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墨書 Inktalez
The imperial city was shrouded in an eerie silence before dawn.
Yun Jinxiu stood atop the Zhuque Gate's arrow tower, gazing at the three hundred corpses clad in charred red armor lined up along the long street. With each step they took, the bluestone pavement was scorched, leaving behind silver-leaf patterns, while their decayed iron boots ground against the imperial road, producing a grating "creak" that sent chills down one's spine. The morning breeze lifted her dark cloak, revealing a short sword at her waist, embedded with nine-turn silver leaves—the clan's treasured artifact just retrieved from the Bai Clan Tomb last night.
"The time has come."
With a flick of her fingertip, three aconite seeds fell into the boiling cauldron below the city. As purple smoke billowed up, the lined-up corpses suddenly turned as one, their hollow eye sockets fixating on the direction of the Taihe Hall.
"Yun Clan witch!" shouted Minister of War Wang Huanzhi from below, his voice filled with rage. "How dare you manipulate these..."
His words were abruptly cut off.
The old man suddenly clawed at his own face, his skin peeling away like cracked plaster to reveal dark, twisted silver leaf patterns beneath. Behind him, dozens of officials screamed in horror; some even gouged out their own eyes—within those murky crystalline orbs wriggled silver threadworms as thin as hair!
"Do you gentlemen see clearly now?" Yun Jinxiu unfurled the blood-stained Bai's Medical Classic, its tattered pages fluttering in the wind like butterfly wings. "The 'golden elixirs' you receive each month come from the same source as these puppets."
At that moment, Xiao Jingyan's sword tip pried open a hidden compartment behind the plaque of Taihe Hall. A piece of bright yellow silk that had been sealed for twenty years floated down, and the imperial seal's crimson imprint was dazzlingly vivid:
"If I should perish, pass my throne to my sister Bai Mingyue's daughter Jinxiu; let the Chiyan Army of the Xiao clan forever guard the borders..."
"The late emperor's edict is here!"
Xiao Jingyan's voice thundered like a clap of thunder. He swung his sword to sever the approaching silver threadworms; where his blade pointed, the corpses all knelt on one knee. This young master who had once masqueraded as a dandy at Zui Xian Lou now bore a fierce countenance akin to a drawn blade: "Twenty years ago, His Majesty murdered his brother to seize power and hunted down his own sister Bai Mingyue to the banks of the Yellow River. To cover up his crimes, he even turned the Chiyan Army into drug puppets!"
The Emperor staggered back, and suddenly dozens of silver thread worms burst forth from the cuffs of his dragon robe. "I am the True Dragon Son of Heaven!" He crushed the jade bead on his wrist with a fierce grip. "These are merely..."
A rumble echoed from beneath the ground, and three hundred corpse puppets simultaneously tilted their heads back, more silver thread worms crawling out of their eye sockets, launching like a torrential rain towards Yun Jinxiu!
In a moment of crisis, the silver leaf pattern on Xiao Jingyan's chest suddenly glowed brightly. He thrust his sword into his own chest, black blood splattering onto Yun Jinxiu's bronze mask. "The Soul Binding Curse should awaken now."
Agonizing pain surged through his limbs and bones like a tidal wave. Yun Jinxiu saw the birthmark on her lower back transform into flowing light, intertwining with the silver pattern on Xiao Jingyan's chest to form a net. The silver thread worms abruptly turned and attacked their master!
"Impossible..." The Emperor clawed at his decaying skin. "I clearly changed your bloodline..."
"Your Majesty is mistaken." Yun Jinxiu removed her mask, the morning light illuminating her features that bore a seven-point resemblance to Bai Mingyue in the mural. "The Bai Clan’s Gu Arts recognize the soul, not the blood."
The coronation ceremony was set for noon after the rain had cleared.
Yun Jinxiu wore a modified coronation robe—stripped of its long tassels and replaced with a lightweight silver leaf veil. As she stepped onto the red platform, all officials noticed that the new emperor wore both the Nine-Turn Silver Leaf Seal at her waist and the Crimson Flame Tiger Talisman hanging beside it.
"From this day forth, the Longevity Pill is abolished, and the Crimson Flame Case is reopened." Her voice was not loud, yet it sent chills down the spines of all present. "The Ministry of Commerce will oversee border trade, and any deficits in the Ministry of Revenue will be covered by the Yun Clan's bank."
An elderly official mustered his courage to speak up: "Your Majesty, regarding the King of Northern Town..."
Xiao Jingyan suddenly knelt on one knee, holding up half of a tiger talisman. "I request to guard the borders for eternity."
Yun Jinxiu's lips curled slightly. In front of everyone, she split the golden seal in half, placing one half back into his palm. "You may proceed. But on the fifteenth of every month..." The gilded armor brushed against the silver scars on his chest, "You must return to court to report."
Suddenly, a clear jingling sound echoed from outside the hall. Everyone turned to see Mo Zhu leading dozens of young apprentices up the steps, each carrying a blue porcelain bottle filled with antidote—crafted from the worms extracted that night from Bai Lu Quan.
Three years later in Bailu City, the camel bells of the Silk Road rang day and night.
"Mother! Brother has scribbled all over the Ministry of Revenue's account books!" A little girl with a fiery red headband dashed across the street, her gold bells jingling at her wrist and a small sword clanging at her waist.
Yun Jinxiu looked up from the customs ledger, just in time to see Xiao Jingyan holding his wailing infant son in one arm while using his sword to fend off an attacking assassin. The child's face was smeared with tears and snot, yet he clutched half a doodled account book tightly.
"Your Majesty..."
"Call me 'Madam.'" She flicked her golden thread to entangle his hand that had snatched the candied fruit. "Unless you want to spend a month in the study."
As dusk deepened, the oldest camel driver of the merchant caravan began recounting that story again in the tavern: how the Empress's golden thread intertwined with the sword light of the King of Northern Defense, painting a totem of nine-turn silver leaves cradling flames above the imperial city. The storyteller at the teahouse would always pause here for effect:
"Do you all know how to break the same-life curse?" With everyone holding their breath, he stroked his beard and smiled, "It requires true heart exchanged for true heart!"
(End of text)
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