Chapter Summaries

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.

Yin Wujou opened Yun Su’s hidden dossier and learned that powerful court officials had secretly diverted the spirit veins, then framed foreign enemies and concealed their crimes. With the evidence secured but the conspirators still powerful, the Snow Empress entered the chamber and asked whether he had obtained it.

• Yin Wujou entered the secret chamber and opened the dossier Yun Su had preserved for ten years.
• Yin Wujou read that Imperial City Bureau officials and regional administrators had altered spirit vein regulations and siphoned Spiritual Power for their own forces.
• Yin Wujou learned that the officials had fabricated a foreign theft, destroyed the original evidence, and concealed the truth while Yun Su secretly preserved a copy.
• Yin Wujou concluded that the agents who had infiltrated the old building were remnants of the conspirators seeking to destroy the evidence.
• The Snow Empress entered after dealing with the external threat and asked Yin Wujou whether he had obtained the dossier.

Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress recovered evidence of a decade-old court conspiracy involving the spirit vein regulations, then discovered a hidden record identifying Liu Yanzhao as the surviving leader of the remnants. The Snow Empress began searching one of the captured spies for information about his network.

• The Snow Empress decided to keep the three captured spies alive as bait and withdraw with the dossier before their enemies could search the old archives building.
• Yin Wujou and the Snow Empress carried the dossier and the spies to an abandoned hunter's hut outside the city.
• Yin Wujou discovered a hidden silk record naming nine conspirators, including Liu Yanzhao, who was secretly directing the remnants from the Southern Frontier.
• The Snow Empress recognized Liu Yanzhao as the likely source of ambushes that had destroyed her leads and showed anger at his long-running interference.
• The Snow Empress used Spiritual Power to search one spy's soul for information about Liu Yanzhao and his network.

The Snow Empress sent three spies back to Liu Yanzhao with hidden tracking talismans, while Yin Wujou studied the dossiers and located Liu Yanzhao’s secret Mysterious Abyss workshop. They waited in the stone hut for the tracking talismans to reveal Liu Yanzhao’s hiding place.

• The Snow Empress gave the three spies Spirit-Transforming Vein-Restoring Pills that concealed tracking talismans in their spiritual veins and prevented them from killing themselves for three days.
• The Snow Empress released the spies, who hurried away to report to Liu Yanzhao, while she and Yin Wujou stayed outside the city to wait for the tracking talismans.
• Yin Wujou read Yun Su’s dossiers and learned that Liu Yanzhao had spent ten years using stolen Spiritual Power to make at least a hundred suits of Puppet Armor.
• Yin Wujou reverse-deduced the Mysterious Abyss workshop’s location in the Falling Rosy Clouds Mountain Range, about forty li from Liu Yanzhao’s old residence and linked to it by an underground river.
• The Snow Empress said the tracking talismans should send their first transmission at midnight, revealing Liu Yanzhao’s precise location.

The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou followed the tracking talisman to the Meng Residence in the capital, where they saw imperial guards’ chief instructor Song Xuanwei enter. They suspected he was either Liu Yanzhao’s powerful ally or Liu Yanzhao’s stand-in, and realized Yun Su’s dossier had omitted his role in the Spirit Vein Bureau case.

• The Snow Empress sensed that the three tracking talismans had split up, with one heading for the capital, and concluded Liu Yanzhao might be hiding there rather than in the Southern Frontier.
• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou entered the capital through her secret passage and traced the capital talisman to Meng Qi’s residence.
• Yin Wujou confirmed that Meng Qi was named in Yun Su’s dossier as an official involved in falsifying documents during the Spirit Vein Bureau case.
• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou watched Song Xuanwei enter the Meng Residence and recognized him as the imperial guards’ chief instructor.
• The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou found no mention of Song Xuanwei in the dossier and suspected he was either Liu Yanzhao’s co-conspirator or his stand-in.

The Snow Empress and Yin Wujou uncovered evidence that Liu Yanzhao was bringing puppet armor into the capital and planned to find his hideout before a secret meeting. After questioning Song Xuanwei, they confirmed Liu Yanzhao was hiding beneath an abandoned residence in Chongwen Ward.

• The Snow Empress broke into the Meng residence and found a Xuan Abyss Workshop token and secret letters linking the Mengs to a meeting at the Thousand Flavors Pavilion.
• The letters revealed that Liu Yanzhao was in the capital and had prepared one hundred suits of puppet armor for transport into the imperial city.
• The Snow Empress planned to question Song Xuanwei while Yin Wujou searched Chongwen Ward for Liu Yanzhao’s hideout.
• Yin Wujou detected a steady Spiritual Power fluctuation at an abandoned house in the ward’s northeastern corner and watched it until evening.
• The Snow Empress told Yin Wujou that Song Xuanwei had identified the Zhou Residence as Liu Yanzhao’s hideout, with a secret chamber beneath its cellar.
• The Snow Empress revealed that Liu Yanzhao had held Song Xuanwei’s daughter hostage for ten years, and that she had given Song the dungeon’s location and a formation-breaking talisman.