Twins

During his first few days in his new home, Yu Jin spent almost every waking moment on that breathing method.

Long Tian visited him every night and found him sitting straighter and breathing more deeply and steadily each time. At first, Yu Jin could only bring out the wisp of golden-black light in his palm for a few breaths before it faded. By the fourth night, the light could remain steady for almost half the time it took to drink a cup of tea, and its colors had grown somewhat more even. The gold and black no longer wandered separately and had begun to wind around each other. Yu Jin himself was surprised. He stopped practicing and looked down at the lingering glow in his palm, the spark of light in his eyes flickering.

"Faster than before," he said quietly. "Before, I kept them suppressed, and they just stayed huddled inside. Now that I've let them out... they want to keep growing outward on their own."

"Let them keep growing." Sitting opposite him, Long Tian used a charcoal pencil he had picked out of a pile of old books to draw several lines on a sheet of paper, tracing the paths of his meridians. "The blockages in your meridians didn't form in a day. You have to dissolve them layer by layer. If you can hold on for almost half a cup of tea now, try for a full cup tomorrow. Stop when you reach your limit. Add a little more the day after."

Yu Jin nodded, his gaze falling on the sheets of paper. Long Tian pushed the finished diagram over to him. "These are the paths of my own meridians. Follow them and feel whether yours are roughly the same. Twin light and dark Martial Souls should follow similar paths, but the points where they converge may be in different places for each person. Adjust according to what you feel."

Yu Jin took the paper and studied it for a long time, slowly tracing the lines with his fingertip. He said nothing, but folded it neatly and tucked it under his pillow.

On the fifth night, when Long Tian pushed the door open, Yu Jin was sitting cross-legged on the bed, both hands resting open on his knees. An exceedingly thin golden-black halo enveloped him, much denser than it had been a few days earlier. Two halos slowly revolved and crossed over each other on his body, like two tiny, slender dragons swimming across his skin. Hearing the door, he stopped practicing and opened his eyes. There was a little more light in them than before. Though he was still emaciated, most of that ash-like air of death had faded.

"Just now..." Long Tian stopped in the doorway. "Did you fully release your Martial Soul?"

Yu Jin nodded and raised his right hand. A fist-sized mass of golden-black light hovered over his palm, with two slender dragon forms swimming and intertwining within it, one brilliant gold and the other inky black. They were much smaller than the spectral forms of Long Tian's Martial Soul, but they were wound extremely tightly together, touching almost everywhere from their heads to the tips of their tails, like two strands of rope braided together.

Long Tian watched the mass of light as the Origin Return Pearl in his dantian suddenly turned slightly. He walked to the bed, crouched down, and raised his own right hand. Golden light and dark mist rose from his palm at the same time, but the two forces each occupied one side, separated by a faint gap. He brought his hand close to the light in Yu Jin's palm. When the two forces were half an inch apart, Yu Jin's two intertwined dragon forms suddenly tilted toward Long Tian, as though something were drawing them.

"You felt it?" Yu Jin asked.

"I felt it." Long Tian stared at the light as the Origin Return Pearl spun increasingly steadily in his dantian, its grayish-white halo slowly spreading outward. "Your light and dark are fused more closely than mine. There's still a gap between mine, but yours are almost touching."

Yu Jin withdrew the light in his palm and looked down at his fingers. "I used to suppress them, so they were squeezed together. After being squeezed together for so long, they couldn't separate anymore. After you helped me open them up... they were still used to staying close."

Long Tian fell silent for a while, then sat down beside the bed. An old wooden chest stood between them. The fire in the iron brazier in the corner burned brightly, casting their overlapping shadows onto the floor in a blurred patch of darkness. Long Tian released a trace of the Origin Return Pearl's presence. A grayish-white halo rippled gently through the air, slowly approaching Yu Jin. Yu Jin's fingers moved, and the lingering golden-black glow seeped out between them to meet the grayish-white light. The two presences brushed gently against each other in the air between them, without repelling one another, like two feathers of different frequencies carried into each other by the same gust of wind.

Yu Jin suddenly looked up at Long Tian. "I've seen you in my dreams."

Long Tian was startled. "You've seen me?"

"That gray river. There was a speck of light at the bottom. Every time I dreamed of it, it rose and sank in the same place. Then you came, and the light came ashore." Yu Jin's voice was soft, but every word was clear. "You carry that light's presence. It's exactly the same as what I smelled in my dream."

Long Tian withdrew the Origin Return Pearl's presence and looked down at his chest. The walnut-sized gray pearl hung quietly in his dantian, spinning more slowly than when it had first formed. But each revolution brought forth a softer, warmer halo, like the pearly sheen that emerged after grains of sand had polished the inside of a shell again and again. He didn't know what the "river" Yu Jin spoke of was, or what the light in his dream was. But the natural sense of closeness when their presences touched brought a thought to mind: Yu Jin and certain things inside him might be two halves separated from the same source.

He didn't voice the thought. He only pulled Yu Jin's blanket up a little. "Get some rest. Tomorrow I'll ask Old Chen about that gray river of yours. He might know something."

Yu Jin closed his eyes, and his breathing gradually grew steady. Long Tian added a few pieces of charcoal to the fire, then rose and went out. The night wind rushed into his face, carrying the chill of snow. He pulled his coat tighter, crossed the courtyard, and pushed open the gray door. Someone was crouching at the foot of the wall outside.

Shen Mo, the man in gray.

He crouched there like a stone covered in snow. Only when he saw Long Tian come out did he slowly rise and brush the snow from his knees and shoulders. His gaze swept over the gray door behind Long Tian. His lips moved, but he didn't speak immediately. Instead, he walked a few steps toward the mouth of the alley, and Long Tian followed.

Only when they reached a spot sheltered from the wind around the corner of the alley did Shen Mo speak. "The Iron Guard has started investigating. Someone went through the old archives building last night. They can't keep the fact that the fourth cabinet is empty under wraps anymore. They traced it back to the borrowing records at the academic affairs office, and then to your name. You signed the register when you borrowed the key."

Long Tian's heart sank. "My name is in the register?"

"When Zhao Min's assistant was organizing the register, they made an extra summary sheet with the times the key was borrowed and the borrowers' names. It's in the hands of Meng Changyuan's people now." Shen Mo took a folded slip of paper from inside his collar and handed it to Long Tian. "I got a copy of the summary sheet. See for yourself what it says."

Long Tian unfolded the slip and glanced at it by the streetlight. The borrowing record read: "Long Tian, borrowed the key to the old archives building, requested access to old Mixed-Color Martial Soul files, borrowed at the second quarter of the shen hour, returned at the start of the you hour." A line of small writing had been added beside it: "The bronze mirror relic was stolen from the fourth cabinet of the old archives building that day, matching the time this student borrowed the key."

"Does Zhao Min know?" Long Tian asked.

"She hasn't seen the summary sheet yet. Meng Changyuan's people took it away and kept it under wraps as soon as it was copied. For now, it's only being circulated within the Iron Guard. But I reckon Zhao Min will know by the day after tomorrow at the latest." Shen Mo tucked his hands back into his sleeves. "You need to sever the link before someone connects your name to what happened with Yu Jin. Since the bronze mirror is already in your hands, the fourth cabinet is just an empty shell. Meng Changyuan's subordinates only know something's missing. They don't yet know where it went or who took it."

Long Tian clenched the slip of paper and tucked it inside his robe. "You know where Yu Jin lives?"

"I followed you here." Shen Mo didn't deny it. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. I came tonight to tell you this. The rest is for you to weigh up yourself." He turned to leave, then stopped after a step. "That child-have him get his Martial Soul into form as soon as possible. Once it takes form, it won't be possible to hide it. The Iron Guard has a special Soul Power tracking technique that can lock onto the source of a presence with a particular attribute. Your Soul Power attributes are too unusual. It's fine if you stay far apart, but the closer you are, the easier it'll be for you both to get picked up together."

Long Tian stood where he was and watched Shen Mo's back disappear into the curtain of snow at the mouth of the alley. The snow was falling more thickly now. Beneath the streetlight, the flakes were tinted a warm orange-yellow as they rustled down onto his shoulders and hair. He stood for a while, then turned, pushed open the door, and went back into the courtyard.

Inside, Yu Jin was fast asleep, breathing steadily and deeply, the corner of his blanket covering half his face. Long Tian sat on the threshold and leaned against the doorframe, watching the snow pile ever higher in the courtyard. He slipped a hand inside his robe, found the cold edge of the gray iron token, and slowly rubbed it with the pad of his finger. His body heat and constant rubbing had worn a soft sheen onto the token's edges. His fingertip traced the words "Iron Guard · Seventh Squad · Tie Shan" over and over.

Snow fell on the courtyard's gray bricks, layer upon layer, covering every footprint beneath a smooth blanket of white. Far away, in the direction of the northern city camp, someone behind a lit window was placing another copy of the summary sheet into a case folder. Written on the cover were the words "Old archives building theft investigation · No. 03." Beneath it lay a freshly developed Soul Power image, showing the blurred opening where the bars inside the iron door in the old city's foundation layer had been melted through. The grayish-white residue along the edge of the opening stood out in the image, like a fingerprint deliberately left behind.