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The icy fragrance of the lotus lingered on the window lattice as I curled up beside the intricately carved sandalwood couch, counting the hours.
At the third stroke of midnight, the clapper rang out, and suddenly, the soul-requiting bell at the eaves emitted a piercing hum.
In that moment when the aura of Xuanjade transformed into a frosty vortex, I reached out and grasped half of the gauzy shark silk curtain, which had already crystallized into ice.
"Has Wang Xuan's red flame poison taken effect?" I stared at the faintly visible cinnabar seal on his sleeve, a mark of the backlash from the twin curse.
Last night, when he kissed me back, he had bitten my lip, causing blood pearls to seep out, which were now forming a strange intertwined lotus pattern on the jade pillow.
Xuanjade's wide sleeves brushed against the glazed screen, and the gilded candlestick fell with a crash. "You've truly mastered the heart-seeking technique from the Nine Nether Cave," he remarked. His pinky finger, entwined with puppet threads, suddenly tightened, leaving blood marks on my wrist where the spirit butterfly was branded. "Too bad you miscalculated the position of the star chart."
It was at that moment that a torrential rain began to pour down.
I watched him dissolve into starlight above the cloud-patterned tiles, my palm still tingling from the warmth of the dragon-patterned jade clasp.
Three months ago, on our wedding night, he had used this spirit jade engraved with Xuanjie to lock my spirit platform within three inches inside the Nine-Turn Linglong Tower.
The copper mirror reflected my phoenix tail hairpin askew in my hair, while a silver chain adorned with intertwined lotuses still caught onto half a piece of Xuan color fabric.
The spirit butterfly emerged from the bottom of my makeup box with an ice silk handkerchief in its beak, on which was embroidered a crooked snow pine—leftover from when I secretly took an impression of his lapel pattern and was interrupted by Xuanjade's sword energy that shattered it.
"Have you had another nightmare, Young Mistress?" The footsteps of a fairy maid outside startled the spirit butterfly into crashing into my rouge box. I wiped away tears mixed with gold dust and suddenly caught a whiff of icy lotus fragrance from my sleeve that oddly smelled like rust.
Last night, when he pinned me before the star chart, the silver dragon phantom rising from my back indeed felt dimmer than usual.
At that moment when the spirit illusion technique activated, the puppet thread around my wrist suddenly elongated by three inches.
I gritted my teeth and tore off that blood-soaked silver thread, allowing it to transform into Star Sand as it seeped into the array eye of the teleportation formation.
As the bronze door closed behind me, ninety-nine glazed lamps simultaneously illuminated my glabella blood mark—that was a seal cut open by Xuanjade's dragon horn during our dual cultivation ceremony.
The star chart on the celestial pavilion's dome trembled violently as I reached out to catch falling fragments of meteorites but was burned by their images on my fingertip.
Three months ago, in the Heavenly Wedding Wine, Xuanjade stirred the ice lotus floating in his cup while I brushed my fingertip across his frost-marked brow: "Xuanjie does not need a bride who cries." He pressed a hot wine vessel against my collarbone, "Especially not one sent as an offering from Linghuan Fairy Realm."
The illusory mirror suspended above the agarwood suddenly buzzed; I stumbled to steady myself against a jade pillar inscribed with talismans and saw scenes from our wedding's seventh day emerge in its reflection.
Xuanjade crushed my carefully prepared spirit-calming incense; azure flames turned his pupils to golden hues: "You don't even have half of Wang Xuan's spiritual power." He ground incense ash onto my neck where I bore palace sand and said, "Do you really think you can deceive someone's mind just by relying on spirit butterflies?"
Star Sand melted into scalding liquid in my palm as I turned and pressed my forehead against a wall made of Ice Soul Cold Jade.
From deep within the loft came a sharp sound of chains breaking; countless spirit butterflies suddenly surged from my sleeve and pieced together a fragmented star chart in mid-air—clearly left behind by Xuanjade last night when he imprisoned me with Blood Curse, intentionally marking it on the brocade quilt as an array eye trace.
"Be careful, Young Mistress!" The shout from the guarding Immortal Attendant made me grab at flying shards of meteor iron with bare hands.
As the Scorch Mark burned into my Palm, the Star Sand suddenly coalesced into the dragon pattern of Xuanjie. The bronze door of the Linghuan Xian Pavilion let out a heavy rumble, while the unhealed Puppet scar on my wrist began to seep a dark red Blood Pearl, originating from the same source as the dragon-patterned jade buckle.
When the torrential rain abruptly ceased, the star mist floating in the light of the glass lanterns suddenly crystallized into ice spikes. I tightened my grip on the amber pendant that concealed the Spirit Butterfly egg, and at that moment, I heard the sound of tearing fabric from the Xuan Bing bracelet gifted to me by Xuanjade.
The celestial sphere at the highest point of the loft began to rotate in reverse, as a certain essence mixed with the fragrance of mandala flowers surged from deep within the earth. The swarm of Spirit Butterflies suddenly crashed toward the jade tablet inscribed with Wang Xuan's Birth Chart. I reached out to stop them but was cut by an illusion formed from Star Sand, slicing through my Fingertip.
The instant the Blood Pearl fell into the groove of the celestial sphere, the Heart Moon Fox Star Official among the Twenty-Eight Mansions shone so brightly it seemed ready to shed Rouge tears.
The amber pendant suddenly heated up in my Palm, and starlight from the Twenty-Eight Mansions pierced through the dome, cascading onto my trembling back. The jade tablet shattered by the swarm of Spirit Butterflies crumbled into powder, and those Seal Characters inscribed with Wang Xuan's birth date transformed into Rouge fish, swimming toward the northwest direction within the Star Sand.
I pressed my suddenly aching spirit platform, and icy blue fluorescence began to seep from the sealing patterns on my forehead. This was a sign of resonance from our twin spells—when Xuanjade's Cinnabar Seal on his left wrist was being eroded by crimson flame poison, my right wrist's gecko sand would crystallize into a Frost Flower.
At this moment, three ice crystals, each about the size of a Nail cap, were growing along my blood vessels; yet, their piercing pain was nothing compared to the rippling water patterns that suddenly spread across the mirror of illusion.
Reflected in that mirror was the Washing Pool outside Nine Heavens, where Wang Xuan's Crimson Gold Tailfeather swept through the rising mist above the pool. She stepped onto floating ice, her silver bells clashing with the dragon-patterned buckle on her Xuanjade sword sheath, creating a clear and melodious sound.
That section of Lustrous Wrist once entwined by Puppet threads now clung to an unmelted Frost Flower on her Xuanjade Xuan Colored Collar. "The dragon energy of Xuanjie has weakened so much that it needs to borrow secret techniques from Linghuan Fairy Realm?" Wang Xuan's voice carried a unique softness typical of the Fox Clan, yet her Fingertip formed a toxic Icicle. "When you used a red dragon's reverse scale to pacify my soul back then, you weren't in such a wretched state."
I staggered as I leaned against the celestial sphere; suddenly, I tasted the bitter flavor of ice lotus from Heavenly Wedding Wine in my throat. In the mirror, Xuanjade's frost pattern between his brows glimmered with an eerie dark red hue—an imprint left from our collision last night when his Immortal Marrow touched my spirit platform.
His hand gripping the sword bulged with veins but allowed Wang Xuan's fox tail to wrap around his waist like that night during our wedding when I brushed against that Qian Kun Bag containing old love letters while changing his clothes.
The Spirit Butterflies violently crashed into the mirror of illusion, and as its shattered surface reflected more mottled lights and shadows, I saw Yang Lin pinning a jade lily onto me by the Yao Pool in Linghuan Fairy Realm on my fifteenth birthday; I also saw my mother trembling as she sewed the key to the Nine-Turn Linglong Tower into my wedding dress when our celestial gate had broken six months ago.
"Young Mistress!" The startled cry of an Immortal Attendant guarding the pavilion jolted me awake, and I realized that fragments of meteorite I had clutched in my Palm had embedded themselves into my flesh.
The dragon patterns formed by Star Sand danced around the wound, intertwining with the red light cast by the Heart Moon Fox Star Official. I bit my tongue, drawing blood to smear on the amber pendant, and suddenly, a spirit butterfly egg broke free from its cocoon, devouring the nascent Curse Seal.
From deep within the attic came the sound of a jade slip returning to its place. I leaned against the Ice Soul Cold Jade wall and slowly slid down to the ground. The seal on my forehead had cracked at some unknown time, releasing a few strands of imprisoned Immortal Marrow Lustreflow.
Three months ago, when I was forced to drink the Spirit Locking Potion, Xuanjade had gripped my jaw with a cold smile, saying, "The offerings sent by your Linghuan Fairy Realm should know their place."
Star Sand formed a shattered star chart on my Hemline as I reached out to touch those flickering points of light; they surprisingly burrowed into my spiritual veins through my Fingertip. When the first strand of dragon energy belonging to Xuanjie unfurled at my Dantian, the Puppet silk mark on my wrist suddenly burned—this was a fusion of spiritual power more domineering than Spirit Fusion dual cultivation.
Moonlight washed clean by heavy rain seeped through the cracks of the bronze door. I gazed at the phantom dragon scales appearing on the back of my hand and suddenly recalled how Xuanjade had pressed me against the star chart last night; his back bore a silver dragon totem that had let out a mournful cry.
Those dragon claw shadows piercing into my Shoulder Blade bones might not have been punishment but rather some form of uncontrolled plea for help.
"Young Mistress, it is three-quarters past the hour of the Dog," an Immortal Attendant knelt behind the glazed screen, holding a spirit spring cup. The Nine-Turn Linglong Tower reflected in the cup was shaking violently.
I brushed my fingers over half a piece of ice silk embroidered with cedar in my makeup box and suddenly plunged the blood-stained phoenix tail step into the formation's core trajectory—since Xuanjade had trapped me in the Chessboard with Blood Curse, I would use the dream-weaving technique of Linghuan Fairy Realm as a shuttle to reweave this broken star chart.
As the last chaotic strand of celestial power returned to its place, a Star Seed fell from the attic's dome and suddenly transformed into a spirit crane for communication. In its beak was the safety talisman my mother had sought for me years ago—at that moment, its edges were curling in flames, revealing half a prophecy hidden within Cinnabar patterns: "Where moon shifts and stars fall, reverse scales can mend the sky."
As I rose to adjust my frost-dyed cloud brocade cloak, I caught sight of the star tracks projected by the armillary sphere twisting unnaturally. In the northwest corner, Zi Wei Star, symbolizing the Lord of the Xuan Realm, flickered erratically; from its starlight emerged a mist of Crimson Gold, sharing origins with Wang Xuan's Tail Feather.
The spirit spring water in the cup boiled unexpectedly, reflecting the newly born ice lotus flower mark between my brows—that was the imprint of the twin curse Backlash, now glowing with a unique dark radiance of dragon blood.
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