I. Mao Hour (5-7 AM) · Farewell at the Bian River

  The sky was just paling into dawn, but the Bianjing canal docks were already awake—not awakened naturally, but jolted violently into consciousness by the guttural chants of porters, the profane curses of boat masters, the sharp clatter of tax clerks' abacuses, and the snorts and stamps of livestock—all churning together in the morning mist like a pot of overcooked porridge.

  Qian Yiyan stood before berth number seven, looking at the vessel.

  It wasn't large—about ten meters long, single-masted, its hull painted an inconspicuous grey-brown, riding dangerously low in the water. A faded banner bearing the character 'Cao' hung limply from the bow, listlessly furled in the dawn breeze.

  "Astronomer Qian, please."

  Zhang Nu stood by the gangplank, the scar on his face a stark, savage line in the morning light. The scabbard at his waist was worn black, but the cord wrapping its hilt was fresh and new.

  Qian Yiyan did not move.

  Her gaze swept the deck. Three sailors were coiling ropes, movements deft, but the calluses on their hands were all wrong—oarsmen's calluses should be lower on the palm. These men had pronounced ridges of hardened skin along the upper webbing of their thumbs, marks from years of squeezing crossbow triggers. When the shorter, stocky one on the left turned, the cloth at the small of his back bulged with a distinctly rectangular shape.

  A crossbow magazine.

  This was no cargo ship.

  It was a military vessel in disguise.

  "General Cao is most thoughtful," Qian Yiyan said, her voice as faint as the mist. "To provide such a sturdy vessel."

  Zhang Nu grinned, the scar distorting. "The Yellow River's waves are fierce. A flimsy boat would not do."

  As he spoke, footsteps approached from behind.

  Unhurried, measured, the sound of soles on the stone paving as crisp and deliberate as abacus beads. Qian Yiyan didn't need to turn. That gait—each step placed with precise, centered balance—was unique in all Bianjing to one man.

  Cao Yan.

  Today he wore a robe of ink-dark blue, his hair tied simply without a cap. In his hand, he carried an iron cylinder about a foot long, sealed with wax. He approached and clasped his hands. "Astronomer Qian, I've come to see you off."

  "You honor me, General." Qian Yiyan turned. "A mere field survey hardly warrants your presence."

  "On the contrary." Cao Yan handed her the cylinder. "Last night, while reviewing old archives, I chanced upon this. It's a copy of the mineral inventory logs from the imperial foundries for the past three years. I thought it might be of use on your journey, so I transcribed a portion."

  Qian Yiyan accepted it.

  The cylinder was heavy, its surface cold. The wax seal bore the Cao family's private mark—not their military seal, but their mercantile house seal.

  "Among the entries," Cao Yan leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a murmur, "the batches marked in red were handled by the Assistant Director of the Directorate for Imperial Manufactories, Lü Gongchuo. He 'retired due to illness' half a year ago. Now 'convalesces' in Luoyang. "

  The hint was sufficient.

  But after speaking, he suddenly extended the index finger of his right hand and tapped it twice, lightly, against a specific spot on the cylinder's side—roughly where the middle section of the scroll inside would be.

  Tap. Tap.

  The gesture was swift, almost casual.

  But Qian Yiyan saw and heard it clearly—those two taps landed precisely, unerringly, on the spot corresponding to the characters 'Lü Gongchuo' inside.

  Naked as a drawn blade.

  The Cao family not only knew the Lü family had overreached and was willing to hand her the knife to stab with, but they also feared she might miss the mark and had personally drawn the bullseye for her.

  Qian Yiyan's fingertip brushed the slightly indented spot on the cylinder. "General, this gift carries considerable weight."

  "Not at all," Cao Yan said, looking at her. "Compared to the risks you are undertaking, it is nothing."

  He paused, then added, "Before Lü Gongchuo 'retired,' the last requisition he approved was for three hundred jin of 'Cold Iron' to be shipped to Xingzhou. That shipment… never entered the Ministry of Works' ledgers. "

  *Cold Iron. *

  Qian Yiyan's heart skipped a beat. That was premium material for weapon-smithing, strictly controlled.

  "My thanks for the information." She stowed the cylinder in her pack.

  "Fair winds," Cao Yan said, clasping his hands and stepping back two paces.

  At that moment, light, quick footsteps sounded from the other end of the dock.

  Chunying had arrived.

  She wore a water-green ruqun today, a silver hairpin with dangling ornaments tinkling softly in her hair—as if announcing her arrival to all. She held a brocade pouch in her hands, made of bright yellow palace silk embroidered with a phoenix medallion.

  "This humble maid delivers an oral decree from Her Majesty the Empress Dowager, to bid Astronomer Qian farewell." Chunying performed a graceful curtsey, presenting the pouch with both hands. "Her Majesty bestows a 'Wind-Steadying Elixir.' The Yellow River's winds and waves are treacherous; this elixir will safeguard your spirit from dizziness and protect against external evils."

  Qian Yiyan reached out to take it.

  The moment her fingertips touched the silk pouch—

  *Boom! *

  Not a sound, but an explosion of perception.

  An extraordinarily detailed map of the Yellow River's ancient course changes—thirteen diversions, the silt thickness, hidden reef locations, and flow variations for each segment—it all surged into her mind like a bursting dyke. The images were scaldingly clear, almost searing through her skull.

  But that was not all.

  Along the edges of the images, near several key nodes, appeared small annotations in vermilion ink:

  "*'Earth-Fire' appeared here in the Tang dynasty, burning for three months before extinguishing. *"

  "*During the Kaiyuan era, seventy-four tribute ships capsized here in a chain reaction, crews lost without a trace. *"

  "*In the third year of Jingde, a fisherman reported seeing a 'Golden Palace' underwater. He went mad and died after reporting to the authorities. *"

  The handwriting was slender and elegant—the Empress Dowager's script.

  And the instant Qian Yiyan's eyes registered the characters "Golden Palace"—

  A sharp, stabbing pain erupted violently from the corrosion patch on her left shoulder, as if a red-hot iron nail were being hammered into the seam of her bone. She grunted, and a distorted, dark-red vision flashed before her eyes:

  In the watery depths, an indescribably vast silhouette of a palace, constructed of rusted metal, rotated slowly in absolute darkness. Its doors were slightly ajar, a thick, dark-red light seeping from the crack.

  The vision lasted only a single breath.

  But in that breath, Qian Yiyan felt her heart stop beating.

  Not a metaphor. A physiological cardiac arrest. Dead silence in her chest, blood frozen, breath cut off.

  Then the vision vanished. Her heart kicked back into rhythm, blood resumed its flow.

  She stood rooted, face ashen, cold sweat soaking through the back of her inner robe.

  The pouch was still in her hand, the silk warm.

  "Astronomer Qian?" Chunying's voice came, tinged with perfect concern. "You… look unwell."

  Qian Yiyan took a deep breath, forcing down the wave of nauseating vertigo.

  "It's nothing." Her voice was slightly hoarse. "I rose in too much haste this morning."

  She tied the pouch to her waist. The moment it touched her body, the pain in her left shoulder lessened, but the chilling sense of being marked, being watched, seeped from her skin into her bones like ice.

  The Empress Dowager hadn't just given her knowledge; she had embedded her own guidance and warnings within it. These annotations were both clues and shackles—making it abundantly clear: I know where you are going, I know what you will see, and I even know what is worth your attention.

  And the momentary vision of the golden palace and the cardiac arrest was an even more naked threat: I can see. And I can make you die.

  "My humble thanks for Her Majesty's generous favor." Qian Yiyan lowered her eyes.

  Chunying smiled. "Her Majesty also said that on this journey, you must… 'observe meticulously and report truthfully.'"

  *Observe meticulously and report truthfully. *

  Eight characters, heavy as a thousand pounds.

  "Your subject will remember." Qian Yiyan's voice was calm.

  Chunying curtseyed again and stepped aside. But she did not leave. She simply stood there, her face wearing a standard, gentle smile, as if waiting for the ship to sail out of sight.

  Qian Yiyan delayed no longer. She turned and stepped onto the gangplank.

  Zhang Nu followed her aboard and shouted towards the helm cabin, "Lao Liu! Weigh anchor!"

  "Aye!" came the reply from within.

  Ropes were untied, the gangplank drawn in. The hull swayed slightly, beginning its slow departure from the bank.

  Qian Yiyan stood at the bow, the morning breeze lifting the thin veil of her hat. She did not look back, but she could feel the two gazes from the dock—Cao Yan's cold scrutiny, Chunying's smiling watchfulness—like two red-hot nails drilled into her back.

  The ship traveled several dozen yards before turning into the main channel.

  The figures on the shore blurred, finally dissolving into two indistinguishable dots within the morning mist.

  Only then did Qian Yiyan let out a soft sigh.

  Her left hand instinctively pressed against the pouch at her waist. The Wind-Steadying Elixir inside was slightly warm, like a tiny, pulsing heart.

  She looked down at the bundle in her arms.

  The handkerchief lay curled within, one corner unconsciously pointing in the direction of travel—northeast, towards the Old Gentleman's Furnace.

  Like a living compass.

  She shifted her gaze to the stern.

  Zhang Nu was squatting there, inspecting the rudder ropes with practiced ease. But as he bent over, the collar of his robe shifted, revealing a small section of a tattoo on the back of his neck—a ferocious wolf's head, its eyes dotted red with cinnabar. The mark of a Cao family Wolf Guard, a deathsworn warrior.

  Qian Yiyan looked away, facing forward.

  The Bian River's surface was broad, the morning light scattering across it in shimmering, blinding scales of gold.

  The ship cut through the waves, heading northeast.

  Behind her, Bianjing faded gradually into the mist, like a dream one forgets upon waking.

  A thought echoed silently within her:

  *To return? That may prove difficult. *

  II. Chen Hour (7-9 AM) · The Survey Team

  Thirty li downstream from the Old Gentleman's Furnace, a temporary camp.

  Lu Baoyi crouched on the ground, staring at the diesel generator before him with the expression of one examining a freshly unearthed artifact.

  The generator was an ancient model, its paint flaking off to reveal rust-speckled iron beneath. Black smoke, pungent and acrid, belched from its exhaust pipe, mixing with the damp riverside air to create a bizarre, noxious assault reminiscent of burning plastic blended with rotting fish.

  "This thing…" Lin Wan covered her nose as she approached. "Is it older than my grandfather?"

  "Be more confident." Lu Baoyi patted the generator's casing. "It was probably already in service when your grandfather was young."

  "Will it work?"

  "It'll do." Lu Baoyi stood up, pointing to the flickering indicator lights on the equipment inside the nearby tent. "Better than powering it with prayer. That stuff's output is unstable, and it tends to cause emotional breakdowns in programmers."

  Lin Wan: "…"

  She fell silent for two seconds, took out her phone, snapped a picture of the generator, and posted it to the team's internal channel with the caption: "Witnessing History—A Snapshot of Our Nation's Geological Survey Endeavors Under Challenging Conditions. "

  Replies immediately flooded in:

  Technician Xiao Wang: Crying-laughing emoji Sis Lin, when this thing started up, I thought a tractor had driven into camp.

  Data Analyst Lao Zhao: Watch the voltage stability. My screen just flickered.

  Zhou Keran: Have contacted the local power station. Striving for grid connection this afternoon. Everyone, hang in there.

  Lu Baoyi glanced at his phone, saying nothing.

  Zhou Keran's efficiency was indeed remarkable. They had arrived at 4 AM while it was still dark, and she had already negotiated the site fee with local gentry, secured a provisional power application, and even procured two pickup trucks for equipment transport. It was only Chen hour now, and the camp was already taking shape.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  "Engineer Lu." Zhou Keran emerged from the main tent, a tablet in hand. "Preliminary terrain scan is complete. Here's the 3D model."

  She handed over the tablet.

  The screen displayed a topographic model of a five-kilometer radius around the Old Gentleman's Furnace. The Yellow River wound through the gorge like a colossal yellow serpent, the channel noticeably narrowing at the furnace section.

  "Are the sonar arrays deployed?" Lu Baoyi asked.

  "Six points deployed, covering the core area," Lin Wan answered. "But the underwater background noise is too high. Effective detection depth is probably less than a hundred meters."

  "Enough," Lu Baoyi said. "We're not looking for an ore vein. We're looking for an anomaly."

  He called up the Rust-Sound frequency spectrum archive. The frequency held steady at 17.3 Hz—precisely at the lower threshold of human hearing.

  "17.3 Hz." Lu Baoyi stared at the number. "This frequency is strange. It's not a common band for geological activity, nor mechanical vibration. It's more like… some kind of resonance. "

  "Resonance source?" Lin Wan asked.

  "Unknown." Lu Baoyi was honest. "That's what we need to find. It's like being in a nightclub and trying to locate the person with the subwoofer—you first need to confirm there actually is someone with a speaker."

  He sat down at the console and put on his headphones.

  A continuous, low rumble filled his ears—the sound of the Yellow River's flow. Occasional sharp pulses flashed through.

  He pulled up the decoding interface for the Liu Ren algorithm.

  Black background, green text, reminiscent of an '80s DOS system, but with exceptionally high processing efficiency.

  "Initiating first active scan," Lu Baoyi said. "Lin Wan, prepare to log anomalous waveforms."

  "Roger."

  Lu Baoyi pressed Enter.

  The program launched. Green data streams began scrolling across the screen, the Liu Ren matrix rotating like a spinning wheel. The six sonar arrays deployed along the riverbank simultaneously emitted a directional pulse, its frequency precisely modulated to include a greeting code generated by the Liu Ren algorithm.

  The pulse sank into the murky Yellow River water.

  The tent fell quiet, save for the hum of equipment fans.

  Five seconds.

  Ten seconds.

  Twenty seconds.

  Just as Lu Baoyi thought this scan would also yield nothing—

  *SCREEEEEECH---!!! *

  An ear-piercing, metallic-ripping noise simultaneously exploded from every device speaker.

  Immediately after—

  Lu Baoyi's vision in his right eye was instantly, completely overlaid by a viscous, dark-red filter.

  Not a fade-in. Instantaneous overlay. The screen, the tent, Lin Wan's face, his own hands—everything in his field of view was dyed a blood-filth dark red.

  And in the same millisecond the filter appeared, every screen on all three walls simultaneously distorted and tore, erupting with dense, burning dark-red visual noise.

  Not signal interference. The screens themselves were bleeding.

  It lasted a full 0.5 seconds.

  Then the filter vanished. The screens returned to normal.

  But a strong red afterimage burned on Lu Baoyi's retina, making everything look veiled in a bloody haze.

  "B-Boss…" Lin Wan's voice trembled. "Your eye…"

  "Did you record it?" Lu Baoyi's voice was steady, but his right hand was pressed to his temple—which was throbbing.

  "R-Recorded." Lin Wan pulled up the waveform log. "All sensors triggered synchronously… Wait, this peak…"

  She stared at the screen, her face growing paler.

  On the spectrum analysis, the peak of that dark-red noise had a frequency of precisely 17.3 Hz.

  The Rust-Sound had responded.

  Or rather, their greeting code had agitated something.

  Lu Baoyi took a deep breath and removed his headphones.

  He looked down at his right hand.

  Pressed against his temple moments before, the back of his hand had been marked by the headphone cable with a red line. Now, that line was rapidly turning an ashen, dead white.

  More than just a color change.

  The skin in the ashen area had lost all texture, becoming smooth and flat, like a piece of frosted glass. Even more bizarrely, when Lu Baoyi held his hand up to the tent's ceiling light, the surface of the ashen skin faintly reflected the distorted outlines of the surrounding equipment.

  As if his skin was being transformed into some kind of… non-human interface.

  There was no pain upon touch.

  But that sense of alien numbness had already spread from a small patch to half the back of his hand.

  "Lin Wan." Lu Baoyi's voice remained level. "Log: 08:43 Beijing time. Subject Lu Baoyi, post-active scan, exhibited zero-latency synchronous visual contamination, duration 0.5 seconds. Right hand dorsum shows localized greying, loss of texture, and specular reflection anomaly, suspected direct modification of biological material by rule-based contamination."

  Lin Wan's fingers flew across the keyboard, but her voice shook. "Sh-should we report to headquarters?"

  "Not yet." Lu Baoyi said. "We need to understand what it is first. Gotta determine the cause of injury before filing for workers' comp."

  He put the headphones back on, pulled up the recording of the noise, and amplified the signal to examine the details.

  Beneath the screeching noise, he captured a brief, rhythmic series of pulses.

  Morse code.

  He decoded quickly:

  ·-·-· ·-- ·-·-·-

  (S……W……S?)

  Lu Baoyi frowned, entered the pulse sequence into the decoding program.

  Three minutes later, the program output a result:

  "Coordinates… Synchronization… Request…"

  *Coordinates synchronization request. *

  Coming from beneath the riverbed.

  Or rather, from the thing beneath the riverbed.

  Lu Baoyi leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath.

  The contamination's reaction speed was now instantaneous.

  This wasn't a physical phenomenon. It was erosion at the level of rules—you disturb it, and it directly rewrites your perception, modifies your body.

  "Lin Wan," he said. "Prepare for a second active scan. This time, upgrade the greeting code. Add coordinate confirmation and an identity marker."

  "Identity marker?" Lin Wan was puzzled. "What marker?"

  Lu Baoyi was silent for a few seconds.

  Then he said, "Use my father's employee number. Chiyou project founding team. Lu Yuan, Employee Number 0007. "

  Lin Wan's fingers froze over the keyboard. "Is this… compliant?"

  "No," Lu Baoyi said. "But it's the only way to confirm if 'that side' recognizes him. If it responds to that, then a lot of things need to be reassessed."

  He paused, then added: "Encryption level to maximum. Use a chaos-algorithm nested shell. No one but us can crack it. "

  "Understood."

  Lin Wan began the procedure.

  Lu Baoyi stood up, about to say something else—

  *The tent flap was pushed aside. *

  Zhou Keran walked in carrying two steaming cups of freshly brewed coffee. Her face wore the appropriate, newcomer-worthy smile. "Engineer Lu, Sis Lin. Just brewed. For a pick-me-up."

  She placed one cup beside Lu Baoyi, handed the other to Lin Wan.

  Just as she set the coffee down, Lu Baoyi's voice continued: "…Delay the second scan by an hour. First, deploy a decoy—use the standard geological survey protocol, send a set of fake data packets, frequency shifted. Let's see who's listening."

  Zhou Keran's hand, as she handed over the coffee, jerked almost imperceptibly.

  Just once. Quick as a flicker.

  But she instantly recovered her composure, smiling as she asked, "Engineer Lu, this 'fish'… are you referring to the ones in the river, or the ones that might have swum into our equipment? "

  The question was light, like a joke.

  But the air in the tent instantly tightened.

  Lin Wan's fingers paused on the keyboard, not daring to move.

  Lu Baoyi looked up at Zhou Keran.

  She still smiled, her eyes clear, like a genuinely curious newcomer.

  "Both," Lu Baoyi said. "The Old Gentleman's Furnace is a strange place. The fish in the water might not be honest, and the fish in the equipment… must be guarded against even more. It's like raiding in a game—you clear the trash mobs first, then you can focus on the boss."

  He picked up his coffee and took a sip.

  Taste was good. The beans were indeed Panamanian Geisha.

  Zhou Keran nodded. "Caution is wise. I'll go check the external equipment security logs then, make sure no… wild fish have slipped in. "

  "Thank you." Lu Baoyi said.

  Zhou Keran turned and left.

  The tent flap fell back into place.

  Lin Wan immediately lowered her voice. "She heard!"

  "Heard, so be it." Lu Baoyi set down his cup. "The decoy was meant to be heard. That's how you know if the fish bite."

  "But what if she really is…"

  "Even better." Lu Baoyi said. "Then we'll know exactly who sent the fish. Playing with open cards is easier than playing with hidden ones in a situation like this."

  He sat back down and said to Lin Wan, "Execute the decoy protocol. Use frequency band 3. Send a set of fabricated geomagnetic anomaly data."

  "Understood."

  Lin Wan began operating.

  Three minutes later, she suddenly let out a soft "Huh?"

  "What is it?" Lu Baoyi asked.

  "The system log… just registered an anomalous remote access attempt. " Lin Wan stared at the screen, voice hushed. "Duration 0.8 seconds. Target was our outgoing data buffer. IP address was masked through at least seven proxy layers, but… the terminal points to a physical coordinate. "

  "Where?"

  "East China Sea, Zhangjiang." Lin Wan paused. "That coordinate corresponds to a building housing the supercomputing center jointly built by Xihe Technologies and the Chinese Academy of Sciences—Zhou Keran's previous employer on her resume. "

  The tent fell silent for several seconds.

  Only the equipment fans hummed.

  Lu Baoyi stared at the line of IP records on the screen, his eyes growing cold.

  "Xihe Technologies," he murmured. "Faction Xihe is making a move too. "

  He looked at Lin Wan. "Continue with the decoy. Don't react. Act like you saw nothing. "

  "But they…"

  "Let them look. " Lu Baoyi said. "Let them think we're really only measuring geomagnetic anomalies—and incidentally test the sensitivity of their fishing rod."

  He added after a moment, "But the real data stream—use encryption channel 5, route via satellite link, transmit directly to the headquarters backup server. Access permissions only for you and me. "

  "Understood."

  Lin Wan's fingers flew across the keyboard.

  Lu Baoyi leaned back, looking at the tent ceiling.

  Zhou Keran.

  Xihe Technologies.

  There was more than one fish. And they… came from different ponds.

  This game is starting to look like a full-party wipe raid, he thought to himself. And we haven't even seen the boss's face yet.

  III. Shen Hour (3-5 PM) · The Anchor

  A thousand kilometers away, a thousand years earlier.

  Qian Yiyan crouched on the riverbank, the metal fragment inscribed with the Gate symbol pinched between her fingers.

  The fragment was faintly warm in her palm, like a piece of glowing charcoal. The drop of blood it had absorbed earlier had formed an extremely fine, dark-red vein-like pattern across its surface, spreading from the symbol's edge, resembling a blood vessel.

  She closed her eyes, sinking her consciousness into the fragment.

  Astral force flowed, channeled from her fingertips.

  The fragment jolted violently.

  The warmth surged, followed by a tumultuous rush of chaotic information—

  Not images, not sounds, but more primal sensations.

  She felt weight. Not the weight of a mountain, but the weight of the entire Yellow River riverbed, all anchored to that single point. As if the thing underwater wasn't merely heavy, but was pinning something immeasurably heavy, preventing it from plummeting into the abyss.

  She felt tension. Countless invisible lines extended from that location, some drilling deep into the bedrock, some stretching towards the water's surface, and a few… pointing northeast, towards Bianjing. Those lines trembled slightly like lute strings, on the verge of snapping.

  She felt… hunger.

  Not physical hunger, but a more hollow craving for existence itself. As if a vast stomach lay open on the riverbed, waiting to be filled. And that hunger surged back along the information stream, threatening to devour her consciousness.

  At that moment—

  Qian Yiyan's hearing vanished.

  Not ringing, but absolute, utter silence. The Yellow River's roaring, the wind rustling through the brush, even the sound of her own heartbeat—all gone.

  Her sense of touch vanished.

  She could not feel the warmth of the fragment in her hand, the grit of the loose stones underfoot, the coolness of the wind on her face.

  Her sense of direction shattered.

  The concepts of up, down, left, right disintegrated in her mind. She could not tell if she was standing, crouching, or hanging upside down. Heaven and earth lost meaning. The boundary between water and shore blurred into chaos.

  It was as if her soul had been wrenched from her body by the hunger within the fragment and cast into a void devoid of senses and direction, containing only endless craving.

  For one instant, she was unsure if 'Qian Yiyan' still existed.

  Hearing, touch, direction—once these cornerstones of self were stripped away, what remained of that consciousness? Was it the hunger the anchor itself felt? For the first time, she felt a strange fear towards herself.

  This lasted for three full breaths.

  After three breaths, her senses rushed back like a tide.

  The water roared deafeningly, the stones硌 her feet, her heart pounded like a drum.

  But this return brought with it a skull-splitting headache and a wave of intense vertigo that nearly made her vomit.

  Qian Yiyan staggered back two steps, bracing herself against a rocky outcrop to keep from falling.

  Head throbbing, vision blurry.

  It took ten more breaths for that dizzying sense of disorientation to gradually subside.

  Gasping, she looked towards that patch of deep water.

  Thirty zhang down, fifty, a hundred… The anchor was there.

  Not a metaphor. A literal anchor—a massive component used to secure the Gate, to prevent the two worlds from tearing completely apart.

  Must be anchored—that's what her father's manuscripts had meant.

  But that hunger just now…

  That anchor, or the thing behind the Gate, craved to be filled.

  With what?

  Qian Yiyan thought of the fifty-three missing people.

  She thought of the Cold Iron, Mysterious Copper, and Star-Patterned Steel diverted by the Cao and Lü families.

  She thought of the Empress Dowager's annotation: In the third year of Jingde, a fisherman reported seeing a 'Golden Palace' underwater. He went mad and died after reporting to the authorities.

  A cold truth, like a blade, slowly worked its way into her heart:

  They were feeding that anchor with living people, and metal.

  Or rather, feeding the thing behind the Gate.

  And the instant this thought crystallized—

  Qian Yiyan suddenly felt a gaze.

  Not from the ship, not from the shore, not from anywhere she could see.

  That gaze came from an immense distance and depth, piercing through the murky water, the massive rock formations, a millennium of time, to settle upon her.

  Icy, indifferent, as if observing a tool.

  Or… a sacrificial offering.

  Her entire body went rigid. That chill of being utterly objectified was more piercing than the river wind.

  *Simultaneously, Modern Timeline *

  Lu Baoyi sat in the monitoring tent, watching the dark-red pulsing light of the hexagonal void on the screen.

  Its frequency was accelerating.

  At the void's center, a blurred, twisted symbol outline was slowly materializing—the Gate.

  He was about to call up the encrypted marker for his father's Employee Number 0007, preparing for the second scan.

  At that moment—

  A sudden, utterly baseless feeling of bone-deep solitude and cold seized him without warning.

  Not physical cold, but a more fundamental, absolute sense of isolation, as if cast into an infinite void, severed from all existence.

  His fingers froze on the keyboard. His breath caught.

  That feeling… was like sinking in the deep sea, surrounded only by darkness, silence, and the fear of one's own imminent dissolution.

  *What's happening? *

  Almost instinctively, driven by a primal urge, he pulled up another interface—

  The residual frequency spectrum left behind when Qian Yiyan's jade pendant resonated across the void.

  The image unfolded on the screen: chaotic waveforms, dark-red noise, and a nearly imperceptible, regular pulse representing a heartbeat.

  Lu Baoyi stared at that spectrum.

  And the moment his gaze fell upon it—

  The overwhelming sense of absolute isolation shrouding him subtly weakened, for just an instant.

  As if, within the endless dark, he had glimpsed a distant, almost non-existent point of light.

  Not an illusion.

  He could feel it.

  The pendant's spectrum on the screen and the sense of void he was experiencing now resonated in some bizarre way in the depths of his consciousness.

  As if the person who had held that pendant a thousand years ago was also standing at the edge of some fissure, feeling the same chill of being abandoned by the world.

  Lu Baoyi took a deep breath, pressing that faint echo of resonance back down.

  He looked again at the marker for his father's Employee Number 0007 on the screen.

  Then, he pressed Enter.

  *Northern Song Timeline · Return *

  Qian Yiyan stood on the riverbank. That icy gaze still lingered.

  But just as she was about to be utterly frozen by that sacrificial chill—

  The jade pendant in her bosom grew faintly warm.

  Very faint, very brief. Like a trick of the mind.

  But that warmth spread through the meridians near her chest, pulling her back, however briefly, from that inhuman stare.

  Pulling her back into the identity of Qian Yiyan.

  Pulling her back to human warmth.

  She looked down at her chest.

  The pendant lay quietly, its surface smooth.

  But that momentary warmth was no illusion.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, pushing the chill and fear back into the depths of her heart.

  When she opened them again, her gaze was one of icy clarity.

  "Astronomer Qian."

  Zhang Nu's voice came from behind.

  Qian Yiyan turned to see him standing by the ship, a waterskin in hand, his expression blank. "Rest is over. Time to move on. We need to reach the next mooring point before dark. This place… is not fit for lingering. "

  His tone was calm, but his eyes swept over the metal fragments on the bank before quickly looking away.

  Qian Yiyan stood up, brushing the sand and dirt from her hands.

  The headache remained, but was bearable now.

  "Elder Zhang," she suddenly asked, "In your forty years on this river, have you ever seen… what the River Lord looks like?"

  Zhang Nu was taken aback, then grinned, the scar pulling. "See it? Wouldn't dare. See it, and you get dragged down, never to surface again."

  "But do you believe in the River Lord?"

  "I do." Zhang Nu's smile faded as he looked at the turbid river. "Some things, you can choose not to believe, but they're there nonetheless. You don't provoke them, they won't provoke you. But if you insist on shoving your hand right into its mouth…"

  He trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  But the meaning was clear.

  Qian Yiyan asked no more. She turned and walked towards the ship.

  As she stepped onto the gangplank, she felt the handkerchief in her bosom shift again.

  A corner lifted, pointing towards the stern—not at the river, but at the patch of scrubland on the bank.

  From the corner of her eye, she glanced over.

  Among the bushes, a clump of leaves swayed unnaturally.

  As if someone crouching there had just shifted position.

  Not one of Zhang Nu's men. All three sailors were on deck; Zhang Nu was behind her.

  Not the Cao family's eyes. Their agents had no need to follow this far; Zhang Nu on the ship was enough.

  Then who?

  Another of the Empress Dowager's agents? The Lü family? Or someone else entirely?

  Qian Yiyan's expression did not change. She continued boarding.

  Before entering the cabin, she took one last look at that patch of scrubland.

  The leaves were still now.

  But she memorized the spot.

  The ship set sail again, leaving the river bend for the main channel.

  Qian Yiyan sat on the low couch, took the pendant from her bosom, and held it in her palm.

  The jade was smooth and warm to the touch, but now it felt cool.

  She looked down at her left shoulder.

  The corrosion patch had, unnoticed, expanded another ring.

  Its edge had crept up to her collarbone. The greyish-white, dead-looking skin spread like a plague beneath her skin.

  Touching it brought no pain.

  But that unnerving numbness, as if the skin did not belong to her, had spread from a small patch to half her shoulder.

  She set the pendant aside and took a bronze mirror from her bundle.

  The reflection showed a face still composed, but something deep in her eyes was gradually turning colder.

  Like the iron at the riverbed, slowly rusting away.

  Outside the window, the sky grew darker.

  The Yellow River's roar was like a million voices whispering in her ears.

  The ship cut through the waves, heading towards the deepest part of the Old Gentleman's Furnace.

  And at that same moment, two thousand kilometers away, on the screen in Lu Baoyi's lab, the dark-red pulsing light of the hexagonal void suddenly doubled its frequency.

  At the void's center, the symbol of the Gate stood out clearly.

  Below the screen, the countdown continued to tick:

  *"Coordinates received. Awaiting synchronization. Countdown: 23:59:59" *