The torrential rain was like millions of hardened silver needles, piercing into the staggered eaves of Cloud Dream City. Arya sat on her knees on the Persian velvet carpet of the third floor attic, the tip of her silver pin wedged deep into the rosewood floor. The wood shavings oozing from the seventh scratch stained her fingertips, resembling the ashes that had drifted down when Silver Snow City burned down twelve years ago.
"Ding--"
The crunch of a jade bell being roughly ripped off came from downstairs.
She quickly stuffed the malachite necklace into the trousseau compartment, the twelve gems glowing with an eerie blue shimmer in the darkness. This was a relic that her mother had tucked into her swaddling clothes before she died, a snow wolf totem that would emerge every time the moon was full. At the moment, the window was as dark as ink, but the jewel was perversely glowing, as if in warning of something.
"Little hooves still don't palm the lamp!"
The bawd, wrapped in a peppercorn-scented scented breeze, crashed through the carved door, and the brass bells hanging from the gilded doorframe let out a dying moan. Arya smelled the familiar scent of blood - the rusty odor that would be under the fingernails of this poisonous spider-like woman every time a girl "disappeared".
The cardamom-stained nails suddenly pinched her chin, "The Persian dancer in the west wing had her tongue cut out, and you know why?" The bawd's emerald gauntlet scraped across her collarbone, swirling around the scars left by the chains from back in the day, "Because she saw what she shouldn't have."
Arya lowered her lashes and allowed the other woman to press the cool bronze box against her chest. The tangled pattern of birds and finches on the face of the box was writhing, like living creatures crossing their necks. This was the third time she had seen this box - the first time was when she was seven years old when she hid in the wine cellar and saw the old bawd using it to exchange the Snow Wolf Jade Pendant with the black-clothed man; the second time was on the fifteenth day of the last month, when the box appeared beside her pillow, and it contained half of a blood-stained soldier's talisman.
"Warm it with your body." The bawd suddenly ripped open her garnet-red veil, and the moment the bronze box was pressed against her heart, Arya heard a distant wolf howl. Twelve years ago, on the night the city fell, the white wolves raised by her father wailed like this into the fire.
The clamor downstairs suddenly approached, and the sound of horses' hooves crushing the stone floor made the beams tremble. Arya glimpsed a flash of the cold light of metaphysical armor in the bronze mirror-the Black Banner Iron Cavalry of Red Flame City! She backhanded the silver pin against the pimp's throat, "You knew they would come today."
The moment lightning split the night, she could see the half-moon shaped scar on the other party's left earlobe. Memories scurried up like vipers: when fleeing on a snowy night, it was the owner of this scar who wrapped her in a fox fur and rolled down an icy cliff amidst a shower of arrows from her pursuers.
"They want the secret scrolls, not the lives of the remnants of the former dynasty." The old bawd suddenly tore open her lapel, and on her withered chest was the tattoo of the Snow Wolf Eating the Moon. Arya's pupils tightened - this was the mark of Silver Snow City's dead soldiers!
The bronze box suddenly beeped, drowning out the sound of the porcelain breaking downstairs. The moment the twelve Xuanjia guards fishtailed into the room, the pimp violently shoved the box into her chest-wrapping cloth: "Remember, when the Vermilion Bird weeps blood, go to Xuan Yue Pass and look for ..."
"Bang!"
A cloud-piercing arrow pierced through the carved screen and nailed the bawd's throat.
Arya rolled towards the back of the dressing table, and the splattered blood haloed a mandala pattern on the Xi veil tent. The bronze mirrors reflected the cold iron faces of the Xuanjia guards, and instead of unusual swords, they had bronze guillotines engraved with incantations hanging from their waists - it was rumored that when the Red Flame City executed the royals, they would use this soul-sucking murder weapon.
"The lord has ordered to capture the Silver Snow Fox alive."
The low voice was wrapped in the sharp sound of iron rubbing against iron. Arya gripped the silver hairpin tightly, and the sapphire at the head of the hairpin suddenly erupted with strong light. This was a gift left on the window pane by a mysterious person the year she reached her maturity. At this moment, twisted words emerged from the gemstone: three minutes past shen hour, the Vermilion Bird weeps blood.
As the Xuanjia guards approached in a fan formation, she suddenly overturned her trousseau. The emerald hairpin and the onyx bracelet collided in the air, erupting into a bizarre green phosphorous flame. Taking advantage of the moment when the crowd covered their eyes, she ran barefoot towards the terrace - twenty paces away was the bronze beast head of the Drunken Immortal Pavilion's dark passage.
"Shoo!"
Three consecutive arrows grazed her ankles and nailed into the floor, and the golden bells adorned at the end of the arrows made a hypnotic sound. Arya pranced between the roiling red tents, the silver bells on her ankles resonating a psychedelic melody with the arrow bells. This was the technique taught to her by the Persian dancers to save her life, and at this moment, every piece of flying veil had become a soul chasing rope.
When the eighth arrow pierced the hem of her sleeve, the attic suddenly fell into dead silence.
The Xuanjia guards retreated like a tidal wave, and the sound of bronze boots knocking on the wooden steps sounded like a death knell. The fur of Lei Meng's silver fox cloak was still coated with night rain, but he couldn't hide the oppressive feeling of blood and ambergris. His fingertips brushed over the screen pierced by the arrow, and his blood-stained fingers suddenly pinched her chin.
"Twelve years on the run and you learn these tricks?"
Arya sniffed the scent of white plums on his gauntlet-the scent of a secret poison made by the royal court of Silver Snow City! She bit down hard on his tiger's mouth until the rusty flavor filled her mouth. Ramon backhanded her against the dresser, the bronze mirror reflecting the hidden tattoo of goldfinch flowers on the side of his neck.
"You have the wrong person." She bent her knee to the seam of his belly armor, only to have her ankles clasped by the basalt gauntlet. The malachite necklace snapped taut in the struggle, and the twelve gems bounced across the floor in a star map. When the last one came to rest in the Vermilion Bird position, Lei Meng's bronze sword suddenly came out of its sheath with a dragon's roar.
The blade reflected the snow wolf totem beneath her collarbone.
"The last bloodline of Silver Snow City, actually learning hooker tricks in a brothel." The tip of Ramon's sword picked apart her veil, the cold metal pressing against the bronze casket at her heart. Arya suddenly laughed softly, her dandelion-stained fingertips brushing across the knot of his throat, "If your lordship wants the secret scrolls, why don't you come and get them yourself?"
She intentionally let the chest cloth loosen a few points, and the bronze box's bird pattern glowed with a strange green light under the candle flame. Lei Meng's pupils suddenly shrunk, but his sword blade suddenly turned towards the window - five poisoned crossbow arrows were breaking through the air!
The bronze box trembled violently, and Arya felt her heart being clutched by invisible hands. Twelve years ago when her mother was buried in the fire, the same burning pain was burning in her chest. The moment Raymond swung his sword to cut down the poisoned arrow, she pulled down the silver hairpin and stabbed him on the side of his neck, but he inclined his head and bit the end of the hairpin.
The taste of blood spread between his lips and teeth into a dangerous pact.
As the Xuanjia guards swarmed around, the bronze beast head in the dark passage suddenly spewed out purple smoke. Arya took the opportunity to stuff the bronze box into Raymond's cloak and murmured in his ear, "The blood debt your father owes should be paid by your flesh." Before the words left his mouth, the bawd's corpse suddenly jerked and stood up, and dense bronze beetles crawled out of the arrow holes in his neck!
In the confusion, Arya crashed through the hidden compartment and leapt into the canal. As the piercing river water flooded her head, she saw the light of Ramon's sword that cut down the swarm of beetles reflecting in the night sky. The remains of the beetles formed a broken star map on the surface of the water, perfectly overlapping with the pattern of the malachite arrangement.
Three days later
The torches in the dungeon of Red Flame City cast Arya's shadow on the stone wall, twisting it into a snow wolf with spread wings. Ramon tossed the bloodstained secret scroll at her feet, and on the sheepskin was her father's handwriting: the day the Twin Sons appear, when the Golden Bird is reborn in blood.
"You thought you could get away with hiding the box on me?" Ramon ripped open his sash, and the same snow wolf totem as hers emerged from his heart. Arya's silver pin suddenly glows, and a new prophecy emerges from the sapphire: the moon eclipses at the hour of the son, and flesh and bone are destroyed.
A bell suddenly chimes outside the dungeon, and the guards hiss, "The Vermilion Bird weeps blood." Lei Meng pinched her neck and pressed her towards the barred window, only to see the Vermilion Bird in the night sky dripping blood, and the direction of the fall was pointing towards the desolate city of Xuan Yue Pass where 200,000 souls were buried.