nose and jawline appearing much softer in the morning light than the night before.
"What are your plans for today?" he asked.