The Bronze Mirror
Over the next two days, Long Tian got a general sense of Zhao Min's schedule.
She worked at the academic affairs office from the end of morning classes until lunch. She was usually out of the office in the afternoon, either observing classes in the different grades or attending meetings elsewhere. Every Thursday afternoon, without fail, a regular teaching and research meeting ran from a quarter past three to a quarter to six. Long Tian worked it out: from the start of the meeting until she returned to her office, there was a gap of nearly three hours, enough time for him to make a trip to the old archives building.
On Wednesday night, he went over the plan one last time with Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang. Zhao Xiaopang's "getting lost tactic" had been upgraded: if anyone approached the old archives building along the way, he would emerge from the cypress bushes at the side and pretend to be a lost freshman, drawing their attention away. Chen Hao would keep watch from a plane tree on the outskirts of the library grounds, where he could see the entrance and front corridor of the old archives building. If anything happened, he would drop a pebble; the sound of it hitting the ground would be the signal.
On Thursday afternoon, shortly after a quarter past three, Long Tian knocked on the door of the academic affairs office. As expected, Zhao Min had already left. Only an assistant was there, sorting documents. Long Tian said he hadn't finished looking through an old file and wanted to go back that afternoon. Teacher Zhao had already agreed to let him borrow the key. The assistant looked through the key tray on Zhao Min's desk, found the long-toothed copper key, and handed it to him. After recording the time he borrowed it, the assistant let him go.
Long Tian gripped the key in his palm as he left the academic affairs building, walking steadily across the main thoroughfare before turning toward the library. The autumn wind sent fallen leaves spinning across the ground and sweeping into the corners of walls. He pulled his coat tight and went around the row of old cypresses, bringing the gray walls of the old archives building into view. The iron door was locked, and the restriction operated silently behind it. When he inserted and turned the copper key, the lock felt exactly as it had last time. The hinges resisted for a moment, then the door opened.
The restriction swept across his skin again as he crossed the threshold. This time he was prepared, and for an instant the sensation of passing through it became clear: it really did check only for "forced entry," doing nothing to stop someone who was "brought in" or "entered with a key." Once he stepped inside, the iron door closed behind him. The corridor within was dim and silent, with only his own footsteps echoing softly against the flagstones.
He turned right into the small hall with practiced ease and crouched in front of the fourth cabinet to pick its lock. He was much more accustomed to it this time. The tumblers sprang open one after another, and the lock core came loose with a click. He pulled open the cabinet door and took out the wooden box, gently unwound the copper wire wrapped twice around it, and lifted the lid. The bronze mirror's dull, aged sheen reflected the dim lamplight filtering in from the corridor.
Long Tian didn't hesitate. He picked up the entire box and tucked it into a cloth bag secured inside his coat. His movements were quick and steady as he closed and relocked the cabinet, slipped the copper key back into his pocket, and turned to leave.
As he left the small hall and entered the narrow corridor, he heard footsteps.
They came from the direction of the iron door, neither heavy nor hurried, one step after another striking the flagstones in an even rhythm. Long Tian stopped short. Shadow Dragon Power instantly covered his entire body, and he slipped sideways into the shadow cast by the wall at the corner, huddling where the light couldn't reach and keeping his breathing to a minimum. The footsteps drew closer and closer, then stopped at the end of the corridor.
A figure appeared at the corner. He was stocky, dressed in the academy guards' gray uniform, and carried a lantern whose flame burned steadily inside its glass cover. The guard's gaze swept the corridor and paused at the corner where Long Tian was hiding-but Shadow Dragon Power's concealment made the shadows there especially dense. After looking for a breath, the guard shifted his gaze, turned, and headed down another branching passage.
The footsteps gradually receded.
Long Tian waited until the sound had vanished completely before emerging from the shadows. Keeping close to the wall, he hurried to the iron door. He reached out to push it, but the latch had already been locked-the guard had fastened a lock on the outside of the iron door when he came in. Long Tian fished the copper key from his pocket, inserted it into the keyhole, and turned it. It didn't budge. The key didn't fit the lock on this side of the door; the guard had used a different lock.
He stood behind the iron door, listening to the quiet wind outside and the faint voices in the distance, and remained silent for two breaths. Then he turned and headed deeper into the corridor. The old archives building had more than this one exit on the first floor. Zhao Min hadn't mentioned the upper floor last time, but he could look for himself.
He followed the corridor to its end, where a narrow staircase appeared around the corner. Dust covered its wooden steps, which creaked when he stepped on them. He carefully climbed to the second floor. Its corridor was narrower and darker than the one below, with only one wall lamp still burning, its light feeble. He walked partway down the corridor and found a small window set into the inner side of the wall. Its shutter had been nailed shut from the inside, but the wood had rotted with age. He made several cuts along the seams with a thin blade formed from shadow, loosening a piece of the board. Looking through the opening, he saw the base of the wall on the north side of the old archives building. Beyond the wall was a narrow alley, overgrown with weeds and empty of people.
He put more force into the shadow's cutting and removed the whole board. The window opening wasn't large, but it was big enough for him to squeeze through. He secured the wooden box tightly to his back, gripped the windowsill with both hands, and lowered himself through the opening. Bracing his toes against the protruding brick joints on the outer wall, he slowly descended to the ground. His knees bent slightly to absorb the impact when he landed. Old fallen leaves and broken roof tiles lay piled in the alley, crunching softly beneath his feet.
Keeping close to the wall, he followed the narrow alley around to the front. In the distance, he saw Chen Hao's figure shift in the plane tree. Chen Hao's gaze settled on him for an instant, then moved away as he pretended to admire the scenery. Long Tian quickened his pace through the cypress bushes, circled back to the main road, and blended in with the sparse pedestrians, striding toward the dormitory.
When he pushed open the dorm room door, Zhao Xiaopang was sitting on the edge of a bed, anxiously rubbing his fingers together. Seeing him enter, Zhao Xiaopang sprang up and nearly shouted, but forced himself to hold back, squeezing out only, "Did it work?"
"It worked." Long Tian untied the wooden box from his back and set it on the table. Zhao Xiaopang came over and circled it, looking it over. He reached out to touch it, then pulled his hand back. Long Tian drew aside a corner of the curtain and glanced downstairs-the courtyard was as peaceful as ever, and no one had followed him. Only then did he sit down at the table, unwind the copper wire, and lift the lid.
When the bronze mirror was exposed to the afternoon light in the room, an extremely faint ripple appeared in its dull, aged surface, like the lingering wake of a pebble dropped into still water. Long Tian slowly sent his Soul Power into the mirror. It gave a low hum, and the ripples on its surface began to tremble violently-then a blurred mass of light and shadow poured from its center, spreading out above the table.
Within the light and shadow was a dark chamber with rough stone walls and a damp floor. Iron rings were set into the walls, with chains locked to them, and people at the ends of the chains-one, two, three. Several rows of iron cages stood along either side of the chamber. Most of the people inside were curled up, their features impossible to make out, but labels were attached to the cage doors, bearing Martial Soul names and numbers. In the shifting image, people in dark gray robes walked back and forth, their faces blurred, carrying record books as they moved among the cages.
The image shifted. A person in one cage struggled violently, golden and black light bursting from their entire body-then the light exploded, and a mist of blood filled the entire image. The floor of the dark chamber was stained a deep color. Someone crouched beside the corpse, cut open its back with a knife, and extracted a glowing Light Core that was still pulsing from where the spine lay.
Zhao Xiaopang jerked his head away, a retch rising in his throat. Chen Hao's face also grew a few shades paler, his fingers gripping the edge of the windowsill tightly.
Long Tian didn't look away. He stared at the extracted Light Core. The image in the dark chamber flickered and jumped to another scene-a child of about eight or nine was locked in an iron cage. The label on the cage door read, "Test subject No. 7 · light attribute · level seven." Beside it was another line in small print: "Prepared for fusion with No. 16, dark attribute." The child looked up and glanced outside the cage, their gaze vacant and numb, like the wick of a lamp nearly burned out.
Long Tian withdrew his Soul Power from the mirror. The light and shadow dispersed, and the bronze mirror returned to its silent, aged sheen. All that remained on the table was the dull bronze disc, along with the silent breathing of the three boys.
"This experiment," Long Tian began, his voice steadier than he himself had expected, "some people also called it 'Composite Martial Soul.' The person whose Light Core they took was a Soul Master too, just like us."
Zhao Xiaopang covered his mouth and said quietly, "They... they dug Soul Masters' Martial Souls out of their bodies and put them into other people?"
"More than that." Long Tian closed the bronze mirror back inside the box and rewound the copper wire. "The records my father saw back then made it very clear-after they were put in, most people died from rejection, and those who survived had already gone mad. That child locked in the cage... was probably 'material' waiting to be used for fusion."
The room was quiet for a long while. Outside, the wind blew past, stirring the age-group competition medal on the wall. It tapped lightly against its nail with a faint metallic chime.
Long Tian put the wooden box at the very back under the bed and covered it with old clothes. He stood and walked to the window, gazing at the distant gray sky as thin autumn clouds drifted slowly above the city tower. He didn't know what had happened to the child in that cage-whether the child had survived and become some kind of monster, died in the dark chamber and had their Light Core extracted, or was still waiting in an iron cage in some underground chamber to be sent into the next round of fusion.
He reached up and touched the stack of things against his chest-the drawings, the token, the fragment, the protective charm. All the clues were in his hands; what remained was to link them into a complete path.
"The mirror can't stay in the dorm," he said, turning to Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang. "I'll take it to Old Chen tonight. It's safer at his place than here. Starting tomorrow, we need to find a place-that experiment is still going on, and the dark chamber where they're holding people should still be somewhere underground in Spirit City."
Chen Hao looked at him. "You're going to rescue them?"
"First we find the place," Long Tian said. "Once we've found it, we'll talk about how to rescue them."
He bent down, pulled the wooden box out from under the bed, and strapped it to his back again. He opened the door and glanced outside. The corridor was empty. Afternoon sunlight slanted in from the far end, falling across the dust on the floor. He looked back and nodded to the two of them, then pushed the door open and walked into the light and shadow.