Chapter 19: The Twin Phoenixes Bearing the Seal
In the Zichen Hall, the bronze water clock dripped to the third quarter of the Mao hour. Shen Qinghuan's vermilion brush left red streaks on the map of Luoyang at her fingertips. Caiyun knelt beside her, holding a gilded hand warmer, her bluish-gray palace attire faintly revealing a snake-shaped tattoo near her collarbone—a protective charm Shen Qinghuan had inked three days prior using meteorite powder mixed with chicken blood.
"My lord, the third level of the Mingtang underground palace has unearthed seven bronze vats," Qingfeng announced as he lifted the curtain and entered, his black armor still dusted with Luoyang's red soil. "The female corpses inside were all dressed in the vermilion robes of the Tianji Pavilion, with zircon stones embedded in their foreheads."
The snake pattern on Shen Qinghuan's compass slithered around her wrist. Those zircon stones matched the meteorite composition she had brought with her when she crossed time, and the palm lines of the corpses were etched with names of Shanghai subway stations. Wu Meiniang had buried the focal point of the Seven-Star Soul-Locking Array beneath the coffins of past empresses, harnessing the phoenix qi of six dynasties to nurture a temporal tunnel.
"What's the situation with Mingyue?" She turned the map northwest, where the secret training base of Huaien's black-armored troops was marked.
"My lord, Zun has infiltrated the Hu merchant caravan in Xiuwen Ward," Caiyun replied, presenting a secret report. Half a blood-stained fish tally slipped from her sleeve. "This was found on a kitchen maid who died suddenly in the Yeting Palace this morning."
A QR code inside the fish tally revealed surveillance footage: the Ciyun Temple underground palace in 2023, where Wu Meiniang, clad in a twelve-patterned imperial robe, adjusted an armillary sphere in front of a modern construction team. Shen Qinghuan crushed her teacup, the porcelain shards cutting her palm—the base of that armillary sphere was unmistakably forged from her father's original manuscript of *The Book of Earth's Destiny*.
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At Hanyuan Hall, the morning bell shook snow from the branches as Wu Meiniang, supporting Emperor Gaozong's memorial tablet, ascended the ninety-nine jade steps. When her newly crafted phoenix shoes stepped on the green bricks, dark red mercury seeped from the seams—last night, seven more Li Tang royals had been forced to drink poisoned wine, their bones used to fill the under-construction Tianshu monument.
"We've intercepted an urgent message from the Tianji Pavilion!" Caiyun presented a gilded box containing a smartphone playing footage of Shen Qinghuan training her black-armored troops. As the camera panned over Caiyun's collarbone tattoo, Wu Meiniang's gauntlet snapped. "This girl dares to use modern tattooing techniques for her schemes."
The incense wafting from the bronze crane in the hall's corner suddenly turned into mercury vapor, knocking out over thirty palace maids. Wu Meiniang caressed the gas mask hidden in the box's secret compartment—something she'd retrieved from Shen Qinghuan's hiking bag buried under an old locust tree.
"Tell Huaiyi to replace the explosives at Ci'en Temple with nitroglycerin," she said, opening a video in her photo album showing Shen Qinghuan's mother in captivity. "This palace will give Controller Shen a grand gift on the Lantern Festival."
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Beneath the Hu pastry shop in Xiuwen Ward, Zun was assembling a crossbow. Qingfeng pressed a silicone disguise mask to his face, instantly transforming into a Persian jewel merchant. "The lord says Wu Meiniang has planted twenty-eight mercury springs across Chang'an. They'll explode when heated during the Lantern Festival."
"No need to wait for her move." Zun hid a miniature explosive in a coral tribute. "Huaiyi's pigeon says Lady Shen is imprisoned in the Ci'en Temple underground palace, with magnetic induction mines at the entrance."
Caiyun burst in, her compass needle spinning wildly. "Evacuate! The Tianji Pavilion's—"
An explosion tore the roof apart. Mingyue, wielding dual blades, cleaved through the flames. The pursuers' wrist tattoos of the Big Dipper glowed faintly blue—cyanide-coated hidden weapons. Caiyun flung meteorite powder, and the toxic smoke ignited upon contact with metal, burning the pursuers into seven charred skeletons arranged in a Big Dipper formation.
"The lord awaits us at Luoshui," Mingyue said, severing the lead pursuer's head. A steel cable shot from her silver hairpin wrapped around the ward's wall. "Wu Meiniang destroyed Xiuwen Ward to force the lord to reveal herself and save her mother."
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On a Luoshui painted boat, Shen Qinghuan calibrated a sextant. The mercury mirror reflected dual images—modern Lujiazui's glass curtain walls blending with Tang dynasty palaces in the ripples. Caiyun handed her a bloodied head. "This is the newly promoted Tianji Pavilion master. There's a video on his phone."
In the video, Shen Qinghuan's mother was chained beside a maglev model, with Chang'an's defense map scrolling on a screen behind her. Wu Meiniang's voice came from off-screen: "This palace reinforced Ci'en Temple's underground palace with thirty thousand tons of steel. Your nitroglycerin might not—"
Shen Qinghuan crushed the phone, meteorite powder mixing with blood as it sank into Luoshui. Seven bronze coffins surfaced from the riverbed, their electroplated lid patterns forming a QR code. Scanning it revealed Wu Meiniang's call logs from the past six months—the latest to a 2023 construction firm, booking a sundial installation atop the Oriental Pearl Tower.
"A masterful dual-timeline stranglehold." She aimed her sextant at Polaris. "Then let her mercury springs taste ion-exchange resin."
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On Lantern Festival night, ten thousand river lanterns blanketed Luoshui. Shen Qinghuan, wearing a gas mask, stood atop Longmen Mountain, watching Wu Meiniang's phoenix carriage enter Ci'en Temple. Caiyun and Qingfeng, disguised as Hu merchants, dropped resin capsules into the mercury springs, while Mingyue and the black-armored troops ambushed the underground palace's vents.
"My lord, Zun has cut the palace's power," Qingfeng reported, static crackling through his earpiece. "But Wu Meiniang installed a Tesla coil in the inner hall—"
The explosion came a quarter-hour early. As electromagnetic pulses surged skyward, Shen Qinghuan realized the maglev model in the video was a trap. Ci'en Temple's underground palace was forming a wormhole between the present and Tang dynasty. Wu Meiniang didn't want dual-timeline rule—she aimed to refine the entire Tang empire into mercury vapor and inject it into 2023's financial hub.
"Activate the backup plan." She pressed her smartwatch, projecting a holographic *Dragon-Shaking Scripture* left by her father. "Have Qingfeng replace the Tianshu inscription with this code."
Once scanned, all of Chang'an's mercury springs reversed flow. Wu Meiniang's phoenix carriage disintegrated in an electromagnetic storm. In her final livestream, Shen Qinghuan's mother inserted a bone key into the Oriental Pearl Tower's power box—on September 15, 2023, Lujiazui's glass walls broadcast the historical fall of Wu Zhou.
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At the fifth watch, Shen Qinghuan stood amid Ci'en Temple's ruins. Caiyun held Wu Meiniang's shattered gauntlet, while Qingfeng unearthed seven Huawei phones from the palace. Mingyue suddenly pointed skyward. "My lord, look!"
An aurora spanning millennia shimmered over Luoshui, modern drones and Tang sky lanterns weaving a taiji symbol in the magnetic field. The snake tattoo on Shen Qinghuan's wrist detached, turning into golden light that fused into the ruins—a stele of bronze and carbon fiber rose, inscribed with "Emperor Zetian Dasheng" on one side and "Shanghai Cultural Relic Protection Unit" on the other.
"Time for a new identity." She tossed Wu Meiniang's phone fragments into Luoshui. "From today, Mingyue is the new Supervisor of the Astronomical Bureau."
River winds carried 2023's car exhaust mingled with Tang sandalwood. Shen Qinghuan knew this twin-phoenix struggle was merely the opening of a grander game—when the Mingtang she rebuilt in Luoyang was completed, the eyes lurking in time's folds would finally open.