The Nameless Epoch

Chapter 5: Chishan Is Impounded

The two grains of golden sand displayed the same three folded striations within the Sin-Illuminating Thunder Mirror. The deputy head of the Enforcement Office did not pull back his hand. He merely returned the black-iron lock to his palm. Ye Zhaoshuang drew down a filament of lightning and sealed his sleeve, then his wrist and storage pouch. Throughout the process, she neither touched his meridians nor allowed the lightning intent to enter his primordial spirit.

“I don't know whether I picked it up on the way here or someone planted it on me.” The deputy head stared at the seals. “I made no private stop between the Law Hall and this place. The evidence chests passed through the western store passage. Every person who came into contact with them can be investigated.”

“Entered as a statement, not an explanation.” Ye Zhaoshuang ordered a records cultivator to open a separate page. “A foreign substance of the same type as that in the frozen blood has appeared on you. If you continue the transfer, the chain of evidence will be contaminated. Step three paces away from Chishan and wait for the Adjudication Office to rule on recusal.”

The deputy head withdrew as instructed, but the other five enforcement cultivators did not. The golden sand could prove a connection between his sleeve and the blood frozen eleven years ago. It could not prove that the entire Enforcement Office was involved. Jiang Linyuan did not use the opportunity to demand release from the lightning seal. He only asked one witness to record that the deputy head had touched the black-iron lock but had not yet touched the shield ring.

Ye Zhaoshuang sealed the newly recovered grain inside a transparent casket. Its evidence number followed directly after the frozen blood, but she did not describe the two samples as sharing a source. The Thunder Mirror recorded shape and residual traces. Matching three-fold striations could rule out ordinary northern iron sand, but determining whether both grains came from the same batch of ore would still require verification by artificers and mineral records. She entered that limitation prominently, lest the next version of the file retain only the words identical golden sand.

Two short knocks and one long knock soon sounded beyond the door. A Class-A lockdown opened only for the duty adjudicator of the Adjudication Office. The newcomer was thin, gray hair held by a wooden pin. After entering, the adjudicator first inspected the four lockdown screens, then verified the lightning seals on all twelve duplicate images. Only after that did the adjudicator examine the grain suspended against the deputy head's sleeve.

“Matching striations. Insufficient to establish origin.” The duty adjudicator finished reading the scene file and sealed the deputy head's enforcement tablet inside an evidence pouch. “You are recused from this transfer and placed under investigation. The entire robe will be sealed, and your route here examined separately. Stand by the eastern wall. You may not speak with your original team.”

The ruling neither showed favoritism nor cleared anyone of suspicion. Jiang Linyuan watched the adjudicator produce a new white-bordered document. The primary seal of the Enforcement Office was already in place. Before everyone present, the duty adjudicator added the countersign of the Adjudication Office. Both spiritual seals lit together, leaving no opening in which evidence could be moved first and the procedure completed afterward.

“The gray-white jade slip and frozen blood will enter separate chests. The Enforcement Office and Adjudication Office will each hold one primary key. Chishan will be sent to the Law Hall's secure evidence vault. Its shield ring and shield face will be locked separately, and the Immortal Alliance inspector will retain an external seal.” The duty adjudicator finished reading the terms. “The original image in the Sin-Illuminating Thunder Mirror remains with its holder, while a duplicate enters the master file. The mission wall cannot be moved. The Array Nexus Pavilion and Adjudication Office will guard it jointly on site.”

The new order repaired the earlier document's flaw completely. It also closed the last procedural gap Jiang Linyuan could contest. The original transfer officer had been recused. The Adjudication Office had accepted responsibility through its countersign. Ye Zhaoshuang would retain an external seal. Refusing now could prove only that Jiang was unwilling to surrender Chishan, not that the transfer would destroy evidence.

Ye Zhaoshuang did not put away her copper tallies merely because the document was complete. “The secure evidence vault is still inside the Law Hall. If this hall is implicated, the three original objects have not been truly dispersed.”

“Your objection will be attached to the file. It does not suspend temporary preservation.” The duty adjudicator pushed the order toward her. “You may apply to the chief adjudicator for relocation. There is no second vault that can complete a Class-A inspection before noon. Leaving the evidence at a disputed scene would not constitute distributed custody either.”

Ye Zhaoshuang read every term, left an objection imprint, and did not interfere further. The twin seals, divided locks, and recusal she had demanded were now written into the new order. If she replaced evidence with suspicion and still refused, she would be the one violating the rules she had just defended.

Jiang Linyuan asked, “Who holds the two keys at Chishan's first unsealing?”

“The duty supervisor of the Enforcement Office and an evidence recorder from the Adjudication Office. Inspector Ye will witness remotely. You receive a public copy of the record, but you may not be present.”

“The deadline remains the hour of the rabbit tomorrow?”

“It does.” After answering, the adjudicator drew out a green preservation tally. “The scope of your investigation is expanded. Effective immediately, your authority to serve on core-disciple duty, accept missions, and retrieve sect records is suspended. Your personal cave dwelling is designated as a related scene and will be sealed by the Stewardship Hall. This order is not a punishment. It will be reviewed after the first round of verification.”

Jiang Linyuan accepted the preservation tally but did not imprint it at once. “Two sets of armor belonging to my squad are stored in the cave, along with a duplicate patrol record from last night. Not everything inside belongs to me.”

“List the items. Their owners may not retrieve them personally. The Stewardship Hall will return them after verification.”

“Who enters before the cave is sealed?”

“Two people from the Stewardship Hall and one from the Adjudication Office. The entire process will be recorded.”

Jiang Linyuan wrote the three offices on the back of the tally and added the time at which the door would be sealed. Only then did he leave his acknowledgment imprint. Three fine chains of light emerged from the preservation tally. One locked his sect-registry privileges. One flew into the Merit Hall's mission ledger. The last passed through the stone gate and sped toward the cave dwelling in which he had lived for nine years.

He had not been convicted, yet within the span of one cup of tea he had lost the right to accept missions, the records access needed to investigate the case, and his home. Chishan was no longer under his control either. Each loss rested on a lawful document and carried a deadline for review. That was precisely why he could not recover any of them by drawing his shield and forcing the door.

Jiang Linchuan's cracked sect identity tablet and the unused hand warmer returned after his death still lay inside the cave. Jiang Linyuan did not ask to remove them first. He added both to the list of related objects and specified that they could be examined but not dismantled. If someone truly had used his brother's soul registry, those possessions might also contain traces. Being the property of a dead man's family did not exempt them from verification.

The five enforcement cultivators raised the evidence chests once more. Ye Zhaoshuang inspected their interiors one by one. Only after confirming that no spiritual signatures remained did she allow Jiang Linyuan to lay Chishan flat. When he closed his hand around the shield ring for the last time, his thumb rested outside the old scratch left by his brother. The newer mark lay beyond the black iron on the inner face and gave off no heat.

“I request that Chishan remain unsealed until the mission wall completes its noon rearrangement,” Jiang Linyuan said. “Reflecting the hidden layer requires the delays created by its seven welded scars. Once the shield leaves its position, the current state cannot be verified again.”

The duty adjudicator looked toward the cultivator from the Array Nexus Pavilion. Sweat covered the man's forehead, and only two unlit segments remained on his array plate. “The rearrangement cannot be delayed any longer. Even if Chishan stays inside the array, Jiang Linyuan must hold it. No one else can reproduce the angle. Continuing the method would allow a detained subject to control original evidence.”

“Record the risk. Execute the transfer order,” the adjudicator ruled. “The twelve existing duplicate images are sufficient to prove that a hidden layer appeared. We cannot continue using one original object in a contaminated procedure merely to preserve the condition of another.”

Jiang Linyuan looked at Ye Zhaoshuang. She did not ask for an exception on his behalf. Instead, she entered the adjudicator's decision, the Array Nexus Pavilion's risk statement, and her own objection into the same file. Black-iron locks closed around Chishan's ring and face in turn. A band of silver-white lightning sealed the outer layer. When the chest lid descended, the welds left by seven reforgings disappeared through the narrowing gap. Both locks bit shut at once.

The familiar pull between his bonded weapon and his meridians broke. Jiang Linyuan's right arm sank half an inch by reflex, as though the shield's weight still hung from it. The duty adjudicator noticed and recorded only, Holder displays residual load response following sealing. The chest was not reopened. Jiang Linyuan withdrew his hand into his sleeve and did not turn the reaction into a demand for return.

The noon bell sounded beyond the hall, and the array shaft inside the mission wall turned violently. Without the seven staggered delays reflected through Chishan, the returning light holding the hidden layer dispersed into white patches. The Array Nexus cultivator slammed his plate against the wall and tried to lock the seventh tier, but a dense series of cracks sounded inside first, like countless sheets of paper being thrown into a fire at once.

Gray-white flame leapt from the top of the rewrite layer. It did not burn the mission numbers or touch the recorded acceptance times. It crawled downward only along names. The flame divided and passed around Jiang Linchuan and the other dead. Whenever it encountered the name of a handler still serving in the sect, fire rose from within every stroke and burned the name into a blank space in the blink of an eye.

“The fire burns only the names of the living!” The records cultivator had barely shouted when the remaining array lines began folding inward. The dead names untouched by the flame were swallowed into the stone along with the mission text. The black rewrite layer collapsed from its edges toward the center. Ye Zhaoshuang forced the Thunder Mirror to preserve the reflected image, but captured only half a page before the original wall returned to featureless gray stone.

The twelve duplicates survived. The mission wall's original condition did not. When the Array Nexus cultivator reopened the seventh tier, every jade slip inside had become blank white jade. Even the seam from which the gray-white slip had emerged was closed without a gap, as if no mission belonging to the dead had appeared there in eleven years.

Before anyone could speak, a faint tremor sounded deep inside the blank wall—the sound of a receiving imprint connecting. The first voice was indistinct. A second followed immediately. Soon they gathered into a dense multitude, each repeating the same words: “This disciple accepts the command.” The soul-signature count on the array plate began to climb: one hundred, five hundred, one thousand. It stopped only at seventeen hundred.