The Shadow in the Mirror

After the age-group tournament ended, Long Tian rested at the inn for an entire day.

Zhao Xiaopang dashed in and out of the room, hanging Long Tian's medal on the wall, only to decide it was crooked and take it down to rehang it three times. When Chen Hao pushed the door open, he saw Zhao Xiaopang on tiptoe, wrestling with the bronze medal. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he ignored him, sat down at the table, and poured himself a cup of cold tea.

"That invitation from the academy," Chen Hao said, holding his cup. "What are you going to do about it?"

Long Tian leaned against the headboard, turning the card over in his hand. The writing on it was neat and graceful, signed "Zhao Min, Director of Academic Affairs, Spirit City Junior Academy." He read it several times before setting it on the bedside table. "I haven't decided yet. Joining the academy would give me access to more resources, but it would also mean being watched more closely. We didn't come to the city to study. We came to investigate."

"You can investigate at the academy too." Chen Hao finished his tea and set down the cup. "Plenty of people at the academy have dealings with the Iron Guard, and there are former Iron Guards among the staff. You'd look more natural staying there than wandering around outside with no direction."

Long Tian considered it. Chen Hao had a point. He was about to speak when someone knocked on the door-three raps, neither hurried nor slow. Zhao Xiaopang jumped off his stool and went to answer it. A small, thin boy in gray stood outside, about twelve or thirteen, holding a letter. His face was completely unfamiliar.

"Someone asked me to give this to Long Tian." The boy shoved the letter into Zhao Xiaopang's hand, turned, and ran, vanishing around the corner of the corridor in the blink of an eye.

Zhao Xiaopang brought the letter in and handed it to Long Tian. There was no signature or mark on the envelope. When he opened it, the letter inside contained only a few lines in unfamiliar handwriting: "At three quarters past the hour of the dog, at the tea stall at the end of Old Sophora Alley in the south of the city, someone wants to see you. About the mirror's fragments."

Long Tian stared at those last words for a long time. "The mirror's fragments"-after he shattered Zhang Yueming's bronze mirror, the remnants had fallen to the ground, and Long Tian had not picked them up. If this letter concerned fragments of that mirror, it meant someone had carefully cleaned the platform after his match and had even found something among the fragments. The bronze mirror itself was a physical projection of the Mysterious Light Mirror Martial Soul. Once shattered, it had dissipated; it could not have left physical fragments behind. Those so-called "fragments" could not possibly refer to the mirror itself.

Was it something reflected in the mirror? Or traces left behind by the Power of Chaos that had burst out when its surface shattered?

Chen Hao leaned over to read the letter too, his brow furrowing slightly. "Old Sophora Alley in the south of the city? That place is remote. Someone's asking you to meet at a tea stall late at night. Are you going?"

"Yes." Long Tian folded the letter and tucked it inside his clothes. "Old Sophora Alley isn't far from Old Chen's Blacksmith Shop. If anything happens, I can retreat toward the shop. You two wait for me at the inn. If I'm not back in two hours, go find Old Chen."

Zhao Xiaopang opened his mouth to say something, but a look from Chen Hao stopped him. The two exchanged a glance, and Chen Hao nodded.

At three quarters past the hour of the dog, Long Tian wrapped himself in a dark gray coat and left the inn. The autumn night wind carried a chill down his collar. Pedestrians and lights were far fewer than during the day, and only a few taverns still glowed with dim yellow light. He crossed three streets and turned into Old Sophora Alley in the south of the city. The alley was even narrower than the one where Old Chen's Blacksmith Shop stood, with towering old courtyard walls on either side and dead grass rustling in the wind atop them. Sure enough, a simple tea stall stood at the end of the alley. Two bowls of coarse tea sat on a tabletop made from wooden boards, wisps of steam curling upward.

A man sat behind the tea stall. He wore gray and had an ordinary face. It was the same gray-clad man who had sat in the stands throughout the final, watching without taking his eyes off the match. His bowl of tea was already half empty. When he saw Long Tian approach, he gestured toward the empty seat opposite him.

Long Tian sat down opposite him without touching the bowl of tea. The two remained silent across the rough tabletop for a few breaths before the gray-clad man spoke. "During that palm strike in the final, you were already able to maintain the Power of Chaos in your palm for more than three breaths. That was nearly twice as long as in the semifinal. Your cultivation method is right."

Long Tian said nothing, only looking at the man. His face was utterly unremarkable; lost in a crowd, he would be impossible to find in an instant. But his eyes were very still, like an old mirror covered in dust, silently reflecting people in the dark.

The gray-clad man took something from his sleeve and placed it on the table-a metal fragment the size of a fingernail, its edges curled and its surface a dull gray-bronze. It was a remnant of Zhang Yueming's Mysterious Light Mirror after it shattered, but Long Tian clearly remembered that once a Martial Soul broke, its physical projection should dissipate. It could not leave anything tangible behind.

"When the Mysterious Light Mirror shattered, some of the Power of Chaos from your palm strike was absorbed by its surface and locked inside the fragment." The gray-clad man pushed the fragment toward Long Tian. "Take a look."

Long Tian picked up the fragment and held it under the moonlight for a closer look. An extremely fine line of light traveled across the metal surface, gold and black interwoven, exactly the same in form as his Power of Chaos. His heart tightened sharply-the chaotic trace released by his full-power strike really had been "locked" in the mirror's surface.

"What does this mean?" He put down the fragment and stared at the gray-clad man.

"It means your Power of Chaos is breaking through some kind of boundary." The gray-clad man lifted his tea bowl and took a sip. "The Mysterious Light Mirror's reflection mechanism repels Soul Power of a pure attribute-light, darkness, fire, ice, anything. As long as it has a single attribute, the mirror can reflect it. But chaos is a mixture. The mirror's surface couldn't distinguish its components right away, and while trying to analyze them, it absorbed part of the power. Your strike was able to shatter the mirror precisely because the Mysterious Light Mirror itself 'couldn't comprehend' it."

Long Tian turned the fragment over between his fingers. The fine gold-and-black line of light glimmered faintly for a moment in the darkness. He looked up at the gray-clad man. "Who are you? Why are you helping me?"

The gray-clad man set down his tea bowl, meeting Long Tian's gaze in the moonlight. His expression remained calm, but when he spoke, there was something indefinable in his tone. "I used to be in the Iron Guard too, like your father. That autumn, when the Seventh Squad ran into trouble, I was responsible for escorting a shipment of supplies to the northern frontier, so I escaped disaster. By the time I returned, the Seventh Squad had already dispersed, and the case files had been sealed in the archives. I investigated for three years and found out nothing except that your father was still alive."

He paused, then continued, "The page of diagrams your father has is only the tip of the iceberg. The complete case file records more than just the principles. It also lists when and where the experiment was conducted, and the people who handled it. The original file is in a secret vault, but that's only what's on paper. There's something else hidden elsewhere-the person who originally led the experiment used a Mysterious Light Mirror to record the process, sealing the images inside its surface. That person later died, and the Mysterious Light Mirror was placed in Spirit City Academy's secret vault as part of their belongings."

Long Tian's breathing unconsciously grew quieter. He stroked the gold-and-black line on the fragment with the pad of his finger. Zhang Yueming's bronze mirror was only a Martial Soul projection; the actual Mysterious Light Mirror was in the academy's secret vault. And sealed inside that mirror was a visual record of the experiment.

The gray-clad man stood, drank the last mouthful of tea from his bowl, and turned it upside down on the table. "That's all I can tell you. You have that diagram, the embryonic form of the Power of Chaos, and a fragment bearing a chaos imprint stripped from the projected mirror. Together, those are enough to qualify you to approach the real Mysterious Light Mirror. But how you get it is up to you."

He turned and walked toward the mouth of the alley. After a few steps, he stopped without looking back and left Long Tian with one last remark. "I wasn't the one who made the new crease in the lower right corner of the scroll of diagrams your father left you. It was someone else. The three of you should keep an extra eye out while you're in the city."

The gray figure quickly melted into the night and disappeared at the mouth of the alley. Long Tian sat alone on the tea stall's low stool, clutching the bronze-colored fragment as he looked down at the fine gold-and-black light traveling across its surface. The night wind swept in from the mouth of the alley, blowing his collar up. The steam from the two bowls of tea on the table had completely dissipated, and the tea was as cold as water from a well.

He carefully tucked the fragment inside his clothes, placing it against the token, then stood and walked toward the other end of the alley. The forge fire at Old Chen's Blacksmith Shop had already gone out, and the shop door was locked tight. He did not knock, only stood outside for a moment before turning back to the inn.

When he pushed open the door to the inn room, Zhao Xiaopang was sprawled over the table, dozing. Chen Hao sat by the window and turned at the sound, his gaze falling on Long Tian's face. Long Tian closed the door, sat down at the table, and laid the fragment and the letter on its surface. The oil-lamp flame flickered, making the line of light on the fragment flash on and off, like a faint star fallen onto the dark tabletop.

"I'll go reply to the academy's invitation tomorrow," Long Tian said.