Subtitle: In the deep fog, friend and foe are indistinguishable; only the heart can discern the truth.
The capital's fog was alive.
It was not like the northern frontier's snow—decisive, either blanketing everything or torn apart by the wind. The fog here was cloying, damp, and invasive, seeping into every crevice like a web spun of schemes and watchful eyes, shrouding every upturned eave and corner, entangling every soul that entered.
Western Outskirts of the Capital, Returning Clouds Manor.
This former Lu family villa had fallen into ruin along with its masters after the catastrophic fire at Snowwolf Valley years ago. Moss climbed the damp courtyard walls; the stone lion guarding the gate was missing half its face, silently gazing into the shifting fog. "Returning Clouds" — originally meant to evoke the idea of "clouds returning home." Now, only fog locked the towers, and home was beyond reach.
The location was neither too far nor too close to the city, ideal for avoiding attention, and for Chu Hongying, it was the only cold remnant of "home" she could touch within the vast imperial capital.
Chu Hongying stood by the window in the manor's secret chamber, her knuckles unconsciously pressed against the cold sill. This former home was now just an empty shell, silent in the thick fog, a tombstone for her family's fate.
"The air here is sharper than the northern frontier's cutting winds," Shen Yuzhu's voice came from behind her, soft yet clear, like a stone dropped into stagnant water.
She didn't turn. "The wind only wounds flesh. This place… destroys the heart."
His footsteps were almost inaudible as he came to stand beside her, looking out at the chaos. He was paler than usual, his lips nearly colorless, transparent, save for the tear mole at the corner of his eye, like ink dropped on flawless snow, stark and arresting.
"About last night…" He began, but his breath caught, a suppressed cough rising from deep in his throat, his slender frame trembling slightly.
Chu Hongying turned without hesitation. Her cold fingertips pressed against his back, a gentle stream of true energy flowing into him. An action repeated countless times over months, still performed stiffly, yet now with an undeniable firmness.
"Why trust me?" he asked softly, once he caught his breath, his gaze on her stern profile.
She withdrew her hand, her eyes returning to the dense fog. "The light in your eyes," she paused, her voice level, "doesn't belong to a liar."
He offered a faint smile and said no more. Silence returned—only their breathing overlapped in the fog-thick air. Beneath his robes, the wolf covenant mark on his back emitted a subtle heat, while the old scar bound by white cloth at her neck throbbed with a secret, sharp pain.
Meanwhile, in the back alley of the Western Market's Hundred Herbs Hall.
Gu Changfeng, dressed too finely for the alley he stood in, waved an incongruous jade-ribbed fan, loudly directing workers loading crates of "military medical supplies" onto carts, the very picture of a pampered noble oblivious to hardship. No one noticed the demure physician's assistant beside him, her fingers plucking a speck from a pile of inconspicuous ash in the corner, lifting it to her nose.
Lu Wanning's delicate features tightened instantly. She opened her palm; a minute, dark blue powder was mixed with the ash, indistinguishable to any but an expert in medicine and mechanisms.
"Well?" Gu Changfeng leaned close under the guise of inspecting goods, his voice a low murmur, his face still wearing that careless smile.
"Parchment ash, mixed with powder from Spirit-Patterned Stone, unique to the Northland's Snowwolf Valley," Lu Wanning whispered rapidly, her voice barely audible. "This ash… shares its origin with the legendary diagrams used to seal the 'Bronze Door.'"
Gu Changfeng snapped his fan shut, all traces of humor vanishing from his eyes, sharp as an unsheathed sword. "If that's true," he gazed towards the seemingly endless fog at the alley's mouth, "then we've stepped beyond a game of power, into the very underpinnings of fate."
Perched on the eaves at the alley's entrance, a raven, black as pitch, watched silently, its crimson eyes reflecting the figures below.
Evening, the secret chamber of Returning Clouds Manor.
The four of them finally gathered. Candlelight flickered, casting dancing shadows across their diverse expressions.
Gu Changfeng placed the ash sample and a small sandalwood medicine box on the table. Lu Wanning concisely explained the connection between the "Puppeteer's Thread" drug and the ash.
After a moment of silence, Chu Hongying took out the half-burnt, charred map fragment she kept close to her heart and placed it on the table. The material of the map was unknown, strangely resilient despite being scorched, its edges meandering like dried-up blood vessels.
The moment the map appeared, Shen Yuzhu grunted, his body swaying. The dark blue light of the wolf covenant mark on his back flared brightly, visible through his layers of clothing! And the map fragment on the table also began to glow faintly, its charred edges pulsating like breathing!
"What is this…?" Gu Changfeng's pupils contracted.
"The map and his mark are resonating," Lu Wanning observed softly, watching the phenomenon.
Beads of sweat formed on Shen Yuzhu's temples. Bearing the discomfort, his eyes remained locked on the map. "They were once a whole… This half of the map is part of the 'key.'"
No more probing, no need for further words. Crisis and a common goal forged the strongest bond.
"Open line, hidden line," Chu Hongying stated, her voice decisive. "Shen Yuzhu and I will operate openly, dealing with the new Emperor and the Seventh Prince, investigating the Bronze Door and the Lu family's legacy. You two work in the shadows, tracing the source of the forbidden drug and the map's ash."
"Two paths advancing, converging at the same end," Shen Yuzhu nodded.
Gu Changfeng raised an eyebrow, his lazy smile returning. "Does that make us the 'Four Heroes of the Undercurrent'?"
Lu Wanning glanced at him, her voice still calm. "We are four moths trapped by fate."
"If this fog ever lifts," Shen Yuzhu looked at the other three, his voice gentle yet firm, "I hope we can still see each other."
An alliance, forged in silence.
The secret meeting paused. Gu Changfeng and Lu Wanning left first to make arrangements. Chu Hongying and Shen Yuzhu stood side by side under the corridor outside the chamber, facing only a wall of churning fog.
"That great fire at Snowwolf Valley," Chu Hongying began abruptly, her voice heavy, as if soaked by the fog, "it wasn't the Di people's arrows… It was 'one of our own,' who stabbed my father in the back."
Shen Yuzhu was silent for a long time, so long that Chu Hongying thought he wouldn't respond. Then he let out a soft sigh, laden with blood and snow that ten years could not melt.
"That night, I was also in Snowwolf Valley."
Chu Hongying turned her head sharply to look at him.
He met her gaze, his eyes holding a profound compassion and pain she had never seen before. "I was the only 'sacrificial offering' to survive that fire."
The wind in the fog wailed like weeping ghosts. He slowly reached out, his icy fingertips gently covering her white-knuckled, clenched fist.
"Hongying," he called her name for the first time, his voice soft as if fearing to wake a nightmare, "even so, do you still seek the truth?"
Her hand trembled slightly under his touch, but she did not pull away. All the complex emotions in her eyes settled in an instant, hardening into unshakable iron.
"Yes," she said. "Until the dead can rest, and the living be freed."
As the words fell—
Poof! The candle in the secret chamber extinguished completely without warning!
Darkness descended just as the wolf covenant mark on Shen Yuzhu's back ignited as if touched by an invisible flame, erupting in a blinding dark blue light! So intense it vaguely outlined the contour of his spine through his robes, the ancient patterns writhing and roaring like living things!
"Ugh—!" A stifled cry of pain escaped him as he slumped forward, collapsing.
Chu Hongying instinctively reached to support him, but the half-map fragment against her chest suddenly turned scalding! It dissolved into a cloud of burning blue light-dust, breaking free from her grasp and swarming towards her right arm like homing bees!
The light-dust seared her skin with a pain that felt bone-deep! Gritting her teeth, she looked down and saw the light-dust frantically "etching" itself onto her forearm—a burning pattern, sharing its origin with the one on Shen Yuzhu's back but clearly incomplete, was materializing at a visible pace, solidifying, pulsing with a dark blue glow!
Shen Yuzhu, coughing up blood, struggled to grasp her wrist, his fingertips icy, his voice trembling with immense fear. "Stop it… It's not time yet… If it fully awakens now, we'll both be 'seen' by what's on the other side of the 'Door'…"
Chu Hongying reversed her grip, her fingers clamping onto his cold ones with enough force to nearly crush the bones. Staring at the pulsating blue light on her arm as if it had a life of its own, she demanded, word by word, through clenched teeth, "What is 'it'?"
He lifted his ghastly pale face, blood still tracing his lips, and gave her a nearly broken smile.
"It is… the other half… that we cannot escape."
The light gradually faded.
Darkness and deathly silence returned to the chamber, leaving only the sound of their heavy, suppressed breathing.
The incomplete mark on Chu Hongying's arm still throbbed with a faint heat, flickering uncertainly, mirroring the turmoil in her heart. Shen Yuzhu leaned against the wall, so weak he seemed on the verge of dissipating.
He looked at the new mark on her arm, sharing its origin with his own, his voice light as fog.
"If fate is truly awakening… it should first ask us—if we are willing."
Chu Hongying silently clenched her fist, feeling the unfamiliar, searing pain beneath her skin, a brand of the unknown and shackles. After a long moment, her icy voice cut through the silence:
"Fate does not ask."
"It only takes."
Outside the window, a distant, hollow bell toll pierced the fog, echoing long and mournfully, as if sounding a knell for an unalterable trajectory.
Unseen by anyone, in the shadows at the corner of Returning Clouds Manor's outer wall, a raven, black as pitch, was deftly pecking open an exquisite, inch-long medicine box that someone had left behind.
Click.
The lid sprang open. The dark blue powder inside made contact with the capital's damp, cold air, emitting a faint, eerie, sizzling sound.