The Nameless Epoch

The Merit Hall of Xuangang Ironshield Fortress opened every day at the hour of the rabbit. The first batch of mission jade slips would spill from the wall like a school of fish lunging for food. Outer disciples packed the front ranks, their eyes fixed on spirit stones, pills, and merit points, not one of them willing to yield an inch. By the time Jiang Linyuan entered with his square shield on his back, more than half the Yellow-tier missions had already been torn down. Only a few slips for clearing snow and repairing walls hung forlornly in a corner. He did not force his way into the crowd. First he turned sideways to let two men carrying a wounded labor disciple pass. Then he lifted his gaze and checked every exit. The front gate had not yet been lowered. Snow blocked half the small eastern door. Two stewards stood in the duty passage behind the mission wall. If a fight broke out inside the hall, the nearest escape route was the western window. Smashing through its lattice would take three breaths. He made this calculation wherever he went. Only after the tally was complete did he move farther in. This morning, he had come merely to turn in proof of the previous night's city patrol: a wolf fang frozen white. It should earn him thirty-seven merit points—enough for two bottles of spirit-restoring powder, with seven points left over to repair the wrist guard of the junior disciple in his squad who had been bitten. Behind the counter, Steward Zhou picked up the fang and scraped a fingernail across the break without raising his head. “Frostwolf. Left fang. No stray spiritual power in the wound. Thirty points.” “The mission slip says thirty-seven.” Jiang Linyuan pushed the proof forward, his voice quiet. “After midnight, the wind ward on the northern wall failed. Seven points of cold-zone compensation were added. The Records Office's countersign is on the back.” Steward Zhou turned the fang over. When he saw the tiny seal almost frozen into the cracks of the bone, his expression soured. He added the missing seven strokes to the merit ledger, muttering that a core disciple was haggling over a handful of points. Jiang Linyuan did not answer. He merely waited for the total to be settled, then separated the portion belonging to his squad. At that moment, a soft sound came from deep within the mission wall. It was all but lost beneath the hall's arguments, yet Jiang Linyuan turned at once. The black-iron shield Chishan rested against his back, and its inner clasp gave a faint tremor, as if someone had tapped on the far side of a thick sheet of metal. It was neither the warning it gave under attack nor a resonance of spiritual power. It felt more like an old possession recognizing something. The seventh tier of the mission wall should have opened only to inner disciples and above. Yet a gray-white jade slip was slowly sliding from a seam in the stone. It did not fall toward any of the waiting disciples. It passed through several reaching hands, circled once past a man's shoulder, and finally stopped three feet in front of Jiang Linyuan. The hall fell silent for an instant. Then someone laughed. “Senior Brother Jiang, an Earth-tier mission came looking for you on its own. You won't have to fight us for wolf fangs this month.” Jiang Linyuan did not reach for it. He lifted his right arm. Chishan slid from its shoulder clasp to the front of his body, and the heavy rim of the shield caught the jade slip so that it never touched his skin. The laughter around him faded. Everyone in Xuangang Ironshield Fortress knew his habits. If it were an ordinary mission, he would not have received it with a shield. The gray-white jade slip unfolded by itself upon the shield. Spiritual light projected four lines of text. Profound-tier. Ruins of Zhexue Pass. Recover the ninth pass-sealing soul spike. Time limit: three days. At the bottom were the recipient's name and sect registry number, the writing perfectly clear and untouched by wear. Recipient: Jiang Linchuan. Jiang Linchuan had been seven years older than him. During Qi Refining, he had complained that the sect's standard shield was too light, saved merit points for three years to buy a slab of black iron, drew the design himself, and paid someone to forge it into a square shield. He had never been especially meticulous, yet he loved checking his younger brother's travel gear. If even one cold-warding talisman was missing, he would chase Jiang Linyuan beyond the mountain gate to stuff it into his hands. The day he left for Zhexue Pass, he had turned Jiang Linyuan's storage pouch inside out as usual. The one thing he had not said was what tier of mission he himself had accepted. Later, the Merit Hall explained that the border situation had been urgent and recipients had been f*******n to disclose details to their families. Jiang Linyuan had been thirteen then. He had not even known which door to knock on to file an appeal. The sect had returned very few belongings: half a shield, a cracked sect identity tablet, and a hand warmer that had never been used. Jiang Linyuan seldom dreamed of his elder brother now. Time blurred the faces of the living, but every year someone renewed the vermilion lettering on the Monument to the Honored Dead. He had read those three characters too many times to mistake them. His fingers tightened around the shield ring until the old leather pressed his knuckles white. Eleven years ago, the ghost-tide rift at Zhexue Pass had broken out of control. Of the more than seventeen hundred people inside the pass, not one had survived. Jiang Linchuan's broken shield and sect identity tablet had been returned in the same shipment. His body had never been found, but the Sect Affairs Hall had verified and sealed his soul registry. His name remained carved on the three-hundred-and-twenty-seventh line of the Northern Monument to the Honored Dead. Steward Zhou looked across the counter. The impatience on his face froze. He reached for the jade slip, but Jiang Linyuan drew the shield back, leaving Zhou's hand grasping empty air. “Stop the mission wall,” Jiang Linyuan said. “Seal the seventh tier. Record the names of everyone present. Summon one person each from the Records Office and the Law Hall.” “Seal the wall over one faulty slip?” Steward Zhou lowered his voice and glanced around. “There are more than three hundred missions still to be issued today. Cold weather has made the spiritual lines cross before. Throw it into the slag furnace and carve another.” “If the lines crossed, you will have burned a useless slip. If they did not, you will have burned evidence.” Jiang Linyuan did not lose his temper. His tone grew calmer instead. “Count the entire cost. Put the losses caused by suspending the wall under my name. Deduct them from my monthly stipend once the matter is clear. For now, open a case file.” The words left Steward Zhou unable to use the sect's losses against him. None of the disciples waiting for missions laughed now. Some quietly edged toward the door, while others stood on tiptoe to see the recipient's name. After a moment's hesitation, Steward Zhou refrained from touching the master ward behind the wall. Instead, he slapped down a strip of yellow sealing paper, intending to isolate the jade slip and send it away. Jiang Linyuan looked at the strip. “It has no number.” “Temporary seal. It will be entered into the record later.” “Later by whom? At what hour? In which ledger?” Steward Zhou's head snapped up. “Jiang Linyuan, you came to submit a mission, not to put the Merit Hall on trial.” “Which is why I am asking, not judging.” Jiang Linyuan took his sect identity tablet from his storage pouch and laid it flat on the counter. “Under the appeal procedure, when a mission party is the direct relative of a deceased cultivator, he may request joint verification by two offices. If you deny the request, leave a rejection imprint on my tablet. I will take it to the hall master.” Two disciples beside the counter exchanged a glance, then both looked away. The procedure was written behind the Merit Hall's doors, yet many people passed through them for years without once bothering to read it. Steward Zhou had clearly read it. He simply was not accustomed to anyone actually using it against him. He stared at the identity tablet for several breaths. At last, he withdrew the sealing strip and ordered an apprentice to summon the necessary officials. Jiang Linyuan still did not touch the jade slip. First he recorded the moment it had emerged from the wall. Then he asked the three nearest disciples to leave witness signatures of their spiritual energy. Only after that did he remove Chishan and examine the strange vibration it had given. Welds from seven reforgings crisscrossed the shield. A shallow dent from last night's frostwolf attack marred its rim. Everything was exactly as it had been when he left home. But when he turned it over, his gaze stopped. Near the lower-left clasp, there had originally been only one scratch, two inches long. Jiang Linchuan had left it there. His elder brother had been in the habit of dragging the back of a knife across his shield before setting out, a promise that he would return alive. Eleven years ago, he had made a single mark. When half the shattered shield came home, that mark had remained. Jiang Linyuan had reforged Chishan seven times, and never once allowed an artificer to polish it away. Now a second scratch lay beside the old one. The new line was shallow, but its edges were clean, as if a narrow blade had just been drawn down the metal. Jiang Linyuan rubbed it with his thumb. There were no iron filings and no trace of residual spiritual power. He had checked the clasp before shouldering the shield that morning. The second mark had not been there. “What is it?” one of the outer disciples who had stayed to serve as a witness could not help asking. Jiang Linyuan strapped the shield back onto his arm without showing him the inner face. “Move back two more steps. Don't touch the wall, and don't leave the Merit Hall until the Law Hall has recorded your statement.” Only then did he look again at the gray-white jade slip. The receiving imprint lay hidden at its base and was no larger than a fingertip. The outer layer was an identity ward uniformly engraved by the Merit Hall. The inner layer held the recipient's soul signature. Forging a name was not difficult. Some could even forge a sect registry number. But a soul signature adhered to the primordial spirit. Once a cultivator died and his soul registry was sealed, it should never have been able to claim another mission—unless Jiang Linchuan was not dead, or someone was using his soul. Either answer was enough to make a man lose his judgment. Jiang Linyuan slowly loosened his grip on the shield ring instead. He did not look toward Zhexue Pass. He did not urge the apprentice to hurry. Whoever had sent an impossible jade slip to him wanted him to leave the sect at once. Zhexue Pass lay more than seven hundred li from Xuangang Ironshield Fortress. Even a Foundation Establishment cultivator traveling at full speed would need a full day. A three-day limit gave him just enough time to enter—and no time to conduct a second verification. “Lower the front gate halfway as well,” he told Steward Zhou. “No one who accepted a seventh-tier mission may leave. Those who have not accepted one must wait outside. If anyone forces their way out, don't pursue. Record their spiritual signature and direction.” This time Steward Zhou did not argue. He raised a hand and activated the ward beside the gate. The stone door descended halfway, shutting out the wind and snow. The light of hundreds of jade slips flickered across the faces inside the hall. Rapid footsteps sounded in the distance. The Law Hall officials should have arrived, but the seventh tier of the mission wall began trembling first. Array lines within the seams lit one after another. The gray-white jade slip suddenly rose from Chishan's surface. Its receiving imprint pierced the outer ward and shone directly toward Jiang Linyuan's brow. Chishan sank half an inch under the pressure, and the new scratch inside the shield grew hot. Jiang Linyuan twisted aside at once, avoiding the ray, and pinned the slip back against the counter with the shield's rim. His other hand was already pressing the message talisman inside his storage pouch. The jade slip did not attack. It did not destroy itself. Before hundreds of witnesses, it produced only a faint rasp, like wind passing through the broken gates of Zhexue Pass—or someone breathing from very far away. At first, Jiang Linyuan thought it was the scrape of the soul imprint. Then the sound grew clear and called him by his childhood name. It was the voice of Jiang Linchuan, dead for eleven years. “Don't go to Zhexue Pass. There are still people alive there.”