Chapter 6: Neon Soultrap
Part I: Stormfront Showdown
Rain fell like silver needles piercing Lujiazui's skyline. Shen Qinghuan stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows of the IFC Tower's 56th floor, her pallid face illuminated by the cold glow of her phone. Chen Guodong's autopsy report flooded social media—a nine-panel grid showed his contorted body suspended in the Shanghai World Financial Center atrium, seven lividity marks forming the Big Dipper, the seventh star "Pojun" aligned with his heart.
"...death attributed to mercury-induced multi-organ failure..." The forensic audio cut out. Conspiracy theories exploded in comments: "Feng shui revenge!" "The Lujiazui curse returns!"
Qinghuan's nails dug into her palms. Surveillance footage from three days prior looped endlessly—her smashing the bronze taotie's left eye into Chen, the man staggering back into the armillary sphere model, bronze shards freezing mid-air into a Seven Stars formation.
"Miss Shen, please cooperate." Two detectives pushed through glass doors, rainwater from their umbrellas staining the carpet with taiji patterns. Qinghuan noted the corpse-oil soaked sandalwood beads on one detective's wrist—identical to those worn by Tang Dynasty Celestial Bureau assassins.
The coffee cup shattered. Scalding liquid arced toward the ceiling as she bolted through the fire exit. In the spiraling stairwell, her phone buzzed with an anonymous message: "Exit C. Bring the taotie's right eye." Sent at 03:15 on September 18, 2023—the exact hour she'd time-slipped to Tang.
Part II: Subway Labyrinth
Century Avenue Station's neon bled crimson through rain-soaked air. Qinghuan gripped the taotie's right eye in her backpack—left at her doorstep that morning with a note in Emperor Huizong's thin-gold script: "Key to Wu Zhou's Mingtang."
Under vending machine fluorescence, the red-clad woman selected canned coffee. Qinghuan's blood turned to ice—the figure wore a Tang-style crimson suit with cujin embroidery, a zirconium-inlaid jade bracelet matching Consort Xu's relic, hairpin adorned with No. 204 lipstick sample card from Empress Wu's burial inventory.
"Who are you?!" Qinghuan's cry drowned under train brakes. The woman leapt turnstiles, stilettos clicking tile to "Song of Rainbow and Feather Robe" rhythms. Qinghuan pursued into tunnels, GPS showing their path along Lujiazui's "Greedy Wolf" dragon vein—the calamitous axis from her father's Kun Yu Treatise.
Phosphorescent constellations bloomed on tunnel walls. The woman paused at a bend, "Tui Bei Tu's Third Prophecy" audible through AirPods: "Sun and moon share the sky, illuminating mortal realms..."
"Your family became sacrifices when your father took the Lujiazui survey." The woman's face flickered between Wang Meilin and Empress Wu. "Chen was bait. We needed dual fates—father and daughter."
Qinghuan's serpent sigil erupted, weaving golden filaments. The woman phased through the net, leaving a Polaroid—Chen's corpse floating in Daming Palace's Taiye Pool, Empress Wu's reflection trying on dragon robes. Scanning the QR code revealed a dark web livestream: workers hauling bronze mirrors in Ciyun Temple's crypt, reflections showing the Shenlong Coup's carnage.
Part III: Cryptic Endgame
Ciyun Temple's subterranean vault reeked of decay. Qinghuan's boots crunched Song Dynasty celadon shards—laser-etched with Wu Zhou's Mingtang blueprints. Her flashlight exposed Sanskrit curses interlaced with modern equations:
HgS (cinnabar) + Fe (iron) → Hg (mercury) + FeS
"Huanhuan..." A rasp echoed. The red-clad woman materialized from Eighteen Hells frescoes, ether-soaked silk handkerchief in hand. Qinghuan stumbled into an altar—the taotie's right eye rolled into crevices as the floor collapsed—
Falling, she saw seven bronze statues below. The fifth clutched a Huawei P40 frozen on her mother's smile; the sixth bore Chen's amulet with squirming seven stars tattoos; the seventh's vacant face mirrored her own.
"The Sun-Moon Supremacy nears completion!" The woman's voice warped. Qinghuan mashed her phone's emergency button—the sent coordinates registered as "Luoyang Mingtang, 703 AD" in police systems. As consciousness faded, meteorite fragments rained through breached vault ceilings—identical to Tang table's fallen star.
Epilogue: Tangled Threads
Next morning's headlines detonated: "Millennia-Old Corpse in Modern Attire Found in Ciyun Crypt." The mummy's mercury-poisoned stomach contained Wu Zhou elixir residue. Most horrifying—the corpse's serpent birthmark matched Qinghuan's luopan sigil perfectly.
In a Lujiazui safehouse, the red-clad woman removed her mask, revealing Lady Cui's face. Injecting Qinghuan's DNA into the seventh statue, the holographic countdown flashed: "23:59:59 Until Dragon Veins Converge." On the wall projection, Empress Wu spread her arms atop Mingtang while above Shanghai, the Big Dipper's seventh star pulsed bloody.
Rain persisted. In the ICU, Qinghuan convulsed as heart monitor lines morphed into constellations. Nurses screamed—mercury now flowed through IV tubes. Beyond the glass, the red-clad silhouette soared through neon-lit canyons, a Vermilion Bird etching fate across epochs.