Night Copy
The following evening, Long Tian finished his meal early.
He sat on the edge of his bed and checked everything he needed to bring: his token, jade pendant, protective talisman and copper-colored fragment. He tucked them all close to his body, then chose an old dark gray coat that would be hard to spot in the night. Chen Hao leaned against the doorway with his arms folded, watching him tuck the items into his clothes one by one. Only when he was done did Chen Hao speak. "I'll be waiting two streets outside the west gate. Once you go in, no matter what you get, if you're not out in half an hour at most, I'll go find Old Chen."
"Got it." Long Tian tied his coat, stood up and rolled his shoulders. "I'm off."
The walk from the academy to the Iron Guard camp in the north of the city took a little over an hour. He didn't walk particularly fast, choosing quiet alleys along the way and stopping now and then to listen for sounds behind him. Nothing happened on the way. By the time he reached the outskirts of the camp, night was thick as ink. The wall around the Iron Guard camp was nearly two zhang higher than the academy's, with barbed wire strung along the top. Lanterns hung from the battlements at intervals, their light dim and yellow but bright enough to illuminate the base of the wall. The west gate was hidden deep in a secluded alley at the camp's northwest corner. The iron gate was small, and most of its paint had peeled away, revealing rust beneath. There were no guards beside it, but a faint line of light seeped out from the other side.
Long Tian waited in the shadows at the mouth of the alley for about the time it took to drink a cup of tea. As midnight drew near, the line of light behind the gate dimmed. The gate then opened a crack without a sound, and a gray sleeve reached through and beckoned to him. Long Tian hurried down the alley and squeezed sideways through the opening. The gate closed silently behind him.
The man in gray stood in the shadows behind the gate, carrying an old oil lamp with half its light shielded. It illuminated his utterly unremarkable face. He dispensed with pleasantries, saying only, "Follow me," before turning down a narrow path into the camp. Long Tian followed, keeping his footsteps as light as possible while his gaze swept over the outlines of the surrounding buildings. The camp was larger than he had imagined, with several rows of single-story gray-brick buildings arranged at uneven intervals. Most of the windows were pitch-black; only the main building in the distance still showed a few lights. The man in gray took two turns and led him into a low storeroom, where he set the lamp on a wooden crate and shut the door.
The storeroom was piled with battered camp beds and several broken tables and chairs. The smell of dust was thick enough to choke on. The man in gray crouched, reached behind a loose brick in the corner and pulled out a thick roll of paper. He hefted it in his hands, then passed it to Long Tian.
"A copy, complete," he said. "The list of names, locations, timeline and experiment records are all in there. I spent four years copying it in bits and pieces. The originals have already been destroyed."
Long Tian took the roll. It was heavier than he had expected, the pages thick and the roll as wide as his forearm. He didn't rush to open it. Instead, he looked at the man in gray. "Why are you going this far to help me?"
The man's eyes flickered in the dim lamplight. "Back when your father was investigating this, I was following his leads too. After he stopped, I took over, but there was too little one man could do. Now you're here, stronger than your father was back then, and sooner. If I don't help you, who would I help?"
He paused, then added, "There's an address attached to the last page of the copy. It's the site where the experiment is currently being conducted. It was moved there in 2641, to the southern section of the old city's foundation level. Once you get through from the old well you found, it's another tea-time's walk south. There's an iron gate at the entrance, locked with a Soul Power restriction. Only someone with five Soul Rings or more can open it. You can't get in at your current cultivation level."
Five Soul Rings. Long Tian held the roll against his chest and looked at the man in gray, his gaze heavy. The man met his eyes. "There's no use rushing. The copy has a more detailed breakdown of the Fusion Technique. Study that thoroughly first, get your cultivation above four Soul Rings, then use the tempering method your father gave you to make your fusion of light and darkness more stable. Once you've done that, the iron gate won't be a problem for you."
He stood, picked up the oil lamp and lifted a corner of its shade to let out a little more light. "You should go. Once you get the copy back, hide it well. Don't let a third person know you have it."
Long Tian tucked the roll inside his coat and wrapped it tightly in a cloth bag. He followed the man in gray back the way they had come to the west gate. Once again, the iron gate opened a crack without a sound, and Long Tian squeezed through into the alley. The man in gray gave him a glance from behind the gate before closing it. The line of light in the gap vanished, and the camp's west gate melted back into the heavy darkness.
Long Tian pressed a hand against the copy inside his coat and hurried through the streets and alleys he had taken on his way there. When he reached the meeting point, Chen Hao emerged from the shadows at the corner of a wall. The two exchanged a glance without speaking and returned silently to the academy, one behind the other. All the lights in the dormitory building had gone out. They made their way upstairs in the dark, and only after they had entered their room did Long Tian let out a long, stale breath. He sat down by the table and took out the roll, placing it on his lap.
Chen Hao handed him a small oil lamp, and Long Tian adjusted the wick to make it brighter. He untied the string around the roll. The pages had yellowed, but the writing was neat and clear, tiny characters packed closely together from the first page to the last. He turned to the list of names and saw more than a dozen, many crossed out in red ink-those were probably people who had already died. A line had been added at the end of the list later, in a different hand from the main text: "Test subject no. 17 · alive · currently in the dark room."
There was one still alive.
Long Tian closed the file and tied the copy back up. Rather than immediately turn to the precise address later in the document, he sat for a while with the whole roll in his arms. The oil lamp's flame swayed gently in the breeze slipping through the window, making the shadows of the table and stool stretch and shrink. He looked down at the number written in fine strokes on the file's cover: "Seventh Squad · confidential · copy one." The character for "one" had been traced over three times, its strokes trembling slightly, as though the hand of the person copying it had been unsteady at that point.
He put the copy in the deepest part beneath his bed, beside the empty box left behind by the bronze mirror, and covered it with clothes. Then he blew out the lamp and lay down. In the darkness, he stared at the ceiling with his eyes open. Three Soul Rings revolved quietly in his dantian, while light and dark Qi silently worked against each other at the edge of the gate. The threshold of five Soul Rings sounded far away, but he had worked it out: if he pushed with all his strength between the ages of nine and ten, he should be able to reach four Soul Rings in time. The fifth would take another year or two. Test subject no. 17 was still alive and had waited for him in the dark room for so many years. Surely the subject could hold on for another year or two.
He pulled the blanket up a little and closed his eyes.
Outside the window, the wind rose, wailing over the roof tiles for a while before stopping. The night fell silent once more. Far away, behind the high wall of the camp in the north of the city, the oil lamp in the storeroom had already gone out, and the man in gray sat motionless in the darkness for a long time. He opened his hand and looked at his palm. An old scar ran from the web between his thumb and forefinger to his wrist bone, faded white with age. Slowly, he clenched his hand into a fist. His bones cracked several times, the sound unusually clear in the empty storeroom.