The Dock

On the tenth day, Long Tian descended the mountain.

He set out from the stone house at first light, following a hunter's path east along the outskirts of the mountain range. The mountain roads were difficult to travel at winter's end. The ground was slick and sticky with melted snow, and in places, tree roots lay across the path like thresholds waiting to trip him. After walking for a while, he broke into a jog, spreading Soul Power evenly through his legs to pick up speed. A thin film of grayish-white light separated him from the mud, and his boots crossed puddles and mud pits without getting dirty.

Before dusk, he reached the southern dock on the outskirts of Spirit City. It was much smaller than the inner harbor in the city, with several old cargo boats lying there with their sails lowered, along with two or three fishing boats. The wooden posts along the shore had turned black from soaking in the water, and their mottled surfaces were covered in moss. Long Tian made a circuit of the dock, then crouched beside the third mooring post he counted. He reached below the waterline at its base and felt around. There was a narrow groove, and his fingertips found a bundle wrapped in oilpaper.

He pulled out the bundle and slipped it into his sleeve. After glancing around to make sure no one had noticed, he retraced his steps out of the dock area. It was already pitch-dark on the way back up the mountain. When he found his way back to the stone house from memory, Yu Jin was sitting on the threshold waiting for him, clutching a stick of unlit firewood. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Long Tian emerge from the shadows of the trees.

Long Tian lit the oil lamp inside the house and opened the oilpaper bundle. Inside was a thin sheet of paper folded into a small square, covered in fine, hurried writing:

"Meng Changyuan has restarted the experiments in the southern section of the foundation level. After abandoning the original site, he moved the main equipment to the third basement level beneath the main building of the Iron Guard's camp. The project is codenamed 'Return to One,' and its objective has shifted to replicating the Origin of Chaos. Residual traces of your Origin Return Pearl's Qi were sampled and reverse-engineered through an array. Preliminary results have been obtained, and live-subject testing is expected to begin within a month. Although Yu Jin's Qi was shielded by the stone pendant, the original samples left on the foundation level at the time were collected. He is currently in a 'lockable' state. Both of you risk being located if you act separately. Only when you are together and your Qi completely mingles can outsiders no longer distinguish your individual Soul Power attributes. Meet up and establish a permanent base as soon as possible. Do not remain apart in two locations for long. Shen Mo."

Long Tian burned the letter over the lamp flame. The ashes fell onto the dirt floor and scattered under a single stamp of his foot. Yu Jin sat beside him and watched him burn the letter from beginning to end. He did not ask what it said, but his gaze lingered on Long Tian's face for a while, as though he had read the gist from his expression.

Long Tian turned the lamp's wick down a little, softening the light. He sat opposite Yu Jin and briefly recounted the contents of Shen Mo's letter in his own words: Meng Changyuan had restarted the experiments to replicate the Origin of Chaos, the residual samples of the Origin Return Pearl had been reverse-engineered, Yu Jin's Qi could still be locked onto, and if the two acted separately, each risked being located.

Yu Jin was silent for a long time after hearing him out. He looked down at his hands. Once as thin as dead branches, they could now easily curl into fists, their knuckles clearly defined and strong. He opened and closed them, then finally raised his head and looked at Long Tian. "Then we won't separate."

Long Tian nodded. "We need to find somewhere not too close to Spirit City, but not too far either, somewhere that can accommodate both of us cultivating for the long term. We can't stay in Soul Hunting Town; it's too conspicuous. But we can't go too far away, or messages won't reach us. Shen Mo's contact point is fixed, so we need an intermediate stop where we can collect letters from the dock."

Yu Jin thought for a moment, then suddenly said, "You mentioned an old base abandoned by hunters in the middle section of the Heavenly Wolf Mountain Range. It's a little deeper in than this stone house of ours, surrounded by mountains on three sides, so it's easy to hide, and it's close to an area where Soul Beasts are active deeper in the range. If we move there, we can stay in touch with Shen Mo and make it easier for me to hunt for my next Soul Rings."

Long Tian had considered that place too. He had stumbled across it while scouting the mountains on one of his previous trips: a half-collapsed forest ranger's stone house. It was more secluded than their current one, but its interior structure was more intact, and the surrounding mountain walls formed a natural barrier. Its only drawback was that it was farther from Soul Hunting Town, adding nearly a day's travel to a round trip to collect a letter.

"Let's go take a look tomorrow," Long Tian said. "If it's suitable, we'll move."

The next day, the two shouldered their meager belongings and followed a hunter's trail through the middle section of the mountain range for most of the day before finding the ranger's stone house. It was larger than they had imagined, divided into an inner and an outer room, with thick stone walls. Although part of the roof had collapsed, its beams were intact, and it would not be hard to repair with pinewood and dry grass. In front of the house was a clearing enclosed in a semicircle by mountain walls. A thick layer of fallen leaves and pine needles covered the ground, soft and soundless underfoot. A narrow mountain stream flowed along the edge of the clearing, its water clear and cool.

Yu Jin crouched by the stream, cupped a handful of water and drank. He stood up, shook the droplets from his hands, and looked at the clearing embraced by the mountain walls. Golden embers rose in the depths of his eyes. "It's like an enclosed courtyard."

Long Tian set their bundle down in the inner room, then climbed onto the roof using the edges of the stone wall and examined the collapsed section, estimating the materials and labor needed for repairs. By the time he jumped down, Yu Jin was already crouched on the ground by the door, drawing something with a branch. After a few strokes, he smoothed it over and started again.

Long Tian walked over and took a look. Yu Jin had drawn a rough map of the terrain in the dirt, marking the stone house, the stream, and the course of the mountain walls on three sides. To the southeast, he had drawn a wavy line representing the path out of the mountains, with a circle at the end and a cross inside it.

"This path leads to Soul Hunting Town." Yu Jin tapped the circle with the branch. "Letters from the dock can come in along this route, and no one can intercept them on the way."

Long Tian crouched down to study the drawing with him. The late-winter sun slanted through a gap in the mountain wall, casting their shadows close together on the dirt, one to the left and one to the right. Long Tian reached out and marked a point on the northern side of the map. "If Shen Mo has something urgent, he can send a messenger bird this way. There's a wind gap behind the mountain wall in this direction. A bird can come through there without passing through Soul Hunting Town."

Yu Jin nodded and poked a small hole at the spot with his branch. Then he looked up at the height and course of the mountain walls on all sides, as though some instinct were helping him weave a net in his mind. His gaze was steady and focused; he was like an entirely different person from the child who had curled up in the dark room.

"Then we'll repair the roof first." Long Tian stood and dusted the dirt from his hands. "Once that's done, we'll practice combining our Qi. Shen Mo said Meng Changyuan's side might produce the first batch of live-subject test results within a month. We need to refine our fused state another level before then, and mingle our Qi so thoroughly that even reverse-engineering can't distinguish the boundary between us."

Yu Jin stood too and tossed the branch into the stream, watching it spin away with the current. He brushed the bits of leaves from his clothes and followed Long Tian inside to begin sorting out the collapsed section of roof. The sound of pinewood being sawn rang across the clearing for a while, its echoes passing back and forth through the valley, gradually blending into the mountain scenery at dusk.

After nightfall, the two sat side by side on the repaired roof, their backs against the neatly restored pine beams as they gazed at the night sky overhead. Winter nights in the Heavenly Wolf Mountain Range were clear and cold. The stars filled the sky like crushed diamonds scattered across deep-blue velvet, spreading in dense profusion to the horizon. Yu Jin looked up for a long time before saying softly, "There was stone above the dark room. I haven't been able to see the sky for many years."

Long Tian did not reply. He simply took off his coat and draped it over Yu Jin's shoulders. The two sat quietly as the river of stars turned soundlessly overhead and the mountain stream gurgled nearby. The late-winter wind poured through the gap in the mountain wall, carrying the scent of pinewood and frozen earth.

The fire in the stone house's stove was already burning, its light drawing a warm bar across the clearing through the crack in the door. Snow on the distant ridge shimmered a pale silvery blue in the moonlight, like a long, winding line of frost tracing the boundary between earth and sky.