sbdcsierra Chapter 6 Heading to Cold Mountain Technology
Chapter 6 Heading to Cold Mountain Technology
The next morning, Li Shancheng was awakened by a strange resonance.
The sound didn't come through his ears, but resounded directly in his mind—like the echo of a distant bell, or the soft rustling of pages turning in an ancient book. He sat up and noticed the silver badge beside his pillow emitting a faint, rhythmic pulsating light.
"The badge warning that Editor-in-Chief Qin mentioned..." Li Shancheng picked up the badge; its light gradually dimmed, but the sense of resonance had not completely disappeared. He looked out the window; the sky was just beginning to lighten, and the outline of the Purple Dragonwood was faintly visible in the morning mist.
After quickly getting dressed, Li Shancheng walked out of the dormitory. Xu Qingqing was already there in the courtyard, dressed in sportswear, performing a slow and fluid set of gymnastics movements. Each movement was coordinated with a specific breathing rhythm, and Li Shancheng noticed an almost invisible pale golden halo around her body.
"You can do this too?" Xu Qingqing asked him as she finished the last movement.
"No," Li Shancheng answered honestly. "I just heard... no, I felt a sound, and the badge was glowing."
Xu Qingqing's expression turned serious: "Badge resonance? Editor-in-Chief Qin strengthened the defenses yesterday, so only specific types of energy fluctuations would trigger it. It seems that after last night's probing, the other party hasn't given up."
As they were talking, Editor-in-Chief Qin came out of the main house, holding a compass-like object in his hand. However, instead of directions, the surface of the compass was engraved with various complex runes. The compass needle was spinning rapidly, occasionally pausing to point in a certain direction outside the courtyard.
"Someone is using a reconnaissance spell, heading southeast, about 300 meters away." Editor-in-Chief Qin frowned. "Such close proximity means the other party was lurking nearby last night."
"I'll go take a look," Xu Qingqing said immediately.
"I'll go with you," Li Shancheng said almost instinctively.
Editor-in-Chief Qin glanced at them: "Alright, the two of you can look out for each other. But remember, this is just reconnaissance, avoid direct confrontation. If you spot any danger, retreat immediately and signal me."
He took out three small paper cranes from his pocket, and gently touched one with his fingertip. The paper cranes flapped their wings and flew up: "Follow the paper cranes, they will lead you to the source of the energy fluctuations."
Xu Qingqing nodded and took out two devices resembling Bluetooth headsets from her backpack: "Wearing these, we can have a real-time call, and Editor-in-Chief Qin can hear us too."
Li Shancheng put on the equipment and made some adjustments. The paper crane had already flown out of the yard, and they followed closely behind.
The quiet of Qingyun Lane in the early morning was eerily peaceful. Mist drifted across the cobblestone street, and the shops on both sides had their doors and windows tightly shut. Only the occasional bird call broke the silence. Paper cranes flitted through the mist, their wings shimmering with a faint silver light, like fireflies in the darkness.
Stepping out of Qingyun Lane, the scene of a modern city reappears. Early-rising sanitation workers are sweeping the streets, and a few taxis slowly drive by. A paper crane flies into a side street and hovers in front of a 24-hour convenience store.
"Here?" Li Shancheng asked in a low voice.
Xu Qingqing gestured for him to be quiet and pulled him behind a newsstand on the street corner. Through the glass window, they saw only a young clerk organizing the shelves inside the convenience store; everything seemed normal.
But the paper crane continued to circle, and its light grew brighter and brighter.
"On the roof." Xu Qingqing looked up.
Above the convenience store sign is a small repair platform. In the shadows of the platform, there is a vague human figure silhouette. If you don't look closely, you might mistake it for just a pile of miscellaneous items.
"Can you tell who it is?" Li Shancheng asked.
Xu Qingqing's eyes began to glow with gold, her pupils contracting and then dilating: "Male, around thirty years old, wearing dark overalls, disguised as a maintenance worker. He's holding something...like a modified SLR camera, but the lens is glowing. What is he filming?"
Following the direction of the man's camera lens, Li Shancheng looked towards the entrance of Qingyun Alley. From this angle, ordinary people could only see an ordinary wall, but cultivators might be able to detect something unusual.
"Is he recording the people entering and leaving Qingyun Lane?" Li Shancheng guessed.
"Very likely." Xu Qingqing pressed her earpiece. "Editor-in-Chief Qin, we've discovered a surveillance agent on the roof of a convenience store, disguised as a repairman. Should we make contact?"
The voice of Editor-in-Chief Qin came through the earpiece: "Take pictures of his appearance and equipment, but don't alert him. These kinds of small fry are usually just following orders; arresting him won't do any good, and it will only expose the fact that we've already discovered the surveillance."
Xu Qingqing took a telephoto lens out of her camera bag and quickly snapped a few photos. Just as she pressed the shutter, the people on the rooftop suddenly turned to look in their direction.
"He's spotted us!" Li Shancheng said nervously.
The man packed up his equipment, quickly retreated, and disappeared on the other side of the roof. The paper crane immediately turned and chased after the man in the direction he fled.
"Chase!" Xu Qingqing said without hesitation.
They circled the convenience store and saw the man had already jumped onto the fire escape of the adjacent building and was rapidly climbing down. The paper crane followed closely in the air, but the man was fast and clearly professionally trained.
Li Shancheng and Xu Qingqing chased him into a narrow back alley. It was filled with garbage cans and clutter, and the air reeked of decay. The man paused at the end of the alley, glanced back at them, his face masked, revealing only a pair of cold, indifferent eyes.
Then he turned and rushed through a half-open iron gate.
The paper crane circled in front of the iron gate, then stopped moving forward. When Li Shancheng arrived, he saw that behind the iron gate was the entrance to an underground parking garage, which was pitch black and exuded a cold, damp atmosphere.
"He's gone in." Xu Qingqing stopped at the doorway, took a flashlight out of her backpack, and shone the beam into the darkness. "This garage has been abandoned for a long time, be careful."
"Shall we go in?" Li Shancheng asked.
"Editor-in-Chief Qin said to avoid direct confrontation, but if it's just reconnaissance..." Xu Qingqing hesitated for a moment, "we'll just look around at the entrance and not go any deeper."
They cautiously stepped into the garage. The beam of their flashlights pierced the darkness, illuminating the dusty walls and floor. Abandoned vehicles lay scattered like metallic corpses, tires flat, windows broken. Besides the musty smell, there was another... fishy odor in the air?
The paper crane suddenly began to shake violently, and the silver light on its wings became unstable.
"There's something here!" Xu Qingqing immediately stopped in her tracks.
From the shadows deep within the garage came a low growl. It wasn't a human voice, more like a wild beast's, yet it carried an eerie echo. Then, several red lights appeared in the darkness—eyes.
"Shadow Nightmare? There's more than one!" Li Shancheng took a step back.
Three Shadow Nightmares emerged from the darkness, their forms more solid than the one in the library, the shadows around their bodies flickering like flames. One of them was noticeably larger, its red light in its eyes even more intense.
"This is a trap!" Xu Qingqing immediately realized. "That person deliberately lured us here!"
The largest Shadow Nightmare lunged first. Xu Qingqing quickly shook the exorcism bell, the sound echoing in the enclosed garage. The Shadow Nightmare's movements visibly faltered, but it wasn't completely dispelled like the one in the library. The other two flanked it from the side.
Li Shancheng activated the badge, and a silver shield unfolded in front of him. A Shadow Nightmare crashed into the shield, producing a piercing scraping sound, and ripples appeared on the shield's surface. He could feel the badge rapidly consuming energy; the shield wouldn't last much longer.
Xu Qingqing pulled two short sticks from her backpack, their surfaces covered in fine runes. She swung the sticks, the runes glowing golden, each strike leaving a burning mark on the Shadow Nightmares.
"They're stronger than the one in the library!" Xu Qingqing shouted. "They're not ordinary Shadow Nightmares; they've been enhanced!"
The largest shadow demon bypassed the sound wave range of the exorcism bell and pounced on Xu Qingqing from above. Li Shancheng didn't have time to think, grabbed a piece of broken brick from the ground, and threw it with all his might.
At that moment, something strange happened. His gaze seemed to predict the Shadow Nightmare's movements, and the broken brick struck the Shadow Nightmare's head with pinpoint accuracy. More importantly, the brick seemed to be imbued with some kind of power, emitting a faint white light upon impact, and the Shadow Nightmare let out a painful shriek.
"Well done!" Xu Qingqing seized the opportunity to strike the Shadow Nightmare with her short stick. The runes shone brightly with golden light, and the Shadow Nightmare's body began to disintegrate.
But the other two were already closing in. Li Shancheng felt the shield was about to shatter, the badge almost burning his hand. Just then, fragments of knowledge he had obtained from ancient texts suddenly surfaced in his mind—about energy flow, the structure of the array's core, and the combination of runes...
Almost instinctively, he stretched out his finger and quickly drew a simple symbol in the air. There was no paper, no ink, only the flow of his thoughts. But when he finished the last stroke, the symbol briefly appeared in the air, emitting a soft silver light.
The shadow demon that lunged at him collided with the silver light, as if hitting an invisible wall, and was bounced back.
Xu Qingqing stared in shock at this scene: "Drawing talismans in mid-air? You can even do that?"
"I...I don't know, I just suddenly knew I should do it." Li Shancheng was also startled.
The largest Shadow Nightmare had reformed, but its size had shrunk. It no longer attacked, instead emitting a high-pitched shriek. The other two Shadow Nightmares immediately retreated, disappearing into the shadows. The largest one gave them a deep look before turning and vanishing into the darkness.
The garage fell silent again, with only the sounds of their breathing and heartbeats.
"They retreated." Xu Qingqing cautiously surveyed her surroundings. "Someone was controlling them remotely; they knew they couldn't win, so they retreated. Shancheng, that move you made just now..."
"I really don't know what happened." Li Shancheng looked at his hand, his fingertips still tingling slightly. "It's like a picture suddenly appeared in my mind, and I drew it."
The urgent voice of Editor-in-Chief Qin came through the earpiece: "Are you all alright? I sensed a strong energy fluctuation!"
"We're alright. We encountered three enhanced Shadow Nightmares, but we repelled them," Xu Qingqing reported. "Shancheng just used the Aerial Drawing Talisman, although it's the most basic protective talisman, but..."
"Come back here," Editor-in-Chief Qin interrupted her. "Go back immediately, don't linger."
They quickly left the garage. By the time they returned to the street, it was already broad daylight, and the flow of people going to work was beginning to appear. The paper cranes were gone, presumably having run out of energy. Li Shancheng glanced back at the abandoned garage; the iron gate looked particularly eerie in the morning light.
When I returned to Qingyun Lane, Editor-in-Chief Qin was already waiting in the courtyard. Under the purple dragon wood was a stone table, on which a pile of ancient books and drawings were spread out.
"Tell me the details," Editor-in-Chief Qin said solemnly.
Li Shancheng and Xu Qingqing took turns recounting the entire process, from discovering the monitor to the battle in the garage. When Editor-in-Chief Qin heard the part about drawing talismans in mid-air, his expression became extremely complex.
"Drawing talismans in mid-air requires extremely high concentration and energy manipulation skills, and it usually takes several years of training to master the basics." Editor-in-Chief Qin looked at Li Shancheng, "Unless... what you gained from ancient books was not just knowledge, but also a kind of 'instinct'."
"instinct?"
"The guardians of the array's core have passed down their skills from generation to generation. Besides written records, there's a deeper form of inheritance—the direct transmission of experience and techniques through energy imprints." Editor Qin opened a yellowed ancient book. "It records that each guardian undergoes a 'spiritual awakening' before officially taking over, gaining some of the abilities of their predecessors. But you're only certified as a candidate now, so you shouldn't have this level of awakening."
Li Shancheng's heart stirred: "When I was in the library and looking at the ancient books, I also saw other images—an underground space, murals, and a book of light."
Editor-in-Chief Qin looked up abruptly: "Detailed description!"
Li Shancheng tried hard to recall: "The underground space was very large, and the walls were covered with murals depicting scenes of some kind of ritual. In the center was a book... made entirely of light, with pages that turned automatically, and the text on it looked like flowing liquid."
Editor-in-Chief Qin and Xu Qingqing exchanged a glance, both seeing the shock in each other's eyes.
"That's the 'Literary Treasury,'" Editor-in-Chief Qin said slowly. "It's the core of the array, and only official guardians can enter. Theoretically, candidates shouldn't know the exact appearance of the treasury before completing all the trials."
"But I saw it," Li Shancheng said confidently, "and it was very clear, as if I were really standing there."
Editor-in-Chief Qin remained silent for a long time before standing up and walking to the Purple Dragon Wood. He stroked the runes on the trunk and said, "There are two possibilities. Either the array's core is facing a huge crisis and is forced to transmit core knowledge ahead of schedule, or... you yourself have special aptitude, and your compatibility with the array's core far exceeds that of ordinary people."
"Which of these two scenarios is more likely?" Xu Qingqing asked.
"It's all unlikely, but it all happened anyway." Editor-in-Chief Qin smiled wryly. "It seems we need to adjust our plans. Shancheng, you'll officially begin learning basic runes today. Xu Qingqing, you'll be in charge of mentoring him. At the same time, we need to speed up our investigation into Hanshan Technology; I suspect they're connected to today's surveillance and attack."
"The Shadow Nightmare in the garage has clearly been enhanced," Xu Qingqing said, "and someone is controlling it remotely. This is consistent with the method used in the library incident; it must be the same group of people."
Editor-in-Chief Qin nodded: "I analyzed the runes on that metal plate last night and confirmed it's a technique from the Cold Mountain Sect, and a rather advanced variant at that. But what's strange is that these runes require a continuous infusion of energy to maintain, and Cold Mountain Technology installed the system three months ago. How did they remotely maintain the rune's effectiveness?"
"Unless..." Li Shancheng suddenly thought of a possibility, "Unless they used the energy of the array's core itself? The monitoring runes are like parasites, attaching themselves to the array's core and drawing power from its energy flow."
Editor-in-Chief Qin's eyes lit up: "That makes a lot of sense! If that's the case, then the problem is serious. Parasites drain the host's energy, causing the host to gradually weaken. The abnormal reaction of the Wen Shu array eye might be due to the diversion of energy!"
"Then we need to find evidence as soon as possible so that the library can remove those devices," Xu Qingqing said.