^O^

In the days after obtaining his fourth ring, Long Tian entered another period of building up his strength.

Without fail, he meditated for two shichen every morning and evening, nourishing and stabilizing the patterns of his new Soul Ring inch by inch. Four Soul Rings formed a complete circular array in his dantian, with the Origin Return Pearl hovering and turning slowly at its center. The Chaos Halo was a ring wider than before, covering the inner edges of all four Soul Rings as it circulated. The pearl had grown to the size of a walnut, and extremely fine, pale golden lines had begun to seep through the gray-white halo on its surface, fine and even like the crackling in a glaze.

Long Tian tried opening the gates of all four Soul Rings to their limits at once. Four streams of refined light and dark Qi flowed into the heart of the vortex. The Origin Return Pearl jolted, its gray-white halo flared for an instant, and the Chaos Halo expanded to its maximum, covering nearly half the space in his dantian. In that instant, he felt a warm, gentle force swell through all the meridians in his body, stretching them open. His Soul Power circulated more than twice as fast, but the effect lasted less than a few breaths before it began to fade. He ended the exercise and caught his breath. His palms were slightly hot, and a lingering soreness remained in the walls of his meridians after being stretched full. The power of four rings was much more robust than that of three, but there was still some distance to go before he reached five.

After winter began, the weather grew colder by the day. The academy's ginkgo leaves had long since fallen, leaving bare branches reaching toward the leaden sky. One morning, Zhao Xiaopang came running to find him, clutching a crumpled, folded note. He said he had gotten it from an old man selling roasted sweet potatoes near the old vegetable market. The old man had asked him to pass it on to "that kid who came to turn over the bluestone slab last time."

Long Tian unfolded the note and glanced at it. The handwriting was scrawled, clearly written in haste: "The men by the iron gate withdrew last night. Number Seventeen is to be transferred. The time is unknown, but it could be in the next two or three days."

He clenched the note, then loosened his grip. Sweat from his palm soaked one corner of the paper. Chen Hao leaned over and took a look, and the two exchanged a silent glance.

That evening, Long Tian went alone to Old Chen's Blacksmith Shop. Old Chen was sorting through old pieces of iron in the shop. After listening to the news from the note, he put down his work and squatted on the threshold, silent for a long while. The last piece of charcoal in the forge crackled, and a spark flew out and landed on his shoe. He stamped his foot.

"You're going now," Old Chen said. His tone made it a statement, not a question.

"Tomorrow night." Long Tian squatted beside him, and the two sat side by side on the threshold, watching the lights come on one by one in the dusk at the mouth of the alley. "Four rings can't open a five-ring restriction, but I might have a way."

He briefly explained the Origin Return Pearl. The pearl was the core that had condensed after light and darkness fused, essentially a crystallization of the Power of Chaos. Soul Power restrictions worked by checking whether the attributes of incoming Soul Power matched. A five-ring threshold restriction checked "whether one's cultivation had reached five rings." But the Origin Return Pearl's chaos attribute had never been recorded in the Martial Soul world, so the restriction's detection mechanism might not recognize it. If he let the Origin Return Pearl's Qi cover the surface of his Soul Power, he might be able to fool the restriction into thinking the intruder's Soul Power fell outside its detection range.

Old Chen did not speak immediately after hearing him out. He reached into the forge and turned over the last piece of charcoal, burned through, pressing its sparks out. After a long while, he finally spoke. "How long have you been getting used to that pearl?"

"A little over a month."

"You've only been getting used to it for a little over a month, and you're already going to use it to force your way through a five-ring restriction. If the restriction identifies the pearl as a foreign object, the force of its backlash will be much greater than if it simply rejected an intruder. You'll be badly hurt." Old Chen stood and walked over to the anvil, picked up his hammer, then put it down again. "But if Number Seventeen is transferred, you won't even have a chance to try."

Long Tian nodded.

Old Chen paced a few steps around the shop, then stopped in front of the iron chest in the dark corner, the one with the bronze mirror locked inside. He patted its lid. "I'll be waiting here tomorrow night. You go down through the well, and if something happens and you can't climb out, at least you can hold on until someone goes down to get you."

"All right."

That night, Long Tian checked the things he needed to bring. He did not take the copied manuscript, leaving it in the deepest recess under his bed. He had committed every detail of his father's plans to memory, and left the original put away as well. He brought only the token, jade pendant, protective talisman, bronze-colored fragment, and a small coil of thin rope. He could not carry the Origin Return Pearl on his person; it was in his dantian. The restriction detected Soul Power Qi, and dantian Qi was carried with him.

After nightfall, Long Tian and Chen Hao made their way back to the old well. His movements were quicker than last time as he lifted the bluestone slab, and the sound of the rope descending into the well was especially clear in the darkness. He slid down the rope and squeezed through the opening, with Chen Hao close behind. The two hurried south through the passage. The light of the fire stick wavered through the archway, stretching and shortening their shadows.

Long Tian slowed when they reached the spot where the side chamber stood. Another cup of tea's walk ahead was the iron gate. He took a deep breath and slowly gathered and compressed the Soul Power in his dantian, letting the Origin Return Pearl's Qi spread out bit by bit and envelop its surface. The walnut-sized pearl turned slowly, its gray-white halo spreading outward to cover the entire array of four Soul Rings. It then seeped onto the surface of the Soul Power in his meridians, forming an exceedingly thin, faint film of chaos light around his body.

He walked several dozen more steps, and an iron gate appeared at the end of the passage. Its heavy panels were cast with a dense pattern of formation lines, which gleamed a dull silver-blue in the fire stick's light. Rune stones were set into both sides of the frame, their surfaces smooth as mirrors. Above them, residual Soul Power fluctuations formed a barely discernible barrier, like a transparent wall of water across the front of the gate.

Long Tian stopped in front of the gate. The water-like barrier rippled slowly before him, and he could sense the formation structure operating within it: intricate, stable, and completely closed. The restriction was functioning normally, detecting everyone who tried to approach it.

He handed the fire stick to Chen Hao, freeing both hands, and took a step forward.

The Origin Return Pearl suddenly spun faster in his dantian, and its gray-white halo spilled from the surface of his body and merged with the film of chaos light. The instant his toe touched the edge of the barrier, a ring of ripples spread violently across its silver-blue surface. But instead of repelling him or exploding as he had expected, the ripples slid outward along the Origin Return Pearl's Qi, like a stone dropped into water, the waves spreading before closing together again.

An extremely narrow gap opened in the barrier before him. The silver-blue light at its edges trembled violently, like a wound forced apart by some power, constantly trying to close. Long Tian did not hesitate. He turned sideways and squeezed into the gap. The film of chaos light scraped against the barrier's edges with a piercing sound, and he felt immense pressure surge against his shoulder and waist from both sides, nearly crushing his ribs. He gritted his teeth and kept squeezing through. The Origin Return Pearl spun faster and faster, its gray-white halo flickering rapidly, while all four Soul Rings in his dantian shook together.

The last inch-and his entire body passed through the barrier. He fell to the ground on the inner side of the iron gate. Behind him, the gap quickly closed, and the silver-blue barrier returned to the shape of an unbroken surface of water, as calm as before.

Chen Hao watched him from a distance through the barrier. His lips moved, but no sound came out. He only raised a palm in a gesture-take care of yourself.

Long Tian braced himself against the ground and stood, taking a couple of ragged breaths. His shoulder and ribs ached dully, but his muscles and bones were uninjured. He looked back at the restored barrier, then turned to examine the space before him. Beyond the iron gate was a stone corridor narrower than the passage outside. Rusted iron brackets were set into the walls on both sides, with several dusty oil lamps resting on them. At the end of the corridor, a steep flight of stone steps led downward. When he stepped onto them, the stone walls swallowed the echoes completely.

He descended the steps level by level. With each level, the air grew colder, and a barely perceptible smell of rust began to mingle with the damp scent of earth. At the turn on the third level, he stopped. Several stone chambers stood on either side of the corridor ahead, their doors made of thick iron bars. Behind the bars, human figures could just be made out, curled up in the shadows of the corners.

Long Tian walked slowly over and crouched in front of the nearest chamber. The fire stick's light shone through the gaps in the bars, revealing a figure curled up on the ground, gaunt and small, wrapped in a torn scrap of cloth whose color could no longer be made out. His arms were covered in purplish needle marks, his knuckles were withered, and tangled hair covered most of his face. Sensing the light, he slowly raised his head-a gaunt face of a child of about eleven or twelve. His eyes were dim and clouded, with an extremely faint gold-and-black ember lingering deep within them.

Long Tian brought the fire stick closer and made out the label on the cage door: "Test Subject Number Seventeen · compound, awaiting fusion · time remaining: unknown."

The child looked at him, his lips moving as he made a sound so soft it was almost inaudible. "...Who?"

Long Tian crouched outside the iron bars and set the fire stick on the ground, looking through them at the child, who was about his own age. The Origin Return Pearl in his dantian turned gently, as if responding to some lingering echo drifting from afar. He reached out and gripped a thick bar. Golden and black light rose together in his palm, then fused into a layer of warm, gentle gray-white. The places where that light covered the iron began to heat slightly. The bars were thick; melting through them would take at least several breaths.

"My name is Long Tian," he said. "I've come to take you out."

Deep inside the stone chamber, the child kept his eyes open, the gold-and-black embers still lingering in their depths. He gazed at the layer of gray-white light in Long Tian's palm, and his lips moved again, but he made no further sound.

Above the stone steps, the barrier still glimmered calmly with silver-blue light. Higher still, in the depths of the night, someone had lit a lamp and was going through a list. The second-to-last line read "Number Seventeen · light-dark compound, awaiting fusion." Beside it lay a dark gray wax seal, the crack at the center of its sword-and-star emblem as clear as if it were new. Outside the window, wind and snow were on their way. Tiny grains of snow had begun to patter against the paper window with a soft rustle.