Night Journey
By the time Long Tian brought the wooden box to Old Chen's Blacksmith Shop, the forge fire had gone out. Old Chen sat on the threshold, mending a torn apron by the light of an oil lamp. When he saw Long Tian slip in from the mouth of the alley, his gaze lingered on the wooden box on his back. He asked nothing, only stepping aside to let him in.
Long Tian set the box in a dark corner of the back courtyard and lifted the lid to show Old Chen. The old man bent down and peered at the bronze mirror for several breaths. The ripples remaining on its surface flashed faintly in the lamplight. Old Chen straightened and closed the lid, then turned and dragged a rusty iron chest out of the corner. He put the wooden box inside and locked it, then shoved the chest back into the corner and packed several bundles of scrap iron tightly around it.
"Leave it here." He dusted off his hands. "How many other people know about this mirror?"
"Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang saw the images. The man in gray told me it existed. You and me included, that's everyone."
Old Chen nodded without asking who the man in gray was. He sat back down on the threshold and picked up the torn apron and his needle and thread, his tone as casual as if he were talking about the weather. "If that fellow in gray comes looking for you again, tell him not to meet you at the tea stall next time. There's a hidden compartment under the third mooring post at the southern docks. If you need to get word to him, slip a letter in there."
Long Tian committed it to memory. As he turned to leave, Old Chen added, "Your father's captain in the Iron Guard back then was surnamed Meng. His full name is Meng Changyuan. He's still in his post, in charge of internal inspection. With that copied manuscript in his hands, you'll have to meet him sooner or later."
Meng Changyuan. Long Tian silently repeated the name, tucked it away in his memory, and pushed open the door, melting into the night outside.
On his way back to the academy, he deliberately took a detour through several streets, making sure no one was following before slipping in through the side gate. The dormitory corridor was silent. Zhao Xiaopang's room had long since gone quiet, and only a sliver of light showed through the crack beneath Chen Hao's door. When Long Tian pushed his way in, Chen Hao was sitting on the edge of the bed, reading. He closed the book when Long Tian returned.
"Is it put away?"
"It is."
Long Tian took off his coat and hung it up, then sat on the edge of the bed and took the bronze-colored fragment from his robe. The gold-and-black patterns of light on its surface were a little brighter than they had been in the past few days. Contact with the bronze mirror seemed to have stirred something in it, and the luster flowing across it in the dark was warm and gentle on the eyes. He held the fragment against his palm and felt it for a moment. The sides of the three Soul Rings in his dantian nearest the fragment brightened slightly, as though greeting it across the gap.
"The images in the mirror," Chen Hao said, his voice low, "how much did you see?"
"From beginning to end, everything I could make out." Long Tian put the fragment away. "The walls of that hidden room were rough stone, and the floor was damp. The iron rings on the walls were heavily rusted, which means the place was at least three levels underground and never saw light all year round. The labels on the cage doors were white lettering on gray paper. I've seen the same paper in old Iron Guard letters-standard Iron Guard stationery."
Chen Hao frowned. "So that hidden room was probably under the Iron Guard's control? Or at least connected to the Iron Guard?"
"Under Meng Changyuan's control," Long Tian said. "I just got a name from Old Chen-Meng Changyuan, captain of the Iron Guard Internal Inspection Squad. He was the captain who took my father on that mission back then. If the images in the mirror showed experiments he oversaw, then the hidden room should have been somewhere under the Iron Guard's direct jurisdiction. What part of Spirit City does the Iron Guard directly control?"
Chen Hao thought for a moment, then got up and took a folded city defense map from beside the table, spreading it out on the tabletop. He had obtained it before entering the city. Though it wasn't precise, it marked the approximate locations of the main functional districts. He traced a circle around a gray area with his finger. "The Iron Guard's headquarters is in the north of the city, toward the west, next to the barracks. That area is surrounded by walls, and the guards check everyone closely. Outsiders can't get in."
"If the hidden room is beneath the Iron Guard headquarters... then we can't get in."
Chen Hao nodded, but his fingertip remained at the edge of the gray area on the map, and he seemed lost in thought. "But those images in the mirror are years old. What happened in the autumn of 2638 was exactly seven years ago. If the hidden room has remained in use, it may have been moved, because the original location was easy to discover. The best solution would be to find somewhere relatively isolated and hard to inspect, but still convenient for people within the Iron Guard to enter and leave."
Long Tian stared at the map for a long while, then suddenly remembered something. "There are a few abandoned air-raid shelters around Old Chen's Blacksmith Shop in the south of the city. They lead to the foundation level of the old city. Old Chen mentioned them once. He said they were built a hundred years ago, and most of them were later filled in when the city expanded, but some entrances remain. If the hidden room had to be moved out of the Iron Guard headquarters, that old foundation level would be the best place to hide it."
Chen Hao looked up at him. "Can you find an entrance?"
"Old Chen should know." Long Tian folded the city defense map and handed it back to Chen Hao. "I'll ask him tomorrow."
Long Tian slept lightly that night, the images from the bronze mirror playing over and over in his mind-the stone walls of the hidden room, the iron cages, the child's empty gaze, the light core that had been removed. Half asleep and half awake, he saw himself standing in that hidden room. The label on the cage door read "Test subject · light and dark twins · three rings," and inside the cage sat someone who looked exactly like him. That person looked up and smiled at him.
He jolted awake. Outside the window, dawn had yet to fully break, and the pale, gray light of an autumn morning seeped through the paper window. He felt his face and arms, and only after confirming that he was lying safely in his dormitory bed did he roll over and let out a stale breath.
Classes went on as usual during the day. Teacher Bai's morning lesson covered a method of regulating breathing through the Soul Power meridians. As Long Tian listened, he devoted a thread of attention to the tempering in his dantian. He could now loosen the gates of all three Soul Rings more than halfway at the same time. The Chaos Qi flowed through his meridians for several breaths longer than it had during the final, and the dull pain had lessened further. Teacher Bai happened to glance toward his seat, and her gaze paused on the fine sheen of sweat at his temples. She didn't interrupt him and continued through the rest of the lesson.
During the midday break, Long Tian went to Old Chen's Blacksmith Shop. The forge fire was blazing, and Old Chen was swinging his hammer to make a plowshare. When he saw Long Tian, he put down the hammer and wiped away his sweat. Long Tian asked about the air-raid shelters, and Old Chen paused in his work and led him into the small room in the back courtyard.
"There are three entrances to the old air-raid shelters in the south of the city." Old Chen counted them off on his fingers. "One is under my shop's cellar. It's sealed shut and can't be opened. Another is right against the foot of the old city wall. It was filled with cement years ago. The last one is an abandoned old well. There's a gap in the side of the well wall that you can squeeze through. The well is behind the old vegetable market in the south of the city. Its mouth is covered with a bluestone slab. You wouldn't notice it unless you looked closely."
"Where does the old well lead?"
"To the northern section of the old city's foundation level. It runs northeast all the way to a point west of the city center. If that hidden room is underground near the Iron Guard headquarters, you can follow that passage and make your way beneath the area."
Long Tian committed the location to memory. The old vegetable market, the old well, the bluestone slab.
That evening, he took Chen Hao to scout the place. The old vegetable market had been abandoned for years. Most of its roof had collapsed, leaving only a few crooked wooden posts holding up the broken tiled eaves. Weeds grew thick behind the market, and a jumble of broken stone slabs and roof tiles lay piled in a hollow. Long Tian pushed aside the waist-high weeds and saw a round bluestone slab embedded in the ground. Moss covered most of its edges; without a close look, it really did seem like an ordinary stone.
He crouched and tested the slab's weight. It was heavy, but he could lift it using hidden force with Soul Power. Beneath the slab was the black mouth of a well, its inner stone walls covered in damp moss. The depths were pitch-dark, and the faintest breeze rose from below, carrying a cool, musty smell.
Long Tian replaced the slab and covered its surface with weeds. He stood and exchanged a glance with Chen Hao. Neither said much, and they retraced their steps out of the old vegetable market.
By the time they returned to the dormitory, it was completely dark. Zhao Xiaopang was waiting for him in the corridor, clutching a small slip of paper. It had been pushed through the crack under the door. An address was written on it, along with a message: "That copied manuscript is in my hands. Midnight tomorrow, west gate of the Iron Guard camp in the north of the city. You alone. Come, or don't."
There was no signature. But Long Tian recognized the handwriting-it matched the shapes of the characters faintly visible in the water stains left by the bottom of the bowl the man in gray had set upside down on the table that night at the tea stall.
After reading the note, Chen Hao was silent for a while. "Midnight, the west gate. There may be patrols around the camp's perimeter."
"I know." Long Tian put the note away. "But I have to go. If the copied manuscript is in his hands, it's a complete record. More complete than the plans and the mirror put together."
He walked to the window and gazed north. A scattering of lights glimmered in that part of the city, and the wall traced a dark, heavy outline in the night. The wind blew in from the north, carrying the chill of the open fields and making the window frame creak. He reached up and pressed the stack of things against his chest, then lowered his head and mentally retraced tomorrow night's route.