" Your Spirit Vision is open, and the main meridians are open too, but many of the peripheral capillaries are still blocked," Pei Yuan said. "Currently, you can only use about 80% of the depth of your Spirit Vision; the remaining 20% is blocked by the blocked branches. The final step of the Cloud Tracing Formation —the closing point at the center of the loop—requires your Spirit Vision to be fully activated to complete. Your current level is still a little lacking."
Yin Wujou's breath hitched. "You've seen Daoist Yun's array diagram?"
Pei Yuan nodded slightly. He reached under an old booklet on the corner of the table and pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper, unfolding it and placing it on the table. The paper was quite old, with brittle and yellowed edges, but the ink lines on it were still clear— Yin Wujou recognized it at a glance; it was exactly the same as the array diagram he had seen on the mugwort paper, with twelve star-shaped nodes, the curvature of the loop lines, and the finishing technique of the blank space in the center. Every stroke was completely identical to Daoist Yun's handwriting. But upon closer inspection, there were some extra things on this diagram—next to the twelve nodes, Daoist Yun's original diagram only had points and connecting lines, but on the diagram beside Pei Yuan, each node was marked with a small character in extremely fine strokes, from "Kan" to "Li" to "Xun" to "Zhen"... a total of twelve characters, arranged in a complete directional sequence.
"Activating the Cloud Tracing Formation requires trigger points to be set up simultaneously in twelve directions," Pei Yuan said. "You've deciphered the lines of the array diagram, but that's only half of it. The other half is the correspondence between directions and times—the twelve nodes must be lit up sequentially in twelve different times, each node corresponding to a direction, a time, and a frequency of Spiritual Power. Daoist Yun only left you the lines back then, without having time to write down the time and direction table. He left this with me."
Pei Yuan pushed the paper towards Yin Wujou. "Write this down. The time and direction correspondence chart is the real key to the Cloud Tracing Formation. Just having lines will only get you halfway. With this chart, you can reach the end."
Yin Wujou leaned closer to examine the paper. Next to the twelve directional characters were the twelve two-hour periods of the day (子丑寅卯), as well as markings indicating the frequency of Spiritual Power to be infused at each point—some were marked "water flows slowly," some "fire blazes fiercely," and a few were labeled with phrases like "wood grows" and "metal settles," seemingly adaptation schemes for different spiritual root attributes. He scanned the entire table line by line into his mind, repeatedly checking each line twice to ensure it fit perfectly with the line drawing.
"How did you get this sheet?" Yin Wujou asked after he had finished writing down all the contents of the paper.
Pei Yuan folded the paper back up and put it back under the booklet. " Yun Su was my colleague back then," he said. "He spearheaded the compilation of the Spirit Vein Bureau 'Flood Dragon Suppression Weave, and I was his deputy. The booklet for the revision and correction of the third form—the cover says 'Revision and Correction,' but it actually contains something else. Ten years ago, something went wrong during the revision of the third form of the Flood Dragon Suppression Weave; the files were lost, Yun Su was transferred out of the Spirit Vein Bureau, and I was demoted and relegated to guarding the storeroom. But on my last night before I was transferred, he slipped this form into my hand."
What contents were missing from the case file?
Pei Yuan fell silent. The flame of the oil lamp flickered slightly in the depths of the storeroom, cutting the wrinkles on his face into deep furrows of light and shadow. "It's a complete list of informants and their identities." He finally spoke, his voice so low it was almost swallowed by the silence of the storeroom. " The Spirit Vein Bureau has planted 147 informants across various locations. Their names, hometowns, spiritual root attributes, embedding locations, contact methods, and delivery routes—all are recorded in that dossier. If the dossier is lost, all 147 people will be exposed."
He paused, reached for the cup of tea on the table—which had long since gone cold—took a sip to moisten his throat, and continued, "The night the files went missing, the Imperial City Bureau came to the Spirit Vein Bureau and sealed off the entire compound. Yun Su was taken away alone for three days. When he returned, he had lost a lot of weight and didn't say a word. On the fourth day, he was transferred to a border town in the Southern Frontier. Before he left, he gave me this form. He said, 'Keep this form safe; someone will come to collect it. No matter how many years pass, as long as someone comes to you with the deciphered array diagram, give them this form.'"
"Then what."
"Then he died less than three months after he was transferred." Pei Yuan's tone was flat, as if he were talking about something from long ago. "The message from the Southern Frontier said it was from miasma poisoning, but I don't believe it. His spiritual root cultivation was already at the Upper Vein Condensation Stage at that time; miasma couldn't possibly enter his body. He was killed. Someone didn't want him to stay in the Spirit Vein Bureau, nor did they want him to take the revised content of the Third Form out of the Capital."
Yin Wujou clenched his fist. He recalled the neat, almost restrained strokes on the mugwort paper, the repeatedly erased and revised markings, and the meticulous, almost obsessive caution with which Daoist Yun sewed the entire stack of paper into the cushion. That man knew that what he carried would bring him death, so he hid it well, sealed it tightly, and left it to those who came after him. Then he himself went to meet his inevitable end.
"Who stole that file containing the list of informants?" Yin Wujou asked.
Pei Yuan fell silent again. He lowered his head, staring at the table, his rough fingertips unconsciously tracing the cover of the old booklet. "I don't know," he said, his voice growing even deeper and more hoarse. "The person who stole the files did it very cleanly. The files were originally locked in an iron cabinet in the Spirit Vein Bureau's archives. The cabinet had three layers of security, and the archives were guarded every night. Someone who could take something without leaving a trace under those conditions must be at least an insider at the Spirit Vein Bureau, and of a high rank, familiar with the cabinet's security structure and the guard's shift schedule."
Whom did you suspect back then?
Pei Yuan raised his head, his cloudy eyes flickering at the edge of the oil lamp's glow, like a pebble washed out by water. "I suspected the supervisor," he said, then immediately shook his head, "But only suspected. No evidence, I have no evidence."
"Director-General—the current Imperial Astronomical Bureau Observatory?"
"It was him. Ten years ago, he was the Spirit Vein Bureau, Yun Su's direct superior. After the files went missing, he was among the first to arrive and seal off the area, and he was the one who took Yun Su away for questioning. Afterwards, Yun Su was transferred, I was demoted, and he was promoted to the position of Director of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau. Every step seemed logical, but every step made me uncomfortable."
After saying this, Pei Yuan leaned back on the low stool and closed his eyes for a while. The flame of the oil lamp flickered a few times, causing his shadow to stretch and shorten against the wall behind him, like an old tree swaying in the wind. When he opened his eyes again, his gaze was clearer than before. Looking into Yin Wujou's eyes, he said, "After you get this form, go back and practice clearing the branches of your Spirit Vision. Activating the Cloud Tracing Formation requires your Spirit Vision to be pushed to the point where all the ends of the meridians are unobstructed. Your current state is still a little lacking. When you reach that point, you will light up those nodes in sequence at the twelve two-hour periods, corresponding to the twelve directions Cloud Tracing Formation will then open the final door to the hiding place of that scroll for you."