Recaps

Yin Wujou practiced Spirit Vision with the Snow Empress, who then brought him to a hidden Yanbei acquaintance to examine the lingering mark beneath her wound. The man traced it to the Spirit Vein Bureau’s secret technique, but the Snow Empress said she had survived longer than its supposed ten-year limit.

• The Snow Empress asked Yin Wujou what he could see with Spirit Vision and explained that practice would let him distinguish Spirit Lines precisely enough to cut them without harming flesh.
• The Snow Empress led Yin Wujou through a valley town to a secluded house, where a gaunt man recognized her as an old acquaintance who had fled Yanbei ten years earlier.
• The Snow Empress showed the man the faint mark beneath her collarbone and asked him to examine it while Yin Wujou listened.
• The man identified the mark as a double-strand slipknot from the Spirit Vein Bureau’s Flood Dragon Suppression Weave, used to seal dangerous spirit roots at the cost of the victim’s life within ten years.
• The Snow Empress pointed out that she had lived longer than ten years.

The Snow Empress learned that a missing Spirit Vein Bureau dossier might lead her to the person who planted the thread in her heart meridians. She and Yin Wujou set out for the capital to search government records for Pei Yuan’s whereabouts.

• The man told the Snow Empress that someone had precisely untied the slipknot in her Flood Dragon Suppression Weave and noted Yin Wujou’s rapid mastery of Spirit Vision.
• The man revealed that a dossier containing the third form of the weave had gone missing ten years earlier, and that registrar Pei Yuan had vanished with it.
• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou left the man’s home and agreed to find Pei Yuan through archived Ministry of Personnel records.
• The Snow Empress said they would return to Daoist Yun, pack, and travel toward the capital, and Yin Wujou agreed to go with her.
• Yin Wujou used Spirit Vision to observe the Qi of people in the town and the complex spiritual Qi flowing through the Snow Empress’s meridians as they walked back.

The Snow Empress learned that a planted thread had obstructed her meridians, while Yin Wujou affirmed he would stay with her to see their formation diagram through. As they prepared to leave Daoist Yun, he gave Yin Wujou a formation diagram that could conceal his blade beneath his skin.

• The Snow Empress explained how the obstruction in her meridians had hindered her strength, sleep, and cultivation, then confirmed that she could now feel water spirit Qi flowing through them.
• Yin Wujou told the Snow Empress he did not regret joining her and refused to leave before their formation diagram was complete.
• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou returned to Daoist Yun’s temple, where he had prepared an old jar of yellow wine.
• Daoist Yun gave Yin Wujou a formation diagram for a blade sheath that would let his willow-leaf blade hide beneath his flesh.
• Daoist Yun revealed that he had designed the sheath for a girl he loved when he was young, and told Yin Wujou to keep it.

The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou left Daoist Yun and rode east toward the capital to investigate Pei Yuan’s records. She offered to teach Yin Wujou how to reroute formation diagrams during their journey, which ended for the day at an abandoned tea shelter.

• Daoist Yun gave Yin Wujou a stack of mugwort-paper diagrams, and the Snow Empress thanked him before she and Yin Wujou departed.
• At a post station, Yin Wujou hired two horses, and he and the Snow Empress set out toward the capital.
• The Snow Empress said they would ride with as little rest as possible to investigate Pei Yuan’s records and offered to teach Yin Wujou the basics of rerouting formation diagrams.
• Yin Wujou studied Daoist Yun’s scabbard formation diagram while using Spirit Vision to observe the road and its surroundings.
• Toward evening, the Snow Empress and Yin Wujou stopped at an abandoned tea shelter to eat and rest their horses.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress traveled east through the night, watching two mysterious travelers move through the woods alongside them. At an empty waystation, they rested and Yin Wujou studied Daoist Yun’s formation diagram while the Snow Empress looked it over.

• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress rested at a ruined tea shelter until moonrise, then continued east along the official road.
• The Snow Empress spotted a faint light moving through woods beside the road, and Yin Wujou used Spirit Vision to discern two travelers.
• The Snow Empress decided they should keep moving and observe the travelers, who eventually fell behind and disappeared into the woods.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress reached an empty waystation and stopped for four hours to water and feed their horses.
• Yin Wujou studied Daoist Yun’s formation diagram by moonlight, and the Snow Empress crouched beside him to examine it.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress resumed their journey after discussing his insight into Daoist Yun’s formation diagram and her recovering spirit veins. At a roadside checkpoint, Yin Wujou noticed the keeper had a scar resembling a spirit-vein puncture wound.

• Yin Wujou explained that the half-loop in the sheathing line accommodated the willow-leaf blade’s curved grip and prevented uneven wear on the formation markings.
• The Snow Empress thanked Yin Wujou for extending her life, then told him to sleep while she kept watch.
• Yin Wujou dreamed of a vast amber formation beneath a river, where the Snow Empress appeared beside him and spoke two words he could not hear.
• The Snow Empress woke Yin Wujou, and they set out toward inhabited areas as her spirit veins continued to recover.
• The Snow Empress paid the toll at a checkpoint, and Yin Wujou noticed a spirit-vein puncture scar in the keeper’s right hand.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress traveled east toward the capital, where they planned to investigate Pei Yuan. At a mountain pass, they discovered signs that someone had recently buried and removed a formation artifact.

• Yin Wujou used Spirit Vision to examine people along the road, and the Snow Empress warned him that those with old spiritual-meridian injuries could sense his scrutiny.
• The Snow Empress changed their horses at the relay station and said she trusted her informant's information about Pei Yuan only seventy percent.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress rode east through hilly terrain while he mentally reviewed Daoist Yun's scabbard formation diagram.
• At the mountain pass, the Snow Empress stopped when she spotted rubble blocking the exit, and Yin Wujou sensed lingering Spiritual Power in the soil.
• The Snow Empress identified the buried object as a formation artifact that had been dug up about half a day earlier, but the road beyond showed no sign of anyone passing.

The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou stopped at a roadside inn, where its elderly owner revealed that Pei Yuan was alive and explained how they could reach him. They planned to obtain a night-duty token from the Imperial Astronomical Bureau’s director and enter the storehouse after dark.

• Yin Wujou noticed that soil among the mountain-pass rubble had been brought from elsewhere and remembered its color and texture.
• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou stayed at an inn, where the old woman recognized their newly awakened abilities and learned they were seeking Pei Yuan.
• The old woman told them Pei Yuan had been kept at the Imperial Astronomical Bureau’s western storehouse since his dismissal and warned that visiting by day could get them killed.
• The Snow Empress said she could ask the bureau’s director for a night-duty token because he owed her a favor.
• Yin Wujou considered the danger of taking the token and entering the guarded storehouse to ask Pei Yuan how the dossier had disappeared and who had planted the thread.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress rode toward the Imperial Astronomical Bureau to retrieve a token, while a sweeper surnamed Pei waited there with an old booklet tied to Daoist Yun’s formation. They took a shorter dirt track toward the capital’s western outskirts.

• The Snow Empress told Yin Wujou to enter the Bureau director’s study for the token while she kept watch outside.
• Yin Wujou practiced controlling his Spirit Vision as he prepared to ride through the night with the Snow Empress.
• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou left the old woman’s courtyard on horseback, and the Snow Empress bowed toward the woman’s newly lit window.
• A sweeper surnamed Pei waited in a Bureau storeroom with a booklet on the Flood Dragon Suppression Weave whose crossed-out author’s name resembled Daoist Yun’s handwriting.
• The Snow Empress turned onto a rough dirt track to save twenty li, and Yin Wujou followed her.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress followed an abandoned road to a disused ferry landing, where they discovered damaged spirit veins beneath the river leading toward the Imperial Astronomical Bureau. They prepared to swim across, leaving their horses behind.

• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress rode along an overgrown road to an abandoned ferry landing near the capital's western outskirts.
• The Snow Empress sensed abundant water spirit Qi in the river, and Yin Wujou used his Spirit Vision to detect damaged spirit veins beneath the riverbed.
• Yin Wujou traced one spirit vein toward the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, and the Snow Empress explained that many old government offices stood on spirit vein nodes.
• The Snow Empress said they would have to leave their horses and swim across, then packed her outer robe and entered the river.
• Yin Wujou watched the Snow Empress swim ahead and began removing his outer robe.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress crossed a cold river and rode toward the capital’s western outskirts. At a village near the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, the Snow Empress explained how they would enter the compound.

• Yin Wujou swam across the river and saw a luminous, scale-less creature that the Snow Empress identified as a harmless formation from a spirit vein.
• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou continued by horse toward the capital, and she warned him that the western outskirts lacked strict oversight and that people could detect his Spirit Vision.
• Yin Wujou saw the capital’s walls for the first time and told the Snow Empress that his hometown had only sixty-odd households.
• The pair reached a village at dawn, where the Snow Empress gave Yin Wujou a flatbread and described the route to the director’s study in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau.
• The Snow Empress said she could boost Yin Wujou over the bureau’s low perimeter wall.

Yin Wujou infiltrated the Imperial Astronomical Bureau to find a hidden token in the director’s study while the Snow Empress planned to distract the director. He reached the main building and used Spirit Vision to locate the study on the second floor, but still had to find a way inside and uncover the hidden compartment.

• The Snow Empress told Yin Wujou to find the bronze night-duty plaque in the director’s study and wait for her signal while she kept the director occupied.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress approached the Bureau’s rear wall, and she gave him rope and supplies for the break-in.
• Yin Wujou climbed the ivy-covered wall, secured a rope for his escape, and slipped into the western courtyard.
• Yin Wujou crossed the courtyard unseen and used Spirit Vision to trace the densest Spiritual Power to the director’s second-floor study.

Yin Wujou infiltrated the main building and retrieved the bronze Imperial Astronomical Bureau night-duty token hidden in the study wall. As he prepared to leave, an unfamiliar gray-green presence climbed the stairs and lingered outside the study before vanishing.

• Yin Wujou entered the main building through a storeroom window and silently reached the second-floor study.
• Yin Wujou found a concealed niche behind a landscape painting and took the bronze night-duty token engraved with Zhou Huai’s name.
• Yin Wujou replaced the hidden panel and painting, then noticed a disturbance in the Spiritual Power below.
• Yin Wujou hid in the study as an unfamiliar gray-green presence climbed the stairs and approached the door.
• The gray-green presence lingered outside the study before suddenly dispersing.

Yin Wujou escaped the Imperial Astronomical Bureau with the bronze plaque and reunited with the Snow Empress, but he told her about a strange presence that had followed him. Suspecting another force was active in the Bureau, they postponed entering the storehouse and went to an abandoned kiln to reconsider their plan.

• Yin Wujou escaped the Imperial Astronomical Bureau by climbing over its western wall with the bronze plaque.
• Yin Wujou waited behind bean trellises until the Snow Empress left the Bureau with the director and came to meet him.
• Yin Wujou gave the Snow Empress the plaque and described the gray-green presence that had followed him to the study.
• The Snow Empress concluded the presence was not ordinary residual Qi and warned that someone else was making moves inside the Bureau.
• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou rode to an abandoned brick kiln to review their plan before approaching the storehouse.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress analyzed the presence that had discovered the disturbance in the Director’s study and decided to break into the storehouse before its defenses were ready. They reached the eastern side door, where the Snow Empress posed as a Spirit Vein Bureau inspector, but the guard had not yet let them in.

• The Snow Empress concluded that someone had used the grayish-green presence to scout the Director’s study and learned that the night-duty token had been taken.
• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou planned to use the shift change to enter the storehouse, with Yin Wujou searching for Pei Yuan under a strict time limit.
• The pair rode back to the Imperial Astronomical Bureau by a wild path and approached its eastern side door.
• The Snow Empress showed a wooden plaque and claimed that she and Yin Wujou had come from the Spirit Vein Bureau to inspect old spiritual-artifact inventory records.
• The duty-room guard examined the plaque and returned it without revealing whether he believed the Snow Empress.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress searched the storeroom for Pei Yuan and found him studying a scroll. Pei Yuan recognized Yin Wujou as the one who had solved the Cloud Tracing Formation, examined his hand, and withdrew his Spiritual Power without explaining what he had learned.

• The Snow Empress used the night-duty token to open the storeroom, and Yin Wujou followed her inside.
• The Snow Empress told Yin Wujou to use Spirit Vision to trace signs of Pei Yuan’s movements through the dust.
• Yin Wujou followed a cleaner path between the racks and found Pei Yuan at a table by the north wall.
• Pei Yuan asked whether Yin Wujou had solved the Cloud Tracing Formation, and Yin Wujou said he had solved Daoist Yun’s formation diagram.
• Pei Yuan inspected Yin Wujou’s hand with a thread of Spiritual Power, then drew his hand back.

Pei Yuan gave Yin Wujou the double-hour and direction table needed to complete the Cloud Tracing Formation, then revealed that it was tied to a missing Spirit Vein Bureau dossier and Yun Su’s suspicious death. Yin Wujou left knowing he had to fully clear his Spirit Vision’s meridians before the formation could lead him to the dossier’s hiding place.

• Pei Yuan explained that Yin Wujou’s Spirit Vision was only about eighty percent open and that he needed to clear its remaining blocked branches to complete the Cloud Tracing Formation.
• Pei Yuan showed Yin Wujou the table of twelve directions, double-hours, and Spiritual Power frequencies that Yun Su had entrusted to him.
• Pei Yuan revealed that a missing dossier contained the identities of 147 covert thread-planters, all of whom were exposed when it disappeared.
• Pei Yuan said Yun Su had been transferred after the dossier vanished and died less than three months later, though Pei Yuan believed he had been murdered.
• Pei Yuan told Yin Wujou he had suspected the current Director of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, who had been Yun Su’s superior and led the investigation.
• Pei Yuan instructed Yin Wujou to clear his Spirit Vision’s meridians, then activate the twelve nodes at their assigned directions and double-hours to find the dossier’s hiding place.

Yin Wujou learned from Pei Yuan where a copy of the missing dossier was hidden and how to reach its secret chamber. He and the Snow Empress entered the Capital, where Yin Wujou sensed the dense spirit veins beneath the city.

• Pei Yuan told Yin Wujou that Yun Su had hidden a copy of the dossier in a secret chamber beneath the Spirit Vein Bureau's old archives building, which could be opened by activating all twelve nodes of a Cloud Tracing Formation.
• Pei Yuan gave Yin Wujou the address of Old Zhou's smithy, where an iron plate had been prepared for tracing the formation, and told him not to seek him out afterward.
• Yin Wujou left the storeroom and relayed Pei Yuan's information to the Snow Empress as they rode toward the Capital.
• The Snow Empress planned for them to find an inn near East Third Lane and collect the iron plate from Old Zhou the next day.
• Yin Wujou entered the Capital and sensed the dense spirit veins beneath the city, while the Snow Empress explained their importance.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress retrieved the iron plate Pei Yuan had arranged for them, a carefully forged base for the Cloud Tracing Formation. At an inn, Yin Wujou prepared the plate and Daoist Yun’s diagram so he could begin working by steady lamplight.

• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou found Old Zhou’s blacksmith shop in East Third Lane and told him Pei Yuan had sent them.
• Old Zhou retrieved the iron plate Yun Su had commissioned ten years earlier and explained how carefully he had forged it for a formation base.
• Yin Wujou accepted the plate, learned Yun Su had already paid for it, and thanked Old Zhou before leaving with the Snow Empress.
• The Snow Empress rented two adjoining rooms at an inn, where Yin Wujou laid out the iron plate and Daoist Yun’s formation diagram.
• Yin Wujou replaced the oil and wick in an old lamp and set its steady flame beside the plate.

Yin Wujou completed the formation diagram on an iron plate, and its response opened the blocked branches of his meridians. He put the diagram and the day's collected papers away, leaving it ready for the twelve double-hours and directional correspondences to activate it fully.

• Yin Wujou studied Pei Yuan's chart and used his Spirit Vision to examine the meridians in his hand before beginning work on the iron plate.
• Yin Wujou followed the plate's patterns to draw the formation diagram, placing its twelve nodes and connecting lines one by one.
• Yin Wujou completed the central connection, and the diagram's returning surge loosened blockages in his meridians and lit all ten fingertips in his Spirit Vision.
• Yin Wujou inspected the now-clear meridians, covered the iron plate, and gathered the day's papers and the Snow Empress's supplies into a bundle.
• Yin Wujou put the bundle away and blew out the oil lamp, while the completed diagram remained inactive beneath its cloth.

Yin Wujou prepared to enter the secret chamber beneath the Spirit Vein Bureau's old archive building, using the Cloud Tracing Formation and the clues preserved by Pei Yuan. At the first quarter of the hour of the Tiger, he and the Snow Empress left the inn and rode through the sleeping Capital toward the archive building.

• Yin Wujou reviewed the completed formation diagram, iron plate, and timing records needed to open the secret chamber.
• Yin Wujou gathered the iron plate and documents, while the Snow Empress prepared to leave with her short sword.
• The Snow Empress told Yin Wujou that the spirit veins would be most stable at the first quarter of the hour of the Tiger, making it the best time to break the formation.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress led their horses out of the inn and rode through the quiet streets of the Capital.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress entered the abandoned Spirit Vein Bureau archive to find a hidden passage leading to a sealed secret chamber and dossier. Yin Wujou identified the hidden-door formation and prepared to begin unlocking it.

• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou rode to the old Spirit Vein Bureau offices and concealed their horses nearby.
• The Snow Empress explained that the old warning formations were harmless and told Yin Wujou to focus on opening the formation while she guarded him.
• Yin Wujou used Spirit Vision to inspect the intact Yun Su Variant Formation and confirmed it could only be opened by following its sequence of twelve double-hour nodes.
• The Snow Empress opened the archive’s entrance, and the two searched the ruined hall for the concealed underground entrance.
• Yin Wujou found the hidden-door formation in the northern wall and placed his iron plate before it.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress activated the Cloud Tracing Formation and opened the hidden passage beneath the old building. They descended past the first and second underground levels toward Yun Su’s secret chamber, with the Snow Empress clearing the remaining formations.

• Yin Wujou aligned his Spiritual Power with the iron plate while the Snow Empress guarded the hall and waited for the hour of the Tiger.
• At the appointed time, Yin Wujou activated the twelve nodes of the Cloud Tracing Formation, causing the northern wall to sink and reveal a passage underground.
• The Snow Empress identified three remnant formations in the passage and entered first, dissolving them with her Spiritual Power.
• Yin Wujou secured the iron plate and followed the Snow Empress down the passage, where they reached the first and second underground levels.

Yin Wujou began opening Yun Su's sealed secret chamber by aligning the iron plate with the door's formation, but the Snow Empress's warning about approaching scouts distracted him at the final node and destabilized the formation. The Snow Empress left to intercept the scouts, leaving Yin Wujou alone to keep the formation from self-destructing.

• Yin Wujou examined the intact formation door and explained that he had to activate its circuits in sequence without interruption or risk destroying the records inside.
• The Snow Empress agreed to guard the surroundings while Yin Wujou placed the iron plate before the door and began aligning the twelve two-hour-period nodes.
• Yin Wujou activated the first eleven nodes, causing the formation patterns to light up and the layered seals to begin unlocking.
• The Snow Empress detected three covert scouts approaching the old building and left to intercept them.
• Yin Wujou faltered at the final node, triggering the formation's warning and throwing its circuits into disorder.
• Yin Wujou shut out distractions and tried to stabilize the formation alone as its backlash pressed against him.

Yin Wujou reversed and repaired the formation while the Snow Empress stopped three spies from reaching the underground passage. The stone door opened, revealing a small, spotless chamber whose contents remained unseen.

• Yin Wujou painstakingly realigned the formation’s nodes and circuits against its backlash.
• Three masked spies entered the old building and attacked the Snow Empress, who defeated and bound them before returning to guard the passage.
• Yin Wujou completed the final correction and restored the formation.
• The stone door unlocked and swung inward, exposing a small, clean chamber.