Entering the Building
As soon as morning classes ended the next day, Long Tian went to the academic affairs office.
Zhao Min was at her desk marking a stack of forms. She looked up, slightly surprised to see him. "Long Tian? What is it?"
"Teacher Zhao, I'd like to ask you something." Long Tian stopped in the doorway, his tone respectful. "My Soul Rings are mixed-color, and as far as I know, there have been similar cases in Spirit City before. I'd like to check the academy's historical archives for records of Mixed-Color Martial Souls, to see how those who came before cultivated and whether there's anything I can learn from their experience."
The pen in Zhao Min's hand paused. She looked up at Long Tian for a few seconds, a subtle appraisal in her gaze, then set down her pen. "There really aren't many records of Mixed-Color Martial Souls, though there should be scattered mentions in our academy's old archives. If you're interested, I happen to be going to the old archives building this afternoon to retrieve some materials. I can take you in for a look."
Long Tian's heart skipped a beat, but he kept his expression neutral. "That would be wonderful. Thank you, Teacher Zhao."
"Meet me at the library entrance this afternoon, at the hour of the monkey."
Long Tian agreed and left, walking steadily back to the dormitory. Only after closing the door did he let out a long breath and give Zhao Xiaopang, who was hunched over the desk doing homework, a gesture meaning "success." Zhao Xiaopang dropped his pen and sprang up, Chen Hao turned from the windowsill, and the three of them went over their plan in low voices.
"Once I go in with her, you two stay away from the old archives building. Just watch from a distance," Long Tian said. "I'll find a chance to slip away and go to the fourth cabinet. It shouldn't be too hard to open. If there's an extra restriction on it, I'll leave it alone and come out once I've confirmed its location."
Chen Hao nodded. "We'll be outside the library to back you up. You have half a shichen. If you go over that or there's any commotion, Zhao Xiaopang will knock on the old archives building's door to draw attention away."
Zhao Xiaopang rubbed his hands. "...What should I say?"
"Say you got lost."
At the hour of the monkey, Long Tian arrived at the library entrance on time. Zhao Min was already waiting there, a ring of copper keys in her hand and a thin booklet tucked under her arm. She nodded when she saw him, then turned toward the cypress-shrouded path behind the library.
Long Tian followed at an unhurried pace. Zhao Min walked ahead without looking back, but her steps fell in an even rhythm; clearly, she had taken this path more than once. They circled behind the library and passed through the dense shade of the old cypresses. A corner of the old archives building's gray wall appeared through the branches and leaves. It was just as Long Tian remembered from seeing it at a distance: the building was not tall, with three stories, and some of the gray plaster had peeled from its outer walls, exposing the brick beneath. The windows were all nailed shut with boards from the inside; only the iron door at the ground-floor entrance offered a way for light to enter.
Zhao Min picked a long-toothed copper key from the ring and inserted it into the lock. It turned with a dull click. The hinges creaked rustily as she pushed the door open, and a smell of old dust and aged paper poured through the gap. She stepped aside to make room and motioned for Long Tian to follow, then crossed the threshold.
The instant Long Tian stepped through the iron door, a faint prickling swept over his skin, as though a thin film of Qi had brushed against him. He immediately realized it was the four-ring restriction, and that the threshold checked Soul Power cultivation. He was not repelled; the restriction merely swept over him once before withdrawing. That meant that although three-ring cultivation did not meet the standard for free passage, those below four rings were merely "unable to force their way through." If someone opened the door from inside, a three-ring cultivator would not be barred from crossing the threshold.
The restriction detected "breaking in," not "being brought in."
Beyond the iron door was a narrow corridor. Wall lamps were set into both sides every few paces, their shades thick with dust and their light dim and yellow. Zhao Min led the way, her footsteps echoing softly and steadily on the stone floor. At the end, the corridor forked left and right. Zhao Min turned right into a small hall, where several rows of sheet-metal cabinets stood against the walls, each door bearing a numbered label.
"The materials I'm retrieving are in the second cabinet." Zhao Min crouched in front of it and unlocked it. "Feel free to look around, but don't go too far. The records of Mixed-Color Martial Souls should be somewhere between cabinets three and five. Look for volume labels dated between the years 2635 and 2650."
Long Tian acknowledged her and turned toward the back of the hall. His gaze swept over the numbered labels-the third cabinet, the fourth cabinet. His heartbeat sounded especially clear in the quiet old building, but he kept his steps featherlight, silent as a cat treading on an old floor. He stopped in front of the fourth cabinet. A thin layer of dust covered its door, and its lock had an old-fashioned copper core, almost identical to the one in the library basement.
He did not rush to pick the lock. First, he cocked an ear toward the sounds behind him. Zhao Min was leafing through files at the other cabinet, the rustle of turning pages reaching him intermittently from a few paces away. Long Tian crouched, formed his Shadow Dragon Power into a fine thread, and sent it into the keyhole. His fingertips shifted slightly as he worked the tumblers inside. He had some experience picking locks, though he was no expert. The lock's mechanism was a little more complicated than the one in the basement, and it took him seven or eight breaths to find the catch on the first tumbler.
The second tumbler, the third... When the last one sprang free, the lock gave an extremely faint click. Long Tian held his breath and waited a moment. Only after making sure Zhao Min had noticed nothing did he gently pull the cabinet door open.
The cabinet was divided into two levels. Several stacks of yellowed account books filled the upper shelf, while the lower one was empty except for a flat wooden box in one corner. Its lacquer was mottled, and its corners were sheathed in copper. It was about a foot long and seven inches wide, just thick enough to hold a bronze mirror. Long Tian gently lifted the box and weighed it in his hand. It was slightly heavy, and the lid was not locked; a thin copper wire had merely been wound around it twice.
He picked the wire loose with a fingernail and lifted the lid. Sure enough, a bronze mirror lay inside. Its face was about seven inches across, and the bronze had the dull sheen of age. A faint pattern hovered at the center of the mirror's surface, like the lingering traces of ripples that had just stilled on water. Intricate designs covered the back, with a sword and a star carved around the center. A fine line marked the center of the star, exactly matching the pattern on the gray-clad man's wax seal.
Long Tian did not reach out to touch the mirror's surface. He only swept it with Shadow Vision. Deep within the ripple-like pattern at its center, there was indeed a barely perceptible trace of residual Soul Power, exceedingly ancient and faint, like something long sealed away finally glimpsing light for an instant. He closed the lid, rewound the copper wire, returned the box to its place, shut the cabinet door, and locked it again. The whole process took less than half the time needed to drink a cup of tea, and Zhao Min's pages were still rustling when he finished.
He turned back to the third cabinet, pulled out an old volume for show, and flipped through a couple of pages. By the time Zhao Min locked the second cabinet and walked over, he was looking down at a yellowed record.
"Did you find anything?" Zhao Min asked.
"I saw a few scattered records of Mixed-Color Soul Rings." Long Tian closed the volume and put it back. "But most were mixed-color mutations associated with Beast Martial Souls. There weren't any records of twin light-and-dark mixed rings like mine."
Zhao Min nodded without saying much more and led him back the way they had come. When the iron door was locked again, Long Tian heard the restriction hum softly behind it, like a bell lightly struck before falling silent once more.
On their way back along the corridor, Zhao Min suddenly spoke. "If you want to look through the old archives on your own in the future, you can come to me for the key. Research into Mixed-Color Martial Souls really is a blind spot, so it's a good thing you're willing to put in the work yourself."
Long Tian's steps faltered, and he looked up at her. Zhao Min's expression was normal, and her tone was that of a teacher speaking ordinarily to a student; he could detect no hidden meaning. He hurriedly replied, "Thank you, Teacher Zhao."
Back at the dormitory, he closed the door and told Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang in a low voice what had happened in the old archives building. The mirror was indeed there, the wooden box was intact and had no extra seal, and the cabinet had an ordinary copper lock. The only problem was how to get the box out without being discovered. Zhao Min, who had taken him inside, had already said, "If you want to come on your own, you can ask me for the key," giving him legitimate access on the face of it.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Zhao Xiaopang said excitedly in a low voice. "One day when she goes to check other archives, you can just go in and take it!"
Long Tian shook his head. "She could take me in today because she happened to be retrieving other materials. Next time, if I take the key and go in alone to look through the 'old archives,' she'll definitely know that what I'm really looking for isn't what I told her. I have to make my move on a day when she's away from the academy, or find a way to make her think my visit to the archives building has nothing to do with the Mysterious Light Mirror."
Chen Hao leaned against the windowsill and thought for a moment. "Have you figured out your class schedule and the pattern of when you run into her?"
"Not yet. Give me three days."
Long Tian walked to the window and looked out at the darkening sky. A cool autumn-night breeze seeped through the gap in the window, stirring the pages of the books spread across the desk. They rustled as they turned, then fell shut again. In the distance, the library's outline was no more than a dark shadow in the dusk. The branches and leaves of the old cypresses behind it swayed gently in the wind, hiding the pointed roof of the gray building.
He took the bronze-colored fragment from inside his robes and gripped it in his palm. The gold-and-black pattern of light on its surface brightened, then dimmed again, as though answering the ripples sleeping deep within the bronze mirror in the archives building not far away.
Soon, he thought. Just a few more days.