Snow Empress stared at the simple diagram. The scratches that had been scraped off the outer edge of the circle were precisely where the three new springs had now appeared.
"The person who severed the Vein Eye also opened an outlet on the outside of Vein Eye," she said slowly. "The outlet diverts the earth's energy to Blind Zone, making that Blind Zone bigger and bigger. But the earth has its own ability to repair itself; once the energy is diverted, the earth will find a new path. The reason the three springs were able to revive naturally is because the earth is reopening its channels from deep within."
Meng Qi nodded again. "But the new channel is unstable. If the original Vein Eye isn't reconnected, the new vein will break again. Each break brings more Resentment Beast. You've killed one big one, but the smaller ones are endless. As long as the Vein Eye continues to leak, the resentment will keep growing."
A Yao walked up from behind, staring at the simple diagram on the ground. "How do you know all this?"
Meng Qi remained silent for a long time. The Yezi of the poplar trees rustled in the night wind, and the moonlight cast swaying, fragmented shadows on the ground. He raised his head, a bitter smile appearing on his chubby face.
"Because I was one of the people who did the dirty work back then."
Yin Wujou's sword was drawn another inch from its sheath. Snow Empress raised her hand to stop him.
"Go on."
"More than twenty years ago, some people within the Spirit Vein Bureau wanted the earth vein energy of the Hetao. They bribed several field deacons to tamper with the Vein Eye, diverting the energy elsewhere to sell. I was in charge of the irrigation canal for one of those Vein Eye." Meng Qi pointed to a point on a simple map with his bamboo cane. "This is it. I was in charge of repairing the canal, but I buried canal timber in it as a backup plan. The timber could guide the earth vein water, and it could also block it. I thought it would come in handy someday."
"Is the canal timber you buried the same as the canal timber diversion method described in A Yao's father's notes?" Snow Empress asked.
"It's the same thing. But I know how to block it, not how to reconnect it. I've been investigating for the past twenty years, until Vice Minister Pei arrested my family, that's when I decided to hand over the things." Meng Qi handed the bamboo cane completely to Snow Empress. "The symbols on the cane are the interpretation of the Vein Eye circulation. I don't understand them, but the people in your Spirit Vein Bureau should be able to."
Snow Empress took the bamboo staff. The grain of the Qu wood on the staff was clearly visible in the moonlight, exactly matching the Qu wood described in A Yao's father's notes. She handed the bamboo staff to A Yao. A Yao took it, her fingers tracing the symbols on the staff line by line, suddenly stopping at a set of symbols.
"This set... Father's notes have something similar. He said it's a ' Three Eyes Return to One ' formation." A Yao's voice tightened. "If we can reconnect the three Vein Eye according to this formation, we can reconnect the loop. But we need to open the Vein Eye at the same time, and we must use canal wood as guide channels, pottery shards as water outlets, and earth vein water as a conduit."
"We happen to have some." Yin Wujou looked at the pottery jar on A Yao's back.
Snow Empress looked at Meng Qi. "You just said that the place you tampered with was one of the Vein Eye. What about the other two?"
Meng Qi shook his head. "I only know about the one I handled. As for the other two, I've investigated for twenty years and only found their approximate locations, but I don't know their exact locations or how they were done. I wasn't the only one who did it. Back then, the Spirit Vein Bureau disbanded; some of those people died, and some went into hiding. The only thing I'm certain of is..."
He paused, then looked up towards the northeast. That was the northeastern part of the Hetao Plain, the core area of the " Blind Zone ".
"The last Vein Eye is right in the middle of the Blind Zone. That's now the lair of the Resentment Beast. All the smaller beasts are born from there."
The atmosphere in the main hall suddenly became heavy. Zhou Yan put down the abacus, walked over, looked at the symbols on the bamboo cane, and then at the simple diagram drawn by Meng Qi. He pointed to a scraped-off mark and asked, "Are you sure about the location of the drain outlet here?"
"Yes, I confirmed it. I built the canal myself."
Zhou Yan was silent for a moment, then suddenly said, " Snow Empress, if the outlet is still there, we can transform it into a diversion outlet. We can redirect the accumulated ley line energy in the Blind Zone back to the Vein Eye itself. This way, we can both reactivate the ley lines in the Blind Zone and deprive the Resentment Beast of their energy source for their lair."
"But someone needs to go into the Blind Zone," Snow Empress said.
"I'll go," Yin Wujou said.
"Going there won't do you any good," Meng Qi suddenly said. "The ley lines in the Blind Zone are chaotic; without Earth Vein Compass, you can't find the Vein Eye's location at all. And in the Blind Zone, the Earth Vein Compass will be affected by resentment, making it inaccurate. Unless,"
He looked at A Yao.
A Yao paused, then looked down at the bamboo staff in her hand, and then at the pottery jar on her back. Suddenly, she understood. "Unless someone can sense the flow of the earth's veins using only wood and pottery shards, without a compass."
"Your father had this method in his notes," Meng Qi said. "Your father studied it back then. He said that the canal wood itself could sense the earth's veins and water, and the pottery shards could indicate the direction of the water. The Water-Dividing Formation you used at the third location was actually a prototype of this principle."
A Yao gripped her bamboo cane tightly. She remembered the densely packed illustrations in her father's notebook, the tattered pages she had flipped through countless times, and the annotations she had never understood. Now, those annotations suddenly had meaning.
"I can try," she said.
Snow Empress stared at her for a long time. " The Blind Zone is dangerous. It's the lair of the Resentment Beast; there's more than one small one."
"I know."
"Did your father write down how to get out of the Blind Zone?"
A Yao flipped through the tattered pages and found a piece of paper with dried grass leaves tucked inside. A tiny arrow was drawn on the paper, and next to it were the words, "Flood Recedes."
"The waters have receded?" Yin Wujou leaned closer to look. "What does that mean?"
"When the ley lines rise to a certain level, the paths in the Blind Zone will open up. After the water recedes, the paths will change." A Yao turned the paper over; on the back was a line of even smaller writing. "Father wrote 'three in, three out' next to it. But I don't know what it specifically refers to."
Snow Empress pondered for a moment. "Three in and three out could refer to three Vein Eye, each entering and exiting once. It could also refer to time, three rises and falls, each with varying intervals." She looked up at the sky; the east was already faintly turning white. "Let's go back to the Hetao first. Once we reach the spring, comparing the actual terrain with our notes will be more useful than guessing here."
Meng Qi took a step back. "I should go."
"You stay here," Snow Empress said. " Zhou Yan needs someone to help him check the old files. You've done fieldwork before, so you know where the files are."
Meng Qi hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded. He followed Zhou Yan into the main hall, leaving the bamboo staff with A Yao. Yin Wujou and Snow Empress led their horses out of the courtyard. A Yao took one last look at the polished bamboo staff in her hand; the ancient symbols on it, which she couldn't recognize, gleamed with a warm, wooden sheen in the morning light.
The three horses headed north again.
This time they didn't take the official road, but instead hurried along the country dirt road east of the Hetao bend. The crops on both sides of the road had all been harvested, exposing large areas of brown soil.