Chapter 21: Phoenix Tower Blood Edict
On the seventh day of the seventh month in the first year of Shenlong, the first snow of the year drifted over Luoyang's city walls. Wu Meiniang stood atop the Ying Tian Gate tower, clutching half a broken nail in her palm, gazing at the blazing fires beyond the city that stained the delicate snow scarlet—the signal smoke of Shen Qinghuan's Black Armored Army burning the Mingtang granaries.
"Using fire to break metal—well played." She crushed the secret report in her hand, the silk still smeared with Qingfeng's blood. "She turned my own Five Elements Array against the Mingtang. It seems she truly inherited Xu Cairen's teachings."
A commotion erupted below the tower. Three hundred Golden Guard soldiers dragged a bloodied Qingfeng through the long street. The young general's silver armor had been stripped away, and the deep, bone-exposing gashes on his back spelled out the phrase "Hen Rules the Dawn." Wu Meiniang brushed her freshly painted vermilion nails, recalling the crushing defeat three days prior: Shen Qinghuan had reforged stirrups with meteoric iron, enabling her Black Armored cavalry to charge across icy terrain and bypass the fire-thunder array she had set at Longmen Mountain.
"Hang him on the southeast corner tower. Let Master Shen take a good look at her little wolf cub." She drove the broken nail into a gap in the parapet, and black water seeped from the stone—last night, an earth dragon stirred beneath the Tianshu Palace, and Shen Qinghuan had altered the course of Luoyang's dragon vein.
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When the midnight drumbeats, laced with the stench of blood, drifted into the Black Armored Army's camp, Shen Qinghuan was staring at a miniature map of Luoyang on the sand table. The flickering merman candle cast shadows of the twenty-eight constellations onto the tent walls, but no one could deduce the dragon vein's path in an instant like Qingfeng once did.
"Report—!" A blood-soaked scout stumbled into the tent. "General Qingfeng… he's been pierced with nine chains and hung…"
The medicine bowl in Mingyue's hands shattered with a bang. Caiyun, who had been bandaging wounds, leapt up, her soft sword splitting the sand table in two. "I'll go slaughter that old hag right now!"
"Stand down!" Shen Qinghuan's voice crackled with frost as her snake tattoo slithered to her tiger's mouth. The jade pixiu representing Qingfeng on the map crumbled to dust. She bit her tongue, swallowing the metallic sweetness. "Wu Meiniang has set a Seven Evils Soul-Locking Array at the southeast corner tower, waiting for us to walk into her trap."
Suddenly, the tolling of a bronze bell echoed from outside. Zundu rushed in, clutching his bleeding left eye. "The grain camp's been attacked! Someone used phosphorus fire to burn…"
Before he could finish, blood-red fireworks exploded in the southwestern sky—Qingfeng's signature Phoenix Cry Arrow. Shen Qinghuan's pupils contracted. Three days ago, the young general's smiling face as he volunteered for a surprise attack flashed before her eyes: "This subordinate is willing to serve as bait to buy my lord three days to break the array."
"My lord, no!" Mingyue clung desperately to her leg. "It's a ploy to lure the tiger from the mountain!" Caiyun's soft sword was already at her own throat. "If my lord insists on risking herself, this subordinate will spill her blood three feet high right now!"
Shen Qinghuan's nails dug into the meteoric iron tiger tally in her palm. The wind and snow howled outside, reminiscent of that night by the Taiye Pool when Qingfeng danced with his sword, the water droplets he flicked reflecting the starry sky. "When my lord ascends the throne, this subordinate will surely demand to be made a Feather Forest General…"
"Prepare my horse." She tore off her cloak. "Using the Turtle Breath Technique Xu Cairen taught me, I'll personally deliver a grand gift to Qingfeng."
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At the yin hour, icicles hung from Luoyang's city walls. Qingfeng's broken body swayed lightly in the northern wind, the nine meteoric iron chains piercing his bones crusted with bloody frost. Shen Qinghuan crouched behind a snow mound three hundred paces from the city, her snake tattoo reflecting a horrific truth in her eyes—Wu Meiniang had buried the Seven Evils array's core in Qingfeng's five organs, forging a living array anchor.
"My lord, look." Mingyue handed her a sky-peering tube. In the shadows of the corner tower, Wu Meiniang's favored monk Xue Huaiyi was pouring a vat of mercury into the moat. Countless bronze figurines floated to the surface—the very ones unearthed from beneath the Mingtang's foundation, each embedded with a zircon from Lujiazui in its chest.
Shen Qinghuan's compass spun wildly. She yanked Mingyue aside and rolled down the snow mound just as a barrage of crossbow bolts turned their former hiding spot into a honeycomb. Wu Meiniang's laughter rang from the city walls. "Does Master Shen know that your adoptive father fell to this very 'turtle in a jar' trick years ago…"
A rain of arrows mixed with fire-dragon oil jars poured down. Zundu's right arm was pierced by a stray arrow, yet he gripped the command flag tightly. "Protect my lord!" Caiyun wove her sword into a net, but the blade snapped as it struck down the seventh fire jar.
"Fall back to the Qian position!" Shen Qinghuan flung a meteoric iron chain to hook the corner tower's eaves. Her snake tattoo slithered along the chain toward Qingfeng's corpse but recoiled upon touching the array's core at his heart. As blood seeped from her seven orifices, she glimpsed the Shanghai subway map Wu Meiniang had drawn in gold powder on Qingfeng's pierced lung—the final escape gate of the Seven Star Soul-Locking Array.
"My lord, beware!" Mingyue lunged forward. A poisoned crossbow bolt pierced her shoulder blade just as Shen Qinghuan crushed the jade pendant in her sleeve—a life-saving charm from Xu Cairen's dying gift. A rumble shook the earth, and the Mingtang ruins collapsed. Dragon vein qi surged from the Xuanwu Gate direction, enveloping the corner tower in cyan light.
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As dawn tinted the Luo River red, the remnants of the Black Armored Army retreated to Mang Mountain. Mingyue lay on a makeshift stretcher, black blood soaking through the bandages on her shoulder. Caiyun, missing half her left ear, used ice shards to staunch the festering wound in Zundu's right eye.
Shen Qinghuan gripped the remaining half of Qingfeng's heart-protecting mirror, its surface reflecting her cracked lips. "Order all covert agents in the provinces to activate the 'Earth Dragon Stirring' plan." It was a tunnel tactic she had designed based on modern subway construction maps, originally reserved for the final battle at Chang'an.
"My lord…" Mingyue's breath was faint. "Qingfeng's body…"
"What Wu Meiniang locked with nine chains is just a husk." Shen Qinghuan pressed the mirror to her chest. "The real Qingfeng has already merged with Luoyang's dragon vein." She gazed southeast, where fresh snow blanketed the bloodstains over the burned Mingtang ruins, yet failed to conceal the wisps of cyan smoke seeping from the cracks—the young general's soul reshaping the earth vein.
Suddenly, the Luo River at the foot of Mang Mountain flowed backward, an inverted reflection of Shanghai's Bund shimmering in the water. Shen Qinghuan's snake tattoo slithered to her eye corner, and in a daze, she heard Qingfeng's voice mingling with the wind: "This subordinate has not failed my mission…"
At that moment, Wu Meiniang's blood edict arrived, its silk edges adorned with nine barbed meteoric iron chains: "Hearing of your earth dragon strategy, this palace has prepared three hundred living figurines to await you. On the winter solstice, Master Shen's heart-blood will consecrate the dragon vein of my Great Tang."
Shen Qinghuan tossed the edict into the brazier. In the flames, Xu Cairen's blood-drawn prophecy emerged—on the first month of the second year of Shenlong, a meteor shower would fall on the Taichu Palace, and the Seven Star Soul-Locking Array at Lujiazui would collapse at the same hour.