All of this had to be completed before dawn.
After washing the dishes, he put them back on the shelf next to the stove. When he returned to the courtyard, Snow Empress was still sitting on the low stool, motionless. The charcoal fire had burned down to the last thin layer of ash, and the dark red light flickered on her face a few times before going out completely, leaving only starlight in the courtyard. She looked up at him, her gaze calm and composed in the starlight, like a lake in deep winter, with a thin layer of ice on the surface and full, still water beneath.
"Are you nervous?" she asked.
"Don't be nervous." Yin Wujou sat down on the stool next to her, the two stools less than a foot apart. The starlight cast their shadows together on the muddy ground. "You walk in front, and I'll follow behind. I untied your threads, I watched your spiritual meridians open, and I remember the flow of spiritual energy in every inch of your body. I'll follow whatever you do."
Snow Empress looked at him. The starlight shone in her eyes, making them appear as two tiny white dots. She said nothing, but simply reached out and patted his knee again—just like last time on the mountain path, light and quick, like a bird skimming the water.
"We'll be traveling in the latter half of the night," she said. "We'll arrive in the western suburbs of Capital by tomorrow evening. The Imperial Astronomical Bureau Observatory's study is on the second floor of the main building. I'll keep watch outside; you go in and get the token. Come out within an incense stick's time, regardless of whether you've found it or not."
Yin Wujou nodded. "Okay."
The chirping of insects around the courtyard subsided. The late autumn night pressed everything down, making everything quiet and cold. The stars spread a dense layer of fragmented light across the cloudless sky, brighter and closer than when viewed from the plains. The two sat on low stools, each organizing the plans and clues in their minds. The old woman's oil lamp lit for a while in the house before going out. The entire courtyard was completely covered by night, with only starlight and the soft sound of their breathing remaining.
Yin Wujou closed his eyes, and his Spirit Vision, under his active control, reached a new depth. He could see the extremely fine network of meridians beneath the back of his hand—those channels that he had previously only vaguely sensed were now clearly presented in his Spirit Vision as a glowing net, with light trails spreading from his wrist to his fingertips, flowing steadily and evenly. He rotated his right wrist, watching the light trails change direction with the movement, like a river being pushed off course by inertia at a bend before returning to the main channel.
When he opened his eyes, Snow Empress had also stood up. The night wind blew from the direction of the courtyard wall, brushing her loose hair back. She raised her hand to tuck it behind her ear, glanced at him again, and the two of them walked one after the other to the back stable to untie their horses.
"Let's go," she said.
As the horse's hooves stepped out of the courtyard gate, a light suddenly flickered in the window of the earthen house—the old woman had somehow relit a small lamp, its light shining through the paper window and casting a small, warm yellow square patch of light in the courtyard, like an unwritten letter resting on the threshold. Snow Empress reined in his horse outside the gate, paused for a moment, turned back, and gently bowed towards the lit window before urging his horse onward.
Two horses galloped eastward along the pale official road in the night. The crescent moon had set in the darkest hour before dawn, but the stars still shone brightly, illuminating the road as a gray ribbon stretching into the unseen distance. The sound of hooves echoed across the autumn wilderness, and the night wind blew through the withered stubble fields on either side, carrying the lingering scent of straw Sisi their faces.
Yin Wujou sat on horseback, his Spirit Vision half-open. His right hand loosely gripped the reins, his fingertips occasionally tracing a semi-circular line on the leather ring in front of the saddle—the loop line of Daoist Yun's array diagram, which he had drawn in his mind countless times. He didn't know when he would find a flat metal surface to actually walk on the array, but he knew that moment wouldn't be too far off.
Meanwhile, further east, in the storeroom of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau on the western outskirts of Capital, a sweeper named Pei sat under an oil lamp, surrounded by dust and scrolls of paper, watching the horizon gradually brighten outside the window. He knew someone would come; he had waited ten years. In his hand, he clutched an old booklet, its pages brittle from repeated readings. The cover read "Revised and Erratatically Corrected Third Form of the Spirit Vein Bureau 'Flood Dragon Suppression Weave Compilation." Below the signature was a line of small characters, written and crossed out repeatedly, ink upon ink, barely legible, but one could vaguely discern the restrained control at the ends of the strokes—the handwriting on Daoist Yun's stack of mugwort paper seemed to belong to the same person.
The night was dark in the latter half of the night, like an old blue cloth that had been repeatedly starched and washed, its warp and weft blurred, leaving only a deep, unfathomable darkness. The withered grass on both sides of the official road was wet with night dew, and the horses' hooves made a soft rustling sound as they stepped on it. Occasionally, a dry grass stalk would be stepped on and break, the crisp sound of it snapping being amplified in the silence, like a small piece of bone being broken.
Riding on his chestnut horse, Yin Wujou maintained his Spirit Vision at the second level—not too deep, enough for him to see if there were potholes or potential dangers on the road, but not enough to fill his vision with too much irrelevant light and energy that would dazzle him. He gradually figured out the knack of balancing his Spirit Vision, like adjusting the wick of an oil lamp: turning it higher would allow him to see further but would consume more energy, while turning it lower would allow him to see closer but would be more stable. Snow Empress led the way, the green horse's pace as steady as a fixed drumbeat. Yin Wujou adjusted his breathing to that rhythm, each breath long and even, the warm breath in his chest condensing into a small cloud of white mist in the cold night wind before dissipating.
"Are you cold?" Snow Empress didn't turn around; her voice was broken by the wind.
"Not bad," Yin Wujou said. The sesame seed cake he was carrying had long since gone cold, and it was hard and pressed against his chest like a few flat stones. His outer robe was an old cotton-padded jacket that he had bought casually in town before setting off. It wasn't very thick, but fortunately, the wind wasn't strong, and his body generated its own heat after he started running at night, so it was still bearable. He saw that Snow Empress's sideburns were swept to one side by the night wind, revealing the outline of her ear and a small section of her neck. In his Spirit Vision vision, her meridians extended downwards from the side of her neck, and the flow of watery energy presented a cool bluish-white light, very close to the color of the starlight in the night sky, like a quiet stream flowing under the panel.
"There's a fork in the road ahead," Snow Empress said. "Take the left one; it'll save you twenty li. But that section is a dirt road, not easy to travel, and the horses might be a little slower."
"Saving time is the most important thing."
Snow Empress didn't speak again, and reined in his green horse, turning left at the fork in the road. Yin Wujou followed and saw that the road conditions had indeed deteriorated significantly. The official road was at least a rammed earthen road, which was mostly smooth despite some potholes. This dirt road, on the other hand, was practically a wild path trampled by people and livestock. The road was only wide enough for one horse to pass through, and the wild grass on both sides was half a person's height, rustling in the night wind. The dew on the grass brushed against the horse's belly and Yin Wujou's calves, seeping into his trousers with a cool sensation.