Chapter 5: The Celestial Mechanism (Part 2)

Cracks spiderwebbed across Taiye Pool's icy surface as dawn bled through Chang'an's haze. Shen Qinghuan knelt behind the coiling dragon pillars of the Purple Palace, Empress Wu's gold-tipped fingernail grazing her jugular. "The Director of Astrology died sketching the Earth hexagram," the Empress hissed. "In your handwriting."

"Merely adjusting star charts," Qinghuan pressed her forehead to cold jade tiles, the bronze taotie's left eye sliding from her sleeve—its electroplated patterns matched artifacts from Lujiazui Station.

Empress Wu's laughter echoed as she revealed a cracked Huawei P40. The lock screen showed Qinghuan and her mother beneath the Oriental Pearl Tower, timestamped September 15, 2023—the day her mother vanished. "Consort Xu left gifts in the pool," the Empress tapped missed calls synced with Qinghuan's timequake. The ice mirrored dual skies—Tang constellations merging with modern Orion.

Flames from the Cold Food Feast licked the含元殿's ninety-nine jade steps. Qinghuan melted into officials' shadows, Huai'en's stolen tally burning in her sleeve. The eunuch supervising Luoyang's Mingtang construction had risked everything for this.

"Lady Pei." A Celestial Bureau official blocked her path, zirconium-studded belt glinting. "The Consort's tonic." The silver needle blackened in the jade bowl—mercury vapor, identical to Consort Xu's death rattle.

Qinghuan feigned dizziness, spilling poison on dragon reliefs. As gold leaf sizzled, the official's北斗七星 tattoo glowed—seventh star aligned with Lujiazui. "Ever read Yisi Zhan's Third Scroll?" Qinghuan whispered in Shanghainese, drawing anti-bowstring sigils on the woman's palm.

The official recoiled as Huai'en's blueprint fluttered down—construction plans for Shenlong-era Daming Palace showed seven bronze statues facing east, palms etched with Shanghai Metro Line 10.

Rain seeped through the Observatory's cracked tiles. Qinghuan pried up floorstones to reveal her father's Kun Yu's Subversive Treatise—ancient star maps overlaid with modern blueprints. The Seven Stars Soul Lock's nodes pierced Tang dragon veins precisely.

"You'll share your father's fate." Lady Cui emerged wielding bloodstained peachwood spikes.

Qinghuan activated the taotie eye. Holographic constellations erupted as Cui's北斗七星 tattoo hemorrhaged—seven moles crawling toward her heart, replicating Li princes' deaths during the Shenlong Coup.

"You feed timelines to the array," Qinghuan slotted the eye into an altar. "Each sacrifice patches temporal rifts to steal dynastic fortune."

As armillary spheres whirred, Cui dissolved into crimson mist. Her dropped phone illuminated a final message: "Ciyun Temple catacombs... behind Buddha..."

At dawn, Qinghuan faced the Mingtang excavation. Seven bronze statues stared eyeless toward Shanghai. Scanning their QR-coded palms revealed live feeds—Chen Guodong's corpse-bagged remains, her mother's skeletal key jammed in Ciyun Temple's door.

"Emperor Taizong's conquest trophy," Empress Wu's chariot halted by the pit. "Devourer of malignant energy."

"It consumes eras." Qinghuan embedded the taotie eye. Gears ground below as statues' chest-screens flickered—her mother trapped in modern Ciyun crypt, Tang blueprints plastered behind Sakyamuni.

The Huawei vibrated. Through temporal static, her mother's voice crackled: "Safe's third layer..." The feed died, taotie's right eye weeping blood. Parallel construction crews materialized—2023 drill teams and Tang laborers driving Luoyang's first pile.

"So my Mingtang awaited me across thirteen centuries." Empress Wu traced nano-coated inscriptions. "We depart for Luoyang at dawn."

Qinghuan clutched the phone, serpent sigil climbing her nape. The grand design crystallized—her father's treatise launched her backward, Wu's Mingtang reached forward. When dragon veins merged at Luoyang, history would record no such "sun-moon hegemony."

As rain blended Tang pigeon whistles with modern sirens, Qinghuan buried her father's relics by Taiye Pool. The phone's dying glow showed Empress Wu donning dragon robes, her mirror reflecting a Lujiazui office drone—countless Qinghuans across timelines raised marked wrists, their serpents forming a galactic chain. Her mother's bone key turned in dual-era locks.