Inside the Arctic Circle, 240 kilometers northeast of the Svalbard Islands.
79°12'N, 21°03'E.
Frost crystals had completely covered Jiang Jiang's cold-weather mask, the vapor from his nose freezing into tiny glittering ice grains.
He was only eighteen.
He had come from Qingdao, China, to study in Montreal.
Life had been going fine, even if money was tight—Canadian dollars at a five-to-one exchange rate with the yuan hurt to spend—but for some inexplicable reason, this summer, he had impulsively signed up for this Arctic expedition.
"Damn it!" he shouted into the satellite phone, but only static answered him.
Three hours earlier, he had been separated from the expedition team, then ambushed by this sudden polar blizzard.
The compass spun wildly, like a headless fly. The GPS? No signal at all.
Dragging his sled through the white hell with less than two meters of visibility, Jiang Jiang trudged forward like a lonely ghost.
He knew that in these conditions, hypothermia could kill in just forty minutes.
And his body temperature was falling fast.
His blood flow slowed; he could almost see it congealing, solidifying, until it might as well be concrete in his veins.
A wave of fear hit him.
How could he not be afraid?
He was only eighteen—there were so many things in life he hadn't experienced.
If he died here, his mother would be devastated…
Just as his consciousness began to blur, a shape appeared in the wind and snow—a building, half-buried in drifts.
Ah!
Someone's home!
Could he survive?
Instinct took over, and Jiang Jiang used the last of his strength to run toward it.
Bang!
With a muffled crash, he slammed open a rusted iron door and stumbled into darkness.
Boom— The door behind him slammed shut under the force of the wind, cutting off the blizzard outside.
Catching his breath, Jiang Jiang felt a little strength return.
Gritting his teeth, he shakily pulled off his mask and took a flashlight from his waterproof bag.
The beam lit up an unbelievable scene—not the Yukon-style miner's shelter he had expected, but a Chinese-style courtyard!
Carved wooden pillars, blue stone slabs, even a frozen koi pond.
All of it covered in a thick sheet of ice, like amber in which time itself had been trapped.
"This… can't be real…" His voice echoed in the empty hall.
How could there be a traditional Chinese building inside the Arctic Circle?
A dream?
He pinched his thigh.
Pain!
Not a dream.
Sweeping the flashlight around, he caught sight of the main hall's plaque.
Through the ice, three gilded characters were faintly visible: Xuan Tian Zhan.
Jiang Jiang, whose medical knowledge came from his doctor father and self-study, instinctively noted something strange—the thermometer read -15°C indoors, much warmer than outside, yet there was no heating equipment.
Lanterns beneath the ice glowed faintly blue, without any visible wiring.
At the end of the hall stood a bronze door carved with totems of a hundred herbs.
Go over?
Go over and see.
There was no turning back now.
Whether fortune or disaster, it was fate.
When Jiang Jiang approached, the ice on the door cracked with a ka-ka, as if welcoming him.
Beyond the door lay a domed chamber, at the center of which rested a transparent ice coffin.
Crystal clear—so clear he could see everything inside.
A shiver ran through him.
Inside the coffin lay an old man with a long white beard, straight as a board, perfectly still, as if asleep for a thousand years.
He wore deep indigo robes, hands folded over his chest, palms cradling something.
Jiang Jiang bent closer—and gasped.
It was a rolled bamboo scroll.
On top of it lay seven silver needles in a neat row.
This…
He felt an ancient, inexplicable energy in the air.
Heart pounding, Jiang Jiang stepped back—only to crush something under his heel.
A faint crack.
Then the world seemed to sway, like being inside a 3D cinema.
The floor lit up with glowing patterns—short and long, curved and straight, crossing one another.
Slowly, the beams formed a massive diagram.
The Bagua.
In its center, two yin-yang fish took shape.
Ah!
Before Jiang Jiang could cry out, a faint sound rose—the ice coffin began to creak.
Then, with a snap, the lid opened.
The old man's upper body rose slowly until he sat upright.
Not a corpse!
This old man was alive!
Jiang Jiang didn't believe in ghosts, so the thought never crossed his mind.
From the old man's complexion and posture, he was sure—this was a living person, freshly awakened.
"960 years…" The old man's eyes snapped open, pupils glowing with an eerie cyan light. "At last, fate has brought the right person."
Fate?
He meant Jiang Jiang?
The old man raised a bony finger, pointing from afar.
Jiang Jiang's parka crackled, the front tearing apart as if by invisible hands, baring his chest.
"A natural spiritual meridian—rare indeed." The old man floated out of the coffin like drifting frost, the silver needles in his hand moving without wind. "Boy, will you accept my Xuan Tian medical lineage, to save lives and heal the wounded?"
"Who… who are you? Why are you here?" Jiang Jiang's teeth chattered.
"I am Lin Nine-Needles, last heir of the Imperial Medical Bureau of the Northern Song Dynasty," the figure said, his form flickering. "To escape the Jin invaders, I brought the Xuan Tian Medical Scripture north to this polar land, where I sat in meditation until now. Since you have entered this place, it is Heaven's will."
Northern Song?
That glorious era, when China held over 75% of the world's GDP?
Jiang Jiang loved history and had always admired that dynasty.
Never had he imagined meeting someone from it here.
Before he could answer, the nine silver needles shot forward like lightning, stabbing into his major acupoints.
Agonizing pain like molten lava surged through him, wringing a scream from his throat.
"Endure!" Lin Nine-Needles barked. "Open the Heaven Eye, awaken the Spirit Meridian—this is the Xuan Tian Medical Sight!"
The longest needle pierced straight into the center of Jiang Jiang's brow.
In the instant before he fainted, his vision split in two—a normal view overlaid by a strange, transparent world, where he could see every bone, every blood vesel, every organ inside his own body…