Chapter 20: Twin Stars Shatter the Army
The sound of the water clock in the Taiji Palace carried a hint of blood. Shen Qinghuan's fingertips brushed over the cracks in the tortoise shell, and the hexagram revealed in the candlelight was *Shui Lei Tun*—a sign of seeking victory amidst danger. Outside the window, a meteor suddenly pierced through the Taiwei Enclosure, casting the glazed tiles of the Zichen Hall in a ghastly white, like bones.
"It's here." She pressed a copper coin onto the northwest corner of the Chang'an map, precisely where Wu Meiniang had recently erected her new altar for heavenly sacrifices.
Mingyue knelt at the steps below, holding a blood-dripping astrolabe. The silver hairpin in her hair was broken in half. "The Wu faction buried a Seven Evils Soul-Locking Array at the Qixia Gate. Fortunately, Sister Caiyun spotted the array's core." Behind her, Caiyun restrained a man in scarlet robes with his hands tied behind his back, the cold iron chains bruising his neck purple.
Shen Qinghuan caught the faint scent of dragon saliva incense wafting from the man's sleeve—an imperial tribute reserved exclusively for Wu Meiniang's trusted confidants. Caiyun's curved blade lifted his chin, the edge reflecting a tattoo of the Big Dipper. At the position of the seventh star, the words "Tianji" (Heavenly Secret) were inked.
"Gao Lishi, the chief eunuch of the Palace Directorate, tasked with relaying secret orders for the Wu faction," Mingyue said as she unfurled a blood-stained silk scroll. It bore a cryptic map of the hidden passages beneath Luoyang's Mingtang. "He says Empress Wu buried three hundred jin of cinnabar under the Hanyuan Hall."
Gao Lishi suddenly sneered, spitting out half a severed tongue. Caiyun swiftly grabbed his throat, but black blood gushed from his ears—he had bitten through a poison capsule hidden in his molar.
"He wants to die, but I won't let him." Shen Qinghuan's snake tattoo slithered to her palm, and a golden light enveloped Gao Lishi's crown chakra. "Fetch the Three Corpses Brain God Pill."
Caiyun retrieved a scarlet pill from a gilded box. In the moonlight, three silver-threaded worms could be seen wriggling within. This was a secret drug refined using the Miaojiang gu techniques recorded in the *Dragon-Shaking Scripture*. Those poisoned by it had to take an antidote every new and full moon, or the worms would devour their brain.
"Tell us where the cinnabar is buried, or in three days, watch the worms crawl out of your eye sockets." Mingyue pressed the astrolabe against his chest, its twenty-eight constellation studs piercing his flesh. Gao Lishi's pupils shrank—he recognized the astrolabe. It was the very one passed down by the executed Director of the Astronomy Bureau three days prior.
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The midnight drizzle carried the scent of saltpeter. Mingyue stood atop the flying eaves of the Qixia Gate watchtower. She plucked the jade pendant from her waist and hurled it into the night sky. The pendant transformed into the ethereal form of a blue luan bird, illuminating the positions of the Wu faction's hidden crossbowmen.
"Thirty paces to the Xun position—Breaking Army Star descends!" Caiyun led her death squad out from the underground waterway, her curved blade slashing the throats of the Taoist priests guarding the array. Suddenly, the bronze taotie at the array's core opened its eyes, spewing toxic mist—the cinnabar fire array Shen Qinghuan had foretold.
Mingyue bit her fingertip and scribbled on the astrolabe. The blood-drawn Hetu Luoshu trapped the toxic mist within the array. Seizing the moment, Caiyun threw Five Emperor Coins, embedding one in the taotie's left eye. The mechanism's gears screeched as they ground together. A muffled rumble came from below, and three hundred jin of cinnabar surged through a hidden channel into the Taiye Pool, turning the Wu faction's meticulously planned killing ground into a stinking pool of blood-red water.
"Report—" A blood-soaked scout stumbled and knelt before Shen Qinghuan. "Lady Caiyun has slain the Wu faction's Zhaowu Captain and the Deputy Director of the Astronomy Bureau. She's now cornering the Chief of the Tianji Pavilion at the Lingyan Pavilion!"
Shen Qinghuan's compass needle suddenly reversed. She tore off the prayer beads from her wrist and scattered them onto the sand table. The sandalwood beads rolled across the Chang'an map in a strange pattern, finally forming the shape of a twin-fish jade pendant at Yongxing Ward—the location of Wu Meiniang's childhood home before entering the palace.
"Order Mingyue to take my lightning-struck jujube wood sword and guard the well at Yongxing Ward," she said, dipping her brush in cinnabar to draw an inverted Bagua on talisman paper. "Wu Zhao intends to reverse the dragon qi of the earth veins. We must break the feng shui of her ancestral yin dwelling before the yin hour."
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The beams of the Lingyan Pavilion crumbled in flames. Caiyun stepped over the rubble, closing in on the Chief of the Tianji Pavilion. The old Taoist's whisk was broken, and his robe, embroidered with the twenty-eight constellations, was soaked in blood. "You defy the heavens, and you will surely…"
Her curved blade pierced his chest mid-sentence. Caiyun spun aside to avoid the splattering toxic blood. As his corpse fell, a copper box slipped from his robes, spilling half a scroll of the *Tui Bei Tu*. The yellowed page bore a startling star chart of modern Shanghai's Lujiazui.
"Found it." Caiyun used her blade to lift a fish-shaped token from the bottom of the box, inscribed with "Year Two of Shenlong, Ci'en Temple Crypt." She suddenly recalled that three days ago, the dying Gao Lishi had drawn the same symbol in blood on the floor tiles.
At the yin hour, the sound of the watchman's clapper cut through the rain. Mingyue swung her sword, severing the ancient locust tree in Yongxing Ward. Black water gushed from its core, soaking seven infant corpses wearing golden crowns—Wu Meiniang's Seven Evils suppression objects, refined from stillborn princes. The lightning-struck jujube wood sword summoned heavenly fire, reducing the corpses to ash as a dragon-like roar echoed from beneath Chang'an.
Shen Qinghuan's snake tattoo reached her eye corner, its golden glow intensifying. She gazed toward the Taiji Hall and chuckled softly, "Dear sister, you stole my modern dragon vein, and I've destroyed your Li Tang foundation. This Seven Star Game will ultimately burn back to the one who set it."
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At dawn's first light, Caiyun returned with the newly captured Deputy Director of the Astronomy Bureau. His eyes were bloodshot, and his neck bore the same Big Dipper tattoo as Gao Lishi's. Mingyue pressed the blood-stained astrolabe to his forehead. "Speak—where did Wu Zhao hide the remaining fragments of the *Kunyu Collation of Fate*?"
The youth lunged suddenly, but Caiyun's cold iron chains strangled his throat. Shen Qinghuan approached slowly, her fingertip tracing the QR code tattooed over his heart. The scanning beep echoed sharply in the silent hall. Her phone screen lit up, revealing modern surveillance footage—Wu Meiniang stood smiling before a Shakyamuni statue in the crypt of Shanghai's Ciyun Temple.
"So you've tasted the Corpse-Dissolving Immortal Pill too." Shen Qinghuan crushed the Three Corpses Brain God Pill, and the worms burrowed into the youth's ear canal. "Why not see for yourself how the empress you serve sacrifices her pawns?"
The rain stopped. The bloodstains in the Taiji Palace shimmered gold-red under the rising sun. Mingyue and Caiyun exchanged a smile, knowing that when Wu Meiniang's most trusted Deputy Director of the Astronomy Bureau turned against her, the stars of the Ziwei Enclosure would change hands.