Red Dust Mistakes

I clutched the blood-dripping green jade hairpin and watched the crimson red condense into a phoenix-tail shape at the head of the hairpin. This is the seventh time I have verified that when the blood of the hairpin soaks through the third fold of the skirt, 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.

Volume 2 - Red Dust Error (1000 words)

When I dipped the gold sore medicine to apply the cracks on my tiger's mouth, the bronze mirror reflected the dark pattern of the juxtaposed lotus on the window pane. This was placed by that person last night during my moment of unconsciousness, using crushed pieces of Sky Frost Cold Jade.

“Miss!” The maid held the blood-stained food box and slammed the door open, “The West Market grain store has started to give out congee, but...” She trembled as she lifted the lid of the box, and in the compartment that was supposed to contain silver tickets lay half of a child's severed finger.

I pinched my fingers to deduce the Sundance Variation, but the tortoise shell suddenly exploded. As the shattered wood cut through my palm, I looked out to see a bronze mask emerging from the blood-colored mist - it was the State Master who was performing the ritual!

“Fetch my ceremonial gown.” I tore off the red string on the vermillion mole between my wrists, “At the stroke of midnight tonight, I'm going to the Star Picking Tower to perform a sacrificial dance.”

The maid cried as she held out the plain gauze jacket adorned with star pictures. Three years ago Master was wearing this garment and was struck to charcoal by heavenly lightning on the altar. What she drew on my palm before she died was not a star track, but the word “escape”.

When the eaves of the pavilion pierced through the fog, I heard the sound of the tide of the Underworld Sea. The Master of the State stood in the center of the array of twenty-eight lamps, and in his hand he was playing the “Soul Restoration Guide” on a human bone flute. It was a tune for overcoming dead souls, but at this moment it was urging the blood qi of three hundred children.

“Su Huaijin.” The sound of the flute stopped abruptly, “Do you think that the secrets you spied with your heavenly eyes can really shake this world?”

I stepped into the lamp formation with a Beidou step, the hem of my skirt sweeping out the three life lamps. At the eye of the formation was indeed the masked man, his clothes drenched in blood, his ankle chains engraved with the word “Fluorescent Confusion” - this is the branding of the heavenly realm to punish the fallen immortals.

“Let go of him!” I pulled off the star fixing hairpin left behind by my master, “Otherwise I will immediately destroy these eyes.”

The State Master's laughter shook down the copper bells on the eaves. He suddenly lifted the masked man's lapel, revealing the mark on his heart that was of the same origin as the vermilion sand mole on my wrist. That was the branding of the marriage contract on the Three Lives Stone, which was now glowing with a weird red light under the thunderclouds.

“You think he's here to save you?” The State Master's human bone flute picked my chin, “Three hundred years ago, it was this Fluorescent Starlord who personally sent the Heaven's Eyes to the Immortal Execution Platform.”

The moment the shocking thunder split the night, the masked man suddenly opened his gilt pupils. The chains around him shattered, and the ghostly blue flames rising from his palm transformed into a sword, but the blade was aimed at my throat.

“Huai Jin.” His voice carried the frost from the nine heavens, “In this life, you still can't escape the destiny disk.”