Three days later at 5:45 AM, Shi Feiyang returned, stepping on shattered jade, with his dark cloak crystallized like armor, and the dragon-patterned scabbard striking the green brick floor, sparking flames.
He slammed the yellowed secret report onto the sandalwood desk heavily, shaking the ink remnants in the porcelain brush wash into ripples: "Hidden Dragon Village on the West Bank of Taihu Lake sealed the village and closed the market since the twenty-seventh of the twelfth lunar month. The day before yesterday, a merchant ship carried ten black coffins inside. These coffins likely don't contain the dead."
Xue Li's fingertips caressed the half jade pendant in her embrace, the Kunlun totem flowing cerulean in the morning light, resembling the eternal cold moon in the Celestial Snow Cave of Tianshan Mountain.
