A Yao rewrapped the picture book and suddenly asked, " Snow Empress, you could have easily severed its neck with that strike just now."
Snow Empress had already entered the courtyard. Yezi from the old locust tree had fallen to the ground, and gray magpies hopped restlessly on the branches. She glanced back at A Yao; the moonlight illuminated her profile, and her expression was calm.
"You mustn't kill it," she said. "It's the resentment of the earth's veins, not their enemy. If you kill it, its resentment will spread into the earth's veins, and the entire Hetao's veins will die completely."
"What should we do then?"
Snow Empress mounted his horse and flicked the reins. "Suppress it, then give the ley lines a way out."
The four of them left the capital overnight. Zhou Yan was seriously injured and stayed behind at the old office to oversee things. At the same time, he sent a message by carrier pigeon to Vice Minister Pei, requesting that all available former members of the Spirit Vein Bureau near the Hetao be mobilized. Yin Wujou and A Yao went ahead with Snow Empress, and the three fast horses galloped north along the official road. The autumn night wind blew into their collars, and A Yao flipped through the tattered pages of A Yao father's notes about " Earth Vein Resentment " again and again on horseback, finally finding half a sentence in the folded layer.
"Earth vein water is the lifeblood of the veins. Resentment Beast become frenzied when they drink its blood, and they are transformed when they bathe in it." She recited aloud, " Snow Empress, earth vein water can make it go berserk, and it can also make it dissipate. The key is the amount."
Snow Empress didn't turn around. "How much?"
"I don't know. Father only wrote half a sentence."
Yin Wujou his horse to catch up. " Deacon Sun said in his letter that the second spring's pool has been blocked. If it blocks all three springs, the earth vein water won't be able to flow out, and it won't be able to be used to transform into beasts."
The Snow Empress looked up at the sky. The east was already turning gray, and the farmland on both sides of the official road was shrouded in a thin mist. In the distance, a very faint red column of smoke rose from the horizon, almost invisible in the morning light, but the Snow Empress saw it. It was the trace left by the Earth Vein Beast, and the earth vein was bleeding.
"Then we'll do it before it seals off the third one," she said.
Three days later, in the Hetao.
Deacon Sun waited for them at the bottom of the first spring. The old man was more haggard than described in the letter; the scratches on his left arm had turned black, but he still gripped the shovel and stood guard at the bottom of the spring. When he saw Snow Empress and his party, he staggered forward to greet them, his first words being, "The second one is gone."
"What do you mean by 'gone'?" Yin Wujou asked.
Deacon Sun led them to the high slope on the west side of the depression. From there, they could see that half of the hill where the second spring was located had collapsed. The collapse had created a huge pit, the bottom of which was Sisi black, devoid of water and vegetation. Wisps of red earth vein energy seeped from the bottom of the pit, condensing into a thin red mist in the air. As for the gully where the third spring was located, from a distance, the muddy surface was constantly rising and falling, as if something was churning beneath it.
"It swallowed all the ley line water from the second spot," Deacon Sun said in a hoarse voice. "After it finished, the hill collapsed. Now it's at the third spot. I tried to get close, but the ravine walls keep collapsing, and I can't go down."
Snow Empress squatted down and placed the Earth Vein Compass on the ground. The compass indicator spun wildly, eventually pointing to the bottom of the third ditch, but at the same time, seven or eight faint red dots were flashing on the compass. She carefully examined them and found that the red dots were arranged along the direction of the earth veins on the east side of the Hetao, from the first spring to the second, then to the third, and then continued to extend northeastward, disappearing at the edge of the " Blind Zone ".
"There's more than one." Snow Empress stood up. "After it swallowed the second ley line water, it spawned new Resentment Beast. The red dots are their ley line imprints."
Yin Wujou counted. "At least seven."
A Yao's face turned pale. "Seven heads... there are only four of us."
Snow Empress gazed towards the bottom of the third ravine. The ravine bottom rose more and more violently, the silt was pushed aside, revealing the black rock layer beneath. The rock layer was covered with red patterns, like a giant spider web. In the center of the spider web, the original Earth Vein Beast lay in the depression of the third spring, the red mark on its forehead larger and brighter than before. Around it, six slightly smaller black-scaled beasts emerged from the silt, each with a red mark on its forehead, its tail forked into three branches, the tips of which burned with ghostly blue flames.
"It used the water from the second ley line to raise six cubs," Snow Empress said. "If it were to devour a third ley line, it would control the entire Hetao region."
Deacon Sun gripped the shovel tightly. "Then what do we do?"
Snow Empress remained silent for a long time. The wind blew up from the bottom of the ravine, carrying the strong smell of sulfur and the sweetness of the ley line water. She remembered the master map of the ley lines in the old main hall of the Spirit Vein Bureau, the nights when Snow Empress sat under the lamp looking at the map, and the sentence written in Yin Wujou and A Yao's report, "The ley lines are being repaired, reconnected."
"We can't fight it head-on," she finally said. "It wants ley line water, so we'll give it ley line water. But we have to give it so much that it can't handle it."
She turned to A Yao: "How much of the method for diverting ley lines in your father's notes do you remember?"
A Yao flipped through the tattered pages. "I remember some things. We needed to use canal wood to make the channel and pottery shards to make the water outlets. But we needed three springs to flow out simultaneously, forming a loop. Now the second one has been swallowed up by it..."
"The second source of ley line water is inside its belly." Snow Empress looked at the ley Earth Vein Beast at the bottom of the ravine. "Then let it spit it out on its own."
She began to make arrangements. Yin Wujou and Deacon Sun went to the first spring and used logs and gravel to build a diversion channel on the edge of the depression, diverting the leyline water to the second collapsed pit. A Yao used pottery shards to set up Water-Dividing Formation above the third ditch wall, waiting for the Snow Empress's signal. The Snow Empress herself went down to the bottom of the ditch to face the Earth Vein Beast directly.
"Are you alone?" Yin Wujou frowned.
"It's not one person," Snow Empress said, looking at the six small beasts. "It's a group. You bring the water, and the water will fetch it for me."
Yin Wujou silent for a moment, then nodded. He left with Deacon Sun. A Yao climbed up the ditch wall and buried the pottery shards at the chosen location. Snow Empress descended alone along the depression in the ditch wall to the bottom.
The mud made a sticky sound beneath her feet. The Earth Vein Beast raised its head, its eyes, like burning embers, fixed on her, a red mark throbbing on its forehead. Six smaller beasts surrounded her from all sides, their three-pronged tails illuminating the bottom of the ravine with eerie blue flames. The Snow Empress drew her sword, the blade's cold blue light intertwining with the firelight. She did not attack, but simply plunged the sword into the mud in front of her, the blade sinking half a foot into it.
The Earth Vein Beast let out a low growl. It recognized the sword and the Snow Empress. But it did not retreat. A third spring gushed forth behind it, the ley line water evaporating as soon as it seeped into the ground beneath it. It was gambling, gambling that the Snow Empress would not dare to kill it.
Snow Empress did not actually slash. She pressed her hands on the hilt of the sword and closed her eyes. The blade's eerie blue light disappeared into the mud, spreading along the veins of the earth towards the first spring. She was using the sword as a guide to direct the water from the first vein of the earth towards this place.
On the ditch wall, A Yao saw the first stream of ley water gushing from the direction of the first spring. The water in the diversion channel grew increasingly rapid, rushing along the shallow ditch dug by Yin Wujou and Deacon Sun into the second collapsed pit. The red ley energy at the bottom of the pit hissed when it encountered water, the red mist was dispersed, and water began to accumulate at the collapsed area.
The Earth Vein Beast sensed it. It turned sharply, its massive tail lashing out at the Snow Empress. The Snow Empress drew her sword to block, the scales clashing against the blade once more. But this time, she did not retreat. A surge of eerie blue light erupted from the blade, deflecting the massive tail. The Earth Vein Beast roared, and its six smaller beasts pounced simultaneously.