- Midnight Return to the Yamen
Northern Song Dynasty, Bianjing, Chou-shi Third Mark (Approx. 2:45 AM).
The narrow, elongated wooden box wrapped in blue cloth that Qian Yiyan carried as she pushed open the copper-cornered elm door in the Astrological Bureau’s back alley contained the fragment of shadow excised from beneath the Secret Library.
The night watch guard dozed against a pillar. She passed silently through the front courtyard. The armillary sphere and gnomon cast bizarre, elongated shadows in the thin moonlight.
The Celestial Observation Hall still had its lights on.
Chief Astronomer Zhou Cong sat behind a red sandalwood desk, swathed in a heavy, dark blue quilted robe, his frame so gaunt it bordered on fragility. Candlelight danced across the deeply lined contours of his face.
“You’ve returned.” His voice was hoarse, like a broken bellows.
“Chief Astronomer.” Qian Yiyan bowed slightly and placed the wooden box gently on the corner of the desk. “The matter at the Secret Library has been temporarily contained. This is the anomalous object retrieved from the scene.”
She first took out the An Le jade pendant and slid it towards Zhou Cong.
Under the candlelight, the mutton-fat jade was warm and smooth, but the faint, fire-scorched-looking dark ring along its edge was startling.
Zhou Cong did not touch the pendant. He stared at it for a long while, then suddenly erupted into violent, wracking coughs, his thin shoulders shuddering. He pulled a plain handkerchief from his sleeve to cover his mouth. The coughing echoed in the vast hall. When he finally stopped, breathing heavily, he clenched the handkerchief back into his sleeve—Qian Yiyan’s sharp eyes caught a faint smear of dark red at its edge.
“Chief Astronomer…” Her brow furrowed slightly.
“An old ailment. Won’t kill me.” Zhou Cong waved a dismissive hand, his gaze returning to the pendant. “An Le… What Shao Yaofu left behind, what part of it brings true peace and joy?”
He extended a twig-like finger, passing it over the pendant without touching it, then flinched back as if burned. “Yin energy entangled, Yang harmony damaged. This object… is inauspicious.” He paused, raising his eyes. His gaze was sharp as needles. “When you touched it, did you sense anything unusual?”
“Yes.” Qian Yiyan spoke frankly. “Like holding ice. A semblance of auditory hallucinations, chaotic and indistinct.”
Zhou Cong fell silent for a long time, so long that a candle spark crackled. His clouded eyes, reflecting the candle flame, looked like two dust-covered pieces of glass. They slowly turned to Qian Yiyan, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly whisper that felt like sandpaper grating on bone: “Yiyan, your father, the honorable Weiyan… why did he fall from the pagoda that year?”
Qian Yiyan’s heart clenched, but her expression remained unchanged. “What does the Chief Astronomer mean?”
“What he discerned was not celestial phenomena, but the human heart.” Zhou Cong spat each word slowly, with effort. “He saw the line—the one that should not exist—connecting celestial changes and human affairs. And so, someone made him see further… from the pagoda’s peak, all the way to the Yellow Springs.”
He coughed violently again. When his breathing steadied somewhat, he pulled a blank sheet of paper from the desk, took up a brush, and dipped it in ink. His hand trembled badly, but the characters he wrote were carved like knife strokes:
[Palace Domestic Service]
[Old Archives · Jiashen]
He pushed the paper towards Qian Yiyan, tapping the characters with a fingertip. “This thread has reappeared, connected to this pendant. Investigate supernatural forces, and you might get hurt; inquire into the human heart…” He raised his eyes, his gaze piercingly cold. “…and you will make certain people lose sleep. Child, which do you think is more dangerous?”
Qian Yiyan’s heart chilled. The last years of Tianxi, just before the late Emperor Zhenzong’s passing. “Jiashen” was a sexagenary cycle year—nineteen years prior. Her father’s fall was around that time.
“This humble official understands.” She took the paper. “But may I ask, to whom does the Chief Astronomer’s ‘human heart’ point?”
Zhou Cong, however, was seized by another fit of coughing. It took him a good while to catch his breath. His clouded eyes stared at the flickering candle flame as he answered obliquely: “The Astrological Bureau’s duty is to observe the stars and interpret Heaven’s will. But in this city of Bianjing, what has never been easy to see through is not the celestial signs, but the twisted schemes behind the palace walls. Your father… saw too clearly, that’s why…”
The words cut off abruptly. He waved a hand, exhaustion evident. “Go. Seal the pendant and the anomalous object in the Zhenyuan Chamber for now. Without your direct order, no one is to touch them. Also, Shen Cunzhong has been waiting for you half the night. Says he has a discovery.”
Qian Yiyan knew she would get no more from him. She bowed, picked up the box and pendant, and withdrew from the Celestial Observation Hall.
The door closed behind her. The night breeze in the courtyard swept past. She took a deep breath of the cool air, feeling the tightness in her chest ease slightly.
Only investigate the supernatural, do not inquire into the human heart.
Zhou Cong’s warning echoed in her ears. But she knew all too well that from the moment she stepped into the Secret Library’s depths, the supernatural and the human heart had already tangled into an inextricable knot.
- Shen Kuo’s Counting Rods
Shen Kuo’s office was beneath the Lingtai Tower on the eastern side of the Astrological Bureau. As Qian Yiyan approached the corridor, she heard the rapid clack-clack-clack of an abacus inside, urgent like a sudden rain beating on plantain leaves.
The door was ajar. She knocked twice. The abacus sounds ceased abruptly.
“Enter!” A clear, even excited voice called out.
Pushing the door open, she found the room brightly lit. Three walls were stacked with scrolls, books, and various wooden models. The large central desk was buried under counting rods, draft papers, and printed volumes. Behind the desk stood a young man of about twenty-five or twenty-six, wearing the dark blue junior official robes of the Astrological Bureau, sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing pale, sinewy forearms. His features were clear and intelligent, his hair slightly disheveled at the moment, eyes bloodshot yet gleaming with an almost fanatical light.
Attendant Gentleman, Astrological Bureau Autumn Official Rectifier Shen Kuo, courtesy name Cunzhong.
“Vice-Director Qian! You’ve finally returned!” Shen Kuo immediately rounded the desk upon seeing her, his words tumbling out like bolts from a repeating crossbow. “This humble official has combed through the personnel movement records for the Secret Library over the past three months all night, and there are indeed major irregularities!”
Qian Yiyan carefully placed the wooden box and pendant on an empty side table before speaking. “Explain slowly.”
Shen Kuo grabbed several sheets of paper covered in writing from the desk, pointing to one line. “Look, the Palace Domestic Service’s cleaning duty roster for the Secret Library. By convention, the deep chambers of the Secret Library are dusted by two eunuchs every ten days, for no more than one hour each time, and with a supervising eunuch in attendance. However, since last December, on the 7th and 22nd of each month, an additional mute eunuch—not on the official roster—has entered the Secret Library alone, sometimes staying for… up to two hours!”
“A mute eunuch?”
“Yes, surnamed Liu, name unknown. The register only lists ‘Mute Servant Liu.’ According to old-timers in the Palace Domestic Service, this man entered the palace over twenty years ago, originally doing menial work in the Imperial Pharmacy. Because he was born deaf and mute, deft with his hands, and caused no trouble, he was transferred five years ago to handle cleaning for several secluded halls and pavilions.” Shen Kuo flipped to the next page, his tone growing more urgent. “The oddity lies here: this Mute Servant Liu, three days ago—the day before the Secret Library incident—suddenly reported ill, was moved out of the imperial palace, said to be gravely ill and sent back to his native place to recuperate. But this humble official found the eunuch in charge of records. He let slip after drinking that no one actually saw that mute leave the palace. They only heard he was ‘gone.'”
“‘Gone’?” Qian Yiyan repeated.
“Not seen alive, not found dead.” Shen Kuo lowered his voice. “Moreover, digging further along this thread, this humble official discovered that similar cases are not isolated over the past three years. A total of four low-ranking eunuchs or palace maids, all of whom had contact with relics or books related to Shao Yong—Master Kangjie—or were ordered to clean his former residence, either died of illness or disappeared within a few months. The timing…” He pulled out a self-made chart. “…vaguely corresponds with several vague entries in the Astrological Bureau’s ‘Supplementary Records of Anomalies’ about faint nocturnal glows and wavering starlight.”
Qian Yiyan took the chart. Her eyes swept over the dry dates and brief notes, a chill growing in her heart. This was not an isolated incident, but a pattern. Someone—or something—was systematically eliminating unrelated individuals who had come into contact with Shao Yong’s legacy.
“Did you investigate their backgrounds?”
“I did. All had simple, unblemished backgrounds, no connections within the palace, no family to speak of.” Shen Kuo smiled bitterly. “It’s as if… they were specially chosen vessels, usable then discardable.”
The term was precise and cruel. After a moment of silence, Qian Yiyan asked, “The last time Mute Servant Liu entered the Secret Library on duty, which exact day was it? What did he do?”
Shen Kuo checked the record. “The 22nd of February, twelve days ago. The register only says ‘entered for cleaning,’ but the young supervising eunuch said the mute didn’t bring the usual broom or bucket that day, only carried a small cloth bundle inside. When he came out, the bundle was gone. Thought he was slacking off, didn’t ask further.”
A cloth bundle… Qian Yiyan thought of the empty stone casket under the Secret Library. Could it be that Shao Yong left more than just the pendant? Was something else taken?
“Has the mute servant’s living quarters been searched?”
“Not yet.” Shen Kuo shook his head. “Palace restrictions are severe. Without an imperial decree or cooperation from the Palace Domestic Service, we outer court officials can hardly investigate inside. However…” His eyes suddenly brightened. “This humble official bribed an old procurement worker responsible for the supplies for those servants’ quarters. He said that ever since the mute vanished, the Palace Domestic Service sent people to seal his room, saying they were waiting for superiors to inspect it. Very strange.”
The thread of evidence pointed back to the Palace Domestic Service. Qian Yiyan remembered the three words Zhou Cong had written. As she pondered, Shen Kuo’s attention had already shifted to the wooden box she brought, his nose twitching with curiosity. “Vice-Director, inside this box… is that the shadow?”
“Yes.”
“Might this humble official take a look?” Shen Kuo rubbed his hands together, his expression like a child seeing a novel toy. “This humble official is unbearably intrigued by such anomalous objects! Dream Pool Essays—ah, that is, the miscellaneous notes this humble official is compiling—lack precisely this kind of empirical evidence!”
Qian Yiyan felt a mix of exasperation and amusement. Shen Kuo was brilliantly talented, his mind leaping and curious, sometimes too indiscriminate about gravity. But within the Astrological Bureau, those who could follow her reasoning and were reliable enough were few. Shen Kuo was one.
“You may. But be cautious.” She unwrapped the blue cloth, revealing the camphorwood box. The lid was carved with simple cloud patterns to ward off evil, its edges pasted with a yellow paper talisman, the cinnabar vermilion still fresh.
Shen Kuo leaned close, not daring to touch it rashly, only widening his eyes to observe. “So this is what devoured the ancient painting in the Secret Library? How strange. It resembles an ink cake, yet lacks the scent of ink. Instead, it has a kind of… hollow feeling.”
Qian Yiyan carefully peeled off the talisman and opened the lid.
The shadow lay quietly on the velvet-lined bottom of the box, about the size of a palm, thin as a cicada’s wing, utterly black. Yet it was not a pure ink black, but a kind of murky darkness that seemed to suck in the surrounding light. Upon closer inspection, its surface was not smooth; there were extremely subtle, wave-like textures flowing slowly across it—almost imperceptible unless one stared intently.
Shen Kuo drew a sharp breath. “It’s moving!”
“Not the movement of a living thing.” Qian Yiyan said. “More like… the continuous disturbance of some residual imprint.”
She took out the Measuring Heaven Ruler. Holding it suspended above the wooden box, she slowly activated her family’s esoteric method.
The ruler trembled slightly. The small jade bead inlaid at its tip began to glow with a milky white halo.
Suddenly, the bead’s light flickered rapidly. Then, the graduation marks on the ruler seemed to come alive, shifting and rotating on their own! Several small copper needles representing directions swung wildly, finally all pointing towards an impossible direction—true north, offset west by seven and a half degrees, and still continuing to drift at an extremely slow rate!
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“Magnetic declination!” Shen Kuo cried out involuntarily, grabbing his notebook and flipping through it frantically. “Complete Essentials of Military Classics records the preparation method for south-pointing fish, mentioning slight magnetic declination of two or three degrees at most! For this object to induce such a massive deflection? This… this isn’t stellar or celestial influence; it approaches an anomaly of the earth’s very marrow!”
Qian Yiyan put away the Measuring Heaven Ruler, her expression grave. She had also read of magnetic declination in ancient texts, but such a severe deflection induced by an anomalous object was unheard of. The nature of this shadow was likely far more complex than mere residual demonic influence.
Shen Kuo’s gaze, however, was already locked onto the wildly oscillating ruler. The palace intrigues, the mute servant’s fate—it all seemed instantly overridden in his mind by a higher-priority process. For him, all extraordinary changes between heaven and earth, whether born of human malice or physical aberration, ultimately needed to be reduced to observable, calculable laws.
“Magnetic declination… so pronounced…” he murmured to himself, his pupils reflecting the dancing candle flame and ruler’s shadow, his fingers unconsciously tracing arcs in the air. The next second, he had already snatched up a brush, bent over his draft paper, entering a state of total absorption. “Marvelous! If we take geomagnetic force as the base, this object’s disturbance as the variable… then its source can be traced, its principle deduced! If we can decipher this law, it goes beyond explaining the supernatural! We could craft new compasses for navigation, reducing the margin of error by more than half! Ten fewer shipwrecks a year would mean thousands of lives saved!”
Watching his absorbed state, Qian Yiyan didn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused. This Shen Cunzhong, analyzing palace intrigues one moment, leaping to nautical technology the next—the leaps of his mind were beyond ordinary people.
“Autumn Official Shen.” She had to interrupt. “The immediate priority is determining this object’s origin and danger. The maritime compass can be discussed later.”
Shen Kuo snapped back to reality, setting down his brush sheepishly. “Vice-Director, forgive me. This humble official… got carried away by technical fascination.” He scratched his head, then looked back at the wooden box, his eyes turning serious again. “However, since this object can disturb the earth’s magnetism, its effects may extend beyond the visible. Vice-Director, if you recently feel slight disorientation in your sense of direction, or anomalies in time perception, please be extra vigilant.”
That was practical advice. Qian Yiyan nodded, resealing the wooden box and pasting the talisman back on. Just as her fingertip touched the lid—
Thump.
A sound, extremely faint yet abnormally clear, came from inside the wooden box.
Qian Yiyan froze.
Shen Kuo heard it too, his eyes widening in shock. “What was that?”
Thump… thump… thump…
The knocking sound came again, slow and rhythmic, carrying a cold quality, as if someone were tapping the inside of the box wall with a knuckle, unhurried and even. Three knocks in a group, evenly spaced.
Qian Yiyan held her breath, listening intently. That rhythm…
Unconsciously, her own heartbeat began to synchronize with the knocking!
Thump—heartbeat. Thump—knock. Thump—coincide.
A chill shot up from her tailbone, instantly spreading through her limbs. This was no hallucination. That thing was responding to her. Or imitating her? Controlling her?
Shen Kuo’s face paled. He instinctively took half a step back, his voice dry. “It’s… it’s alive?”
Qian Yiyan didn’t answer. She forced herself to calm down, circulating her internal method to steady her qi and blood. Her heartbeat gradually slowed. And the knocking inside the wooden box slowed down accordingly, maintaining perfect synchronization with her pulse!
A sense of being utterly watched, even connected by invisible chains, seized her.
Shao Yong… is this the true nature of the key you left behind? A living lock that mimics, responds, and might even turn the tables on its user?
Thump… thump…
The knocking persisted stubbornly, in perfect sync with her heart. More terrifyingly, within this cold synchronization, fragmented, alien images exploded before Qian Yiyan’s eyes:
------A perspective plummeting downwards, the roar of wind and the shattering of wood in her ears, the rapidly enlarging, chessboard-like rooftops of Bianjing’s streets below (her father’s last glimpse from the pagoda?).
------A blinding expanse of white light, countless扭曲的 symbols and lines flowing across a transparent surface, a blurry, short-haired figure manipulating them frantically (Was this… Lu Baoyi’s laboratory?).
The visions flashed and vanished, leaving intense vertigo and nausea. The thing wasn’t just imitating her heartbeat; it was leaking or injecting chaotic temporal information through this link!
Fighting the discomfort, she slammed the lid shut, wrapping the box tightly in the blue cloth and adding more talismans. The knocking was cut off. It stopped.
But it wasn’t over.
The knocking ceased, the box returned to dead silence.
Qian Yiyan released her hand seal, her fingertips icy and trembling slightly. She pressed a hand to her chest. The eerie rhythm of two hearts—one hers, one mimicked by that thing—playing in unison seemed to have left a cold, foreign echo deep within her veins. The two forcibly implanted frames of shattered imagery were like thorns lodged in her flesh, impossible to remove now.
She stood silently for a good while, until Shen Kuo’s concerned call reached her. She finally turned slowly, her face several shades paler than before.
Shen Kuo wiped cold sweat from his brow, still shaken. “Vice-Director, this object is far more dangerous than estimated. Should we report to the Chief Astronomer, assign more guards?”
Qian Yiyan shook her head. “The fewer who know, the better. The Zhenyuan Chamber has a sealing array personally laid by my grandfather, capable of isolating internal and external energy. We’ll seal it there.” She paused, looking at Shen Kuo. “Continue investigating the thread on Mute Servant Liu discreetly. Pay special attention to any unusual movements within the Palace Domestic Service recently, or any secret contact with people outside the palace. But be extremely careful. Do not alert anyone.”
“This humble official understands.” Shen Kuo replied solemnly.
“Also,” Qian Yiyan added, reaching the door and turning back, her tone carrying a rare hint of levity, “if your Dream Pool Essays ever record today’s events, you can write the magnetic declination data truthfully. As for the knocking… perhaps omit it. Lest later generations think Shen Cunzhong not only comprehends the myriad things but also moonlights as an exorcist and spirit summoner.”
Shen Kuo was taken aback for a moment, then chuckled, the tense atmosphere dissipating somewhat. “The Vice-Director is right. This humble official only records verifiable facts. Supernatural forces and occult matters shall not yet enter the brush.”
Leaving the Lingtai Tower, the night sky was tinged with blue. Dawn approached.
Instead of returning to her own quarters, Qian Yiyan carried the wooden box through layers of courtyards towards the Zhenyuan Chamber at the Astrological Bureau’s deepest recesses, nestled against a small bamboo grove.
It was a secure vault built under the supervision of her grandfather, Qian Weiji, when he headed the Astrological Bureau. Legend said nine bronze urns, arranged according to the Luo River Diagram, were buried beneath its foundation, filled with talisman water and cinnabar, forming a powerful sealing array. Her father, Qian Weiyan, had frequented this place often before his disappearance.
The bamboo grove was serene, the morning mist hazy. The Zhenyuan Chamber was a low, windowless stone hut with a heavy iron door and a peculiar lock. Qian Yiyan took a fish-shaped bronze key from her bosom—one of her father’s relics—inserted it into the lock, and turned it three and a half times to the left, then three and a half to the right.
A soft click. The door opened.
The interior was bare, only a stone pedestal in the center, carved with intricate Eight Trigrams reliefs. Qian Yiyan placed the wooden box precisely on the Yin-Yang fish-eye position at the diagram’s center, retreated three steps, formed hand seals, and silently recited her family’s sealing incantation.
The stone pedestal vibrated faintly. The trigram patterns lit up with a faint glow in sequence. An invisible force field enveloped the box. The cold, pulsating sensation that had lingered at her fingertips finally vanished completely.
She let out a sigh of relief, about to exit—
The An Le jade pendant in her bosom grew warm without warning.
Qian Yiyan halted, taking out the pendant. She saw that the two indentations at the dragon’s eyes were now exuding an extremely faint, milky-white halo. The halo, like an intangible pointer, wobbled unsteadily, pointing towards a pile of dust-covered wooden chests in the corner of the stone chamber.
Her heart tightened. She followed its guidance and walked over. One chest was half-open, revealing a few yellowed architectural scrolls inside. She picked up the topmost scroll and unrolled it.
It was an architectural sketch, the brushwork antiquated, annotated densely with measurements and notes. Judging by the layout, it seemed to be the main hall of a Daoist temple or residence. In the corner was a line of small characters serving as a colophon:
[Commissioned by Master Kangjie (Yong) in the seventh year of Jiayou, for the proposed construction of a Stargazing Thatched Hall at Yanjin. Unfinished.]
The seventh year of Jiayou—that was the year before Shao Yong’s death. Yanjin was north of Bianjing, along the Yellow River.
A thought struck Qian Yiyan. Examining the drawing closely, she noticed several extra lines of small characters added in red ink near the foundation of the main hall. The ink seemed newer, likely added later:
[Convergence point of ley lines, a natural Yin aperture. Can draw upon stellar power, but also easily attracts foulness. If suppressed with eight bronze beasts arranged according to the Dunjia method, perhaps the malignant energy can be transformed for use. However, requires a living key to channel the energy. Be cautious, be cautious.]
A living key?
Qian Yiyan thought of the pendant, of the heartbeat-synchronized knocking from the box. Could it be that Shao Yong’s proposed Stargazing Thatched Hall was, in essence, a large-scale lock or array requiring a living key to activate?
She carefully rolled up the drawing and returned it. The pendant’s halo faded. The thickening cloud of doubt in her heart grew heavier.
Exiting the Zhenyuan Chamber, she locked the heavy iron door. Daylight had fully broken.
Returning to her quarters, Qian Yiyan performed a simple ablution and changed into her dark blue Vice-Director’s everyday court robes. The bronze mirror reflected a woman with a pale, composed face, faint dark circles under her eyes, yet her gaze remained sharp and steady.
On her desk lay an unfamiliar letter. A plain blue paper envelope, no sender’s name, but carrying a faint trace of a fragrance her family commonly used—the imperial “Spring Letter in Snow” blend.
She opened it. Inside was only a short note in her mother’s handwriting, elegant yet frail, each stroke’s ending carrying a subtle tremor:
[To my daughter Yiyan: Ten years have passed since your father’s demise. The anniversary of his passing approaches. The family has had much discussion of late; your grandmother also thinks of you deeply. You must return home on your scheduled day of rest for a discussion. There are important matters to discuss. Written by your mother, née Liu.]
Important matters to discuss—Qian Yiyan could almost piece together the unspoken subtext in the air. It was doubtlessly that “good match” which had been rumored within the clan for months: the nephew of the Deputy Commissioner of Military Affairs, a young rising star in the Palace Command.
She held the note to a candle flame, watching it turn to ash.
What was coming would come. But some things could not wait.
She picked up the pendant, unrolled the Stargazing Thatched Hall drawing again, her eyes settling on the words “Yanjin.” Perhaps, before returning to that battlefield called home, she should first go and meet another lock left behind by Shao Yong.
- Reverse Projection
Modern Day, Ministry of State Security Underground Command Center, 4:15 AM.
Lu Baoyi was staring at the waterfall of data refreshing on the screen, trying to reverse-engineer the energy model of the nine-palace array from that tangled mess. His eyes were starting to cross.
Suddenly, his heart felt as if someone had yanked its plug from his chest cavity and jammed it back in haphazardly, then began pounding in a wild, alien, and unsettling rhythm—like a heart from a thousand years ago, complete with its own intrusive soundtrack, had forcibly hijacked his own for an ill-timed livestream.
“Damn…” he grunted, instinctively clutching the fabric over his chest. “Is this tachycardia or did someone hack my physiological protocol?”
Almost simultaneously, the data streams on the three main screens before him convulsed violently as if collectively on a high, erupting into vast, meaningless bursts of chromatic visual noise. The noise flickered and coalesced madly, and in the blink of an eye, vaguely coalesced into a blurry silhouette of a woman in ancient official robes and headdress. It flashed once. Gone.
“Wh-what the hell?!” Lu Baoyi shot up from his chair, knocking over his half-drunk coffee. The brown liquid spread across the keyboard, but he ignored it, just pressing a hand against his still-erratically-beating heart, his eyes darting like radar between the now-calm screens and the whitening sky outside the window.
Physiological palpitations, compounded by three display screens glitching simultaneously—the odds were lower than winning the damn lottery. That historical coordinate in Bianjing wasn’t just quietly signaling in the background anymore… it had started reverse projecting. And it began by giving his heart a hard reboot.
Lin Wan, who had been catching a nap at the console next to him, woke with a start, her face still bearing the red imprint of her arm. “Engineer Lu? You look terrible… Did you spill coffee?”
“Nothing. Hardware conflict. Won’t crash the system.” Lu Baoyi took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. He grabbed some tissues to wipe the keyboard messily, trying to keep his voice steady. “Did I startle you? Go get another coffee. On the house. Consider it on-the-job compensation.” He attempted a light-hearted tone, though the effect was likely poor.
Lin Wan looked at his noticeably pale face and still-trembling fingers, didn’t move, and instead asked worriedly, “Were you having chest discomfort just now? Should I call the medical team?”
“No need. Old problem. Programmer’s occupational hazard—prolonged sitting and excessive caffeine.” Lu Baoyi waved it off, pulling the topic back on track. “But that screen glitch wasn’t a hallucination. Our neighbor’s signal not only strengthened, it’s starting to attempt… video calls. Though the picture was pixelated to hell.”
He sat back down, typing on the coffee-stained keyboard, pulling up his real-time physiological data. The heart rate graph indeed showed an abrupt, bizarre spike at that moment, its shape completely unlike any常规 arrhythmia.
“Lin Wan, pull all environmental data from thirty seconds before to thirty seconds after my heart rate anomaly—including but not limited to electromagnetic background radiation, lab temperature/humidity, even the operating noise from the adjacent server cluster.” He paused. “Also, do a precision calibration between our local timestamp and the temporal anchor point recorded on that crystal shard from the Temple of Primordial Heaven, the one for the twelfth month of Tiansheng Year Four. I suspect that wasn’t random interference, but a… cross-temporal handshake test.”
Lin Wan worked swiftly. “Pulling it now. But Engineer Lu, if it really was a handshake… who was shaking? And how?”
“Good question.” Lu Baoyi looked at the blinking Bianjing coordinate on the screen, his lips curling into a humorless half-smile. “The answer might be terrifyingly simple: over there, someone—most likely Qian Yiyan herself—just triggered some key mechanism. Over here, because I’ve had deep data-level interaction with the Gate symbol before and still have the resonator prototype, I’m passively bound as the receiver. So her heartbeat signal—literally—crawled over that not-yet-fully-established connection and gave me a forced Ping test.”
He pointed to his own chest. “That wasn’t palpitations. That was someone knocking on the door over there. Not with a finger, but using heartbeat frequency as Morse code. As for that female official’s silhouette on the screen… probably a severely distorted caller ID avatar thrown in for free.”
Lin Wan stared, processing. “That’s too…”
“Too esoteric/metaphysical, right?” Lu Baoyi finished for her. “But in Shao Yong’s theoretical framework, time might not be a linear flow, but a high-dimensional structure. Points in the past and future could connect directly under specific conditions. Our situation now is probably like two computers with ancient drivers suddenly discovering they’re on the same LAN and starting to auto-pair.”
He called up the scan of the crystal shard from the Temple of Primordial Heaven, pointing at Shao Yong’s message. “The Key of the Other Side is named Qian Yiyan. I used to think ‘key’ was a metaphor, referring to her fate pattern or identity. Now it seems it might be more literal—her very person, her vital signs themselves, are the biometric key to starting or maintaining some process. What we just experienced was an unauthorized… key verification attempt.”
The command center fell silent, save for the low hum of server fans.
Lu Baoyi stared at the gradually normalizing data streams and the still stubbornly blinking Bianjing coordinate.
Something over there had just been activated.
And the lawless, aberrant rhythm in his chest was like a faint, static-filled echo across a millennium, evidence of a crude yet real connection attempt.
“Notify Black Blade team. All members on standby. Raise protection level to two.” Lu Baoyi’s voice turned cold, the forced earlier levity gone. “Also, prepare. I’m going back to the Temple of Primordial Heaven—this time, with full gear. If the key has started turning, we at least need to know which lock it’s trying to open.”
He switched off the screens, plunging the command center into semi-darkness. In the quiet, he could almost hear the lingering echo of that millennial heartbeat in his chest, like a time bomb planted in his body, ticking weakly, stubbornly… counting down.
He took one last look at that coordinate on the now-dark screen.
“And draft me a top-level encrypted communication protocol,” he said softly, almost to himself. “Just in case… the video call quality improves next time. We should have something to send back.”
We can’t just keep answering the phone passively.
Inverse Tian-Track: Core Concepts & Terminology
I. Institutions & Titles
II. Core Concepts & Phenomena
III. Artifacts & Locations
IV. Historical & Personal Context
Inverse Tian-Track universe.