Are you going to flip it or not?
"I won't flip it," Snow Empress said. "I'll go through the main gate. You sneak in first, find the token in the study, and don't rush out. Wait for my signal. I'll go in to talk to the supervisor and stall him for at least half an hour. In that half hour, you get the token, then retreat to the west wall and wait. I'll meet you when I come out, and then we'll go to the storeroom together."
"What does the token look like?"
"A small bronze plaque, no bigger than the palm of your hand, with the words ' Imperial Astronomical Bureau Night Duty' engraved on the front and the name of the person on duty and the date engraved on the back. It was replaced every month with a different name for the person on duty, but the plaque itself remained the same. The Observatory Chief kept it locked in a secret compartment in his study."
Where is the hidden compartment located?
Snow Empress looked at him and shook her head. "I don't know. He didn't take me to the study when I shielded him from a knife ten years ago. Find the hidden compartment yourself, but the study won't be too big or too complicated. Use your Spirit Vision to scan around; you should be able to find the place with the most concentrated Spiritual Power. Wherever something is hidden, the surrounding Spiritual Power fluctuations will be a bit thicker than other places."
Yin Wujou nodded. He adjusted his Spirit Vision to a shallow, ready state, his gaze sweeping across the village ahead and the walls of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau further away. From this angle, the obsidian's gray walls appeared particularly solemn in the morning light, covered with half-withered ivy, its dark red vines densely covering most of the wall like a layer of congealed scabs. Inside the walls, the upturned eaves of several buildings were visible, with copper bells hanging beneath them. When the morning breeze blew, the bells swayed gently, but made no sound; the clasps seemed to be blocked by something.
"Can we use the ivy on the wall for support?" Yin Wujou asked.
"Yes, you can. The old vine is quite thick; just step firmly. But don't break it; it'll make a loud noise."
The two bypassed the village entrance and made their way along a weed-covered path towards the back wall of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau. The dew on the field ridges was heavy, and after walking for a while, their shoes were completely soaked, sticking coldly to their feet. The morning light grew brighter, and the crowing of roosters in the distance still echoed intermittently, but the sounds of people in the village gradually increased—there were sounds of doors opening and closing, adults calling children to get up and wash, and the clanging of pots and pans. All the sounds were shrouded in the morning mist, muffled and soft, as if heard through several layers of gauze.
The wall of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau appeared less than twenty zhang ahead. Yin Wujou squatted behind a row of withered bean trellises on the edge of the field and observed for a while—the wall was indeed not high, about ten zhang, built of blue bricks with mortar filling the gaps between the bricks, and tiles pressing down on the top of the wall. Ivy grew from the base of the wall upwards, the vines as thick as a thumb, densely Entanglement the wall surface, forming a natural climbing ladder. Inside the wall, it was quiet, with no human voices to be heard, only the occasional soft sound of birds flapping their wings as they hopped around the eaves.
Snow Empress took a roll of thin rope from her satchel and handed it to him. "After you go inside, tie this rope to the roof tiles. In case you're in a hurry to get out, you can just pull it to flip yourself over."
Yin Wujou tucked the thin rope into his robes and checked the remaining items in his satchel—a packet of firewood, a short dagger, two rolls of bandages, and a small jar of ointment for external injuries—all prepared for him by Snow Empress before he left. He tightened the straps of his satchel to make sure everything was secure and wouldn't rattle while he climbed, then crouched down and crawled out from behind the bean trellis, quickly running towards the wall.
The morning light shone from the east, casting a long, slanted shadow on the wall. Yin Wujou stood close to the base of the wall, reaching out to grab the nearest old ivy vine. It felt solid, the vine taut, strong enough to support his weight. He took a deep breath and began to climb, stepping on the joints of the vine. The old vine felt rough and cold to the touch, the fine thorns on its surface digging into his fingertips with a slight sting, but he didn't care. He used both hands and feet to climb up the densest part of the vine, section by section. When he was almost at the top of the wall, he reached out and grabbed the roof tiles. His palm was scratched by the rough edge of the tile, but he gritted his teeth and didn't make a sound, using his arms to push himself up.
The narrow strip of tiles on the top of the wall was just enough for him to squat down. He steadied himself on the wall and looked over the wall into the courtyard. The west courtyard of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau was smaller than he had imagined—a courtyard paved with blue bricks, with two old locust trees in the middle, their canopies casting two thick, deep shadows in the morning light. The two-story main building on the west side was made of gray bricks and tiles, its windows tightly closed, the paint on the doors and windows almost completely faded, revealing the grayish-white wood grain underneath. In front of the main building was a corridor, under which hung several square lanterns, the candles inside extinguished, their gauze swaying slightly in the morning breeze. The courtyard was deserted, the morning light slanting across the blue brick floor, illuminating a small patch of tender green moss in the cracks between the bricks.
Yin Wujou took the thin rope out of his pocket, tied one end to a protruding iron nail at the bottom of the wall tile, made two tight knots, and threw the other end into the yard. The sound of the rope hitting the ground was very soft, like a Yezi falling. He climbed over the wall, stepped onto the rope, and went down to the ground in the yard. He gathered up the end of the rope and hid it under a clump of holly branches at the base of the wall. Then, crouching low, he crept along the base of the wall towards the main building.
There was an open space of less than twenty steps between the west wall and the main building, entirely paved with blue bricks, offering no cover. Yin Wujou crouched at the base of the wall and waited for about twenty or thirty breaths, his gaze repeatedly sweeping across every window of the main building and the direction of the courtyard gate. After confirming that no one was around, he quickly crossed the open space along the wall and shrank into the shadow of the west wall of the main building. He stood with his back against the gray brick wall, his heart pounding in his chest, but he kept his breathing steady, each breath in and out. His Spirit Vision was now fully extended, deeper than ever before.
He saw the distribution map of Spiritual Power in the entire main building slowly emerge before his eyes—the spiritual veins beneath the foundation were the same as the one he had seen at the bottom of the river. Grayish-white turbid energy seeped up from the ground, climbing along the brick seams and wooden pillars inside the walls, like water slowly seeping into a lamp wick. The concentration of Spiritual Power energy in the main building was very uneven; some rooms had almost no Spiritual Power, while others were densely packed. He followed the densest clusters of light and mist towards the second floor on the west side—where the Spiritual Power density was the highest. The light and mist had a cool, silvery-white color, densely enveloping the outline of a certain room. That silvery-white light was different from most of the Spiritual Power he had ever seen; it was heavier, more stable, and carried a thick, substantial feel, as if it had been repeatedly condensed.
That was the Imperial Observatory's study. The Spiritual Power in the study was so concentrated not because the Imperial Observatory himself had a high level of cultivation, but because that room itself was the control node of the entire Imperial Astronomical Bureau's Spiritual Power layout—all the spiritual vein branches eventually converged there, like countless small rivers flowing into a central lake.