Gu Tian took so long to speak that Han Yue began pacing.
The hall doors were closed. Mu Qingxue had placed a silence seal across the walls. Bai Lian remained with Mo Qian in the adjoining room, though the inner door stayed open so he could listen. Jian Mu watched a window. Su Wan maintained a cold layer around the black strip to prevent any hidden mark from activating.
At the center of the table, the eclipse symbol seemed to absorb the lamplight.
—It is called the Scarlet Eclipse Palace —Gu Tian said at last.
The name produced a strange echo in the room, not through actual power, but through the way the old man pronounced it. Without irony. Without contempt. With memory.
—I have never heard of them —Han Yue said.
—That is a fortune.
—Are they a sect?
—Sometimes. They are also a consortium, a court of assassins, a network of bloodline hunters, and a tool used by greater forces. They change their face according to the world where they act.
Lin Yuan rested both hands on the table.
—How do you know them?
Gu Tian looked at him.
—Long ago, I worked for a sect exploring an ancient rift in the north. We found a destroyed transit station. There were bodies of cultivators who did not belong to this world. Their robes carried that symbol.
—You said you were a refiner and formation master —Mu Qingxue noted.
—I was. Ancient stations require both.
—What happened?
Gu Tian drank once before answering.
—One of the bodies was not dead.
The old man explained that the creature looked human but possessed a soul divided into layers. It awakened when they tried to remove a storage ring. Within an hour, it killed nine experts and activated a signal that crossed the rift. Gu Tian and two others managed to seal the place, but the signal had escaped.
—During the following months, three minor families with unusual bloodlines disappeared —he continued—. No war. No bodies. Only empty homes and burned records.
Su Wan spoke from the end of the table.
—They collect blood?
—They collect possibilities. Physiques, inheritances, keys, descendants, routes. If a bloodline can open something, they want to control it or prevent another from using it.
Lin Yuan felt the medallion pulse again.
The system appeared before him alone.
Hostile entity connected to the porter's fate detected.
Insufficient information.
Hidden mission updated: investigate Lower Anchor Seventeen without revealing the nature of the system.
Reward locked.
Lin Yuan dismissed the interface immediately.
—The phrase refers to a lost Lin bloodline —Mu Qingxue said—. How many important Lin families exist in this world?
Mo Qian answered from the next room:
—Too many to count, and none large enough to justify a network like this.
—Then it may refer to somewhere else —Jian Mu said.
Gu Tian looked at Lin Yuan. He did not ask about the medallion. Perhaps he remembered its earlier reactions, or perhaps he was simply joining pieces.
—What were you told about the day you were found?
—Nothing. I only had the medallion.
Han Yue placed both fists on the table.
—Then the answer is simple. We capture someone from the network and force out the truth.
—The simplicity of your plan competes with its stupidity —Mu Qingxue said—. You saw the assassins on the road. They prefer death to speech.
—Everyone talks with enough motivation.
—The dead do not.
Lin Yuan raised one hand.
—We will not respond with an open hunt. First, we decipher the strip. Second, we locate Lower Anchor Seventeen. Third, we determine which person inside the Grey Cloud Sect serves as an intermediary.
—And the Inverted River Register? —Mu Qingxue asked.
—It is connected. If the network seeks buried nodes, the register may point toward routes leading to the anchor.
Mo Qian appeared at the doorway wrapped in a blanket, his skin still pale.
Bai Lian followed him, visibly furious.
—I told you to remain in bed.
—The conversation became interesting.
—Your heart may become interesting when it stops.
Mo Qian sat with care.
—The strip lists a sequence of deliveries. One occurs in five days at the Shrine of Broken Bells.
—How do you know? —Lin Yuan asked.
—Because the numbers are not quantities. They are hours. And the marks beside them correspond to shadow routes used by smugglers.
Mu Qingxue examined the column and nodded.
—That fits.
—We can use the delivery as bait —Mo Qian said—. Let them believe one collector survived and wants to sell the strip.
—You are not going —Bai Lian said.
—I did not say I would.
Everyone looked at him.
—Fine. I considered it.
Lin Yuan decided that he, Jian Mu, Mu Qingxue, and Du Fen would go. Han Yue would remain to protect the mountain. Mo Qian would prepare the false identity and signals.
The Shrine of Broken Bells stood a day away in a gorge where merchants had once prayed for the dead. The bells had lost their tongues and the roof lay open to the sky. They arrived before midnight and concealed themselves at four points.
The contact appeared in brown robes with a wooden mask covering his face. He walked to the altar and left a black coin.
Lin Yuan stepped from the shadows using the prepared identity.
—The collector could not come.
The mask tilted.
—Collectors who fail do not send substitutes.
—This one cannot send anything. He is dead.
—Then you are holding something that does not belong to you.
—Everything belongs to whoever can keep it.
The phrase was a password found on the strip. The contact relaxed slightly.
—Give me the ledger.
—First I want the price for the Lin trace.
The figure became still.
—You do not understand the value of those words.
—I understand the risk of carrying them.
The contact extended one hand. A gray sphere appeared on his palm and projected the image of a man wearing a porcelain mask.
It was not a present person but a prepared echo.
—If you are seeing this —the projection said—, the route has been compromised.
Mu Qingxue activated the blocking seal.
The sphere vibrated.
—Do not attempt to follow the signal. Lower Anchor Seventeen will be closed. The possible bearer will be recovered. Witnesses will be reduced to useful material.
The contact tried to break a capsule inside his mouth. Jian Mu emerged and struck his jaw with the sword hilt before he could bite.
Du Fen fired an arrow that pinned the man's sleeve to the altar.
The projection continued:
—To the unverified heir: your blood does not belong to you. Your fall was an error awaiting correction.
The medallion burned against Lin Yuan's chest.
A line of light invisible to the others appeared in his perception, extending from the sphere northward and then downward, like coordinates engraved into space.
The contact laughed through bloody lips.
—They found you.
Lin Yuan approached.
—Then they will have to climb the mountain.
The projection vanished.
Silence returned to the shrine.
Mu Qingxue looked at Lin Yuan.
—It spoke directly to you.
—Yes.
—Do you know why?
He felt the medallion pulse with the newly awakened coordinates.
—Not yet.
He could not tell them about the hidden mission or the interface that had confirmed the connection. But he would not pretend it was coincidence.
—My medallion reacted —he admitted—. It marked a direction.
The captured contact survived. Mu Qingxue sealed his teeth, and Gu Tian later disabled two self-destruction marks hidden near his heart. Yet every direct question about the Palace triggered convulsions controlled by a soul oath.
—We will not obtain names directly —Mu Qingxue said after examining him—. The contract will destroy his mind before allowing them.
Mo Qian, still pale, leaned closer to the prisoner.
—I do not need names. I need habits. Where does he wait? What does the ink of his messages smell like? Which hand does the collector use to deliver a coin?
The man laughed through swollen lips.
—You believe small details will save you.
—Small details are the only reason I am alive.
For hours they avoided prohibited questions and rebuilt the network from silence, eye movements, and indirect answers. They learned that Lord Ash changed bodies through spiritual skin masks, that Grey Cloud delivered lists of youths with unusual lineages, and that several transit points were classified as lower anchors.
The prisoner did not reveal who led the operation.
But when Lin Yuan placed the cloth-covered medallion on the table, the man recoiled with genuine terror.
—That should have been lost —he whispered.
The reaction confirmed more than a confession.
Gu Tian covered the medallion again and looked at Lin Yuan with a gravity that ended all immediate questions.
—From now on, do not display it outside the closest circle. Some treasures attract greed. That object attracts history, and history usually arrives with armies.
Gu Tian had said the Palace collected possibilities.
Now they were no longer hunting an abstract possibility.
They had spoken the word heir.
And the eclipse had finally named what it intended to recover.