Two horses rode eastward along the main street leading into the city. The shops and houses on both sides of the street gradually became denser—colorful cloth banners hung at the entrance of the silk shop, fluttering like small flags in the afternoon sunlight; a stall selling roasted chestnuts was set up on the street corner, the sand and chestnuts churning in the iron pot making a rustling sound, and the aroma of caramelized sugar permeated half the street with the heat; a barber's carrying pole was parked by the roadside, a copper basin on the pole filled halfway with water, the sunlight shining on the water creating shimmering spots like broken gold, and the barber was sharpening his razor with a cloth, the blade rubbing back and forth on the cloth, making a soft hissing sound.
East Third Lane Alley is located on a narrow side street. At the entrance of the alley stands a half-collapsed stone archway, the characters carved on it eroded by wind and rain, leaving only a few fragments, barely recognizable as "East Third". The alley is not long, with low old houses on both sides, gray tiles and mud walls, the peeling mud plaster revealing the yellowish-brown adobe bricks underneath. Some houses are supported by wooden stakes at the corners to prevent them from leaning too much. The second to last house at the very end of the alley is a blacksmith's shop, its door made of several thick wooden planks, which are taken down and placed against the wall during the day, revealing the dark interior of the shop. The clanging of hammers comes from inside the shop, the rhythm steady and the force even, each strike landing on a fixed point on the anvil.
Snow Empress reined in his horse at the shop entrance and called out, "Is Old Zhou here?"
The hammering stopped for a moment. A deep male voice came from the shadows deep within the shop. "Yes. Come in."
The two men tied their horses to the hitching post at the entrance and bent down to squeeze through the low doorway of the blacksmith's shop. The shop was dimly lit, with only a small area near the entrance illuminated by sunlight; the back was lit entirely by the red glow of a charcoal furnace. Beside the furnace stood a burly middle-aged man, shirtless, his work surface glistening with a dark red sheen from the charcoal fire. A grimy old towel was draped over his shoulder as he used long-handled iron tongs to pull a red-hot iron bar from the furnace. When he saw Yin Wujou and Snow Empress enter, he placed the tongs on the anvil, wiped the ash from his hands with the towel, and gave the two men a once-over.
"Who introduced you?" Old Zhou asked. His face was broad and square, with short, stiff stubble on his chin, and fine beads of sweat from the stove fire glistened in the light.
" Pei Yuan," Yin Wujou said.
Old Zhou paused in wiping his sweat. He draped the towel back over his shoulder, turned, and walked to a wooden table covered in iron dust at the back of the shop. From a hidden compartment under the table, he pulled out something—wrapped in several layers of old cloth, revealing a two-foot square iron plate. The surface of the iron plate was polished extremely smooth and clean, like a dark gray mirror. The edges were rounded, and each of the four corners had a small positioning hole, perfectly matching the positions of the four auxiliary positioning points outside the twelve nodes on the Daoist Yun Array Diagram.
Yin Wujou reached out and took it. The iron plate felt heavy in his hand, its cool, smooth texture spreading from his fingertips. He placed it on the wooden table and, by the sunlight streaming in from the doorway, carefully examined its surface—the plate was covered with extremely fine forging patterns, spreading out in concentric rings like the annual rings of wood, the spacing between each ring so even it could almost be measured with a ruler. The iron plate was free of rust, well-preserved, showing that it had been carefully stored over the years.
"This board took three years to forge." Old Zhou sat down on a low stool nearby, picked up his teacup, and took a sip of cold tea. "When Yun Su, he told me the requirements were extremely strict—the surface flatness couldn't be off by even a hair's breadth, the tolerance of the positioning holes at the four corners couldn't exceed half a grain of rice, and the material had to be core iron that had been refined a hundred times and pounded twelve times. He said this board was to be used as the base plate for the formation, and there was no room for the slightest deviation. I forged three boards before I could make this one."
Yin Wujou gently stroked the curve of the iron plate's edge with his thumb. What he had imagined was now truly in his palm—cool, heavy, and smooth. He went through all the lines of the Cloud Tracing Formation Diagram in his mind again, and now he finally had a flat surface to draw on. He wrapped the iron plate back in the old cloth, carefully put it into his satchel, and tied the opening tightly.
"How much?" he asked.
Old Zhou waved his hand. " Yun Su paid back then. He paid three times the price, saying to keep the change for future travelers as travel expenses. You can take it; don't leave it here. It's been ten years, even the iron plate should want to leave by now."
Yin Wujou bowed to Old Zhou. Old Zhou was a little uncomfortable with his sudden seriousness and waved his hand to tell the two to hurry up and not delay his blacksmithing.
After leaving the blacksmith's shop, the sky was already setting in the west. The sunlight, which had turned from bright white to a warm orange-gold, illuminated the cracks and dents in the earthen walls on both sides of East Third Lane with exceptional clarity. Snow Empress rode her horse out of the alley and found a small inn—clean in appearance, with two courtyards of rooms, a backyard for tethering horses, and the room rate wasn't too expensive. She booked two adjacent superior rooms, one facing south and the other north, separated by a thin wooden wall.
The main room wasn't large, but it was bright and clean. On the windowsill sat a pot of withered begonias, their Daoist Yun calyxes still clinging to the slender stems, retaining their shape from when they had faded. Yin Wujou placed his satchel on the bed, untied the straps, and took out the old cloth bundle wrapped with the iron plate, placing it on the table. He then took out the stack of mugwort paper from Master Yun's inner pocket—the paper had been with him all this way, its edges were more wrinkled, but the writing was still clear, the ink firmly remaining on the paper.
He sat down at the table, took the iron plate out of its cloth bag, and placed it neatly in the center. The sun was setting, and the light from the window changed from bright white to warm gold and then gradually turned into a reddish-orange afterglow, casting a slanted glow on the surface of the iron plate, making the fine forging patterns appear as ripples of light and shadow. Yin Wujou lay on the table for a long time, his gaze following the patterns in circles, as if walking on an endless road. He reached out and touched the center of the iron plate—the cool smoothness of his fingertips made him slightly withdraw his fingers, then he put his hand back, pressing his entire palm against it, feeling the calm and firm texture of the iron plate.
He needed a lamp that wouldn't flicker. The sunlight outside the window was too diffuse, and the candlelight would be blown about by the wind. He found an old brass lampstand in the corner of the room, with half a dried-up portion of oil still in the lamp. He went downstairs and asked the shopkeeper for a small jar of new oil and a new wick. He filled the lampstand with oil, replaced the wick, lit it, and placed it on the corner of the table. The flame shone steadily, a quiet cluster of orange light, standing almost motionless in the windless room.