cataclysmic robbery

I clutched the blood-dripping green jade hairpin and watched the crimson red condense into the shape of a phoenix tail at the head of the hairpin. This is the seventh verification: when the blood of the hairpin soaks through the third fold of the robe, the sound of horses' hooves will come from the southwest corner.

At the third hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the sound of horses' hooves crushed the acacia blossoms at the entrance of the alley as promised.

“Miss Su is so calculating.” The commander of the Xuanjia guards strangled the reins, and the moonlight illuminated the gilt and silver Household Ministry token at his waist, “Even when Lord Shangshu coughs up blood is accurate?”

I stroked the silk on my blind eyes, and the golden bells in my ears trembled lightly. Three hours ago, I “saw” the Minister of Justice will be melted into a gold Buddha, hidden into the third pillar of the Xiangguo Temple underground palace coiled dragon. At this moment, the bottom of the pillar in the dark compartment, should lie in the commander most want to find the salt and iron smuggling account book.

“I want the three hundred displaced people in the south of the city to be able to eat hot porridge tomorrow.” Rubbing his fingertips over the dark pattern on the end of the hairpin, which was the star track map engraved with Tianji blood before Master's death, “As for you, Your Excellency... It's best not to go to the Vermilion Bird Gate at three minutes past midnight to change the defense.”

The commander's saber was suddenly sheathed by three inches, and the light of the saber reflected the vaguely visible vermillion mole between my wrists. That was the mark of the awakening of the Heaven's Eye, and also a talisman of death-three years ago the State Master asserted that those who possessed this mole should be subjected to the punishment of burning their bodies in Heaven's fire.

“Demon girl!” The blade of the knife stuck to the side of my neck and stabbed into the wall bricks, “How did you know about the case of the robbery of Qingzhou's military pay?”

The night dew on the tiles suddenly condensed into ice. There were arcane colored clothes swept across the eaves of the house, carrying my familiar scent of sinking water. The masked man who came to my courtyard to make tea every full moon was currently wrapping silver threads in his sleeves around the commander's throat.

“She knows better...” The masked man's silver threads glowed with blue flames under the moonlight, “Your wife gave birth to a linnet at shen hour today, and there is a flaming birthmark on the back of her neck.”

The commander's cold sweat dripped onto the back of my hand. I touched the tortoise armor in my bosom, and the cracks indicated a change in the western white tiger position. Sure enough, the masked man suddenly yanked me into his arms, and three poison-hardened crossbow arrows nailed into the square where I stood.

“Third time.” His breath under the mask swept across my earlobe, “Every time Miss Su calculates the whole world, but can't calculate her own death calamity?”

I backhanded the hairpin and stabbed it into his shoulder well point, the most venomous of the thirteen life-preserving moves taught by my master. But the touch was wrong - there was no blockage of blood or flesh, instead it was like stabbing into a thousand years of metaphysical ice.

“You...!” I withdrew my hand in a panic, but the shark was picked off by his silver silk. Those gilt pupils lit up in the darkness, reflecting the tears of blood seeping from the corners of my eyes. This was the backlash of the overuse of the Heavenly Eyes, and it was also the ironclad proof that I wouldn't live past the age of eighteen.

The masked man suddenly bit through his fingertip and pressed the blood bead glowing with golden light onto my brow. The burning pain subsided instantly, replaced by the illusion of a river of stars flowing by. I saw him standing among a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, with the broken twenty-eight starry disk under his feet.

“Remember.” His voice was wrapped in a thunderous echo, “I will take your eyes before you go up in smoke.”

The sound of more drums catapulted the night away, and I curled up in my still-warm embrace, listening to the clang of a silver wire cutting through a crossbow bolt. Fire suddenly rose in the direction of the Vermilion Bird Gate, the funeral fireworks he had lit for me.