The tip of Huo Qingya's finger hovered three inches above Yue Tingzhou's forehead. The ice crystals had formed but remained unreleased, the tip reflecting the residual light from the shattered copper mirrors in the vault, like a droplet of frost about to fall. Yue Tingzhou's peripheral vision was already darkening, and the intense pain in his left shoulder, along with the cold, was creeping up his meridians, like countless icy snakes burrowing into his heart. His right hand still held the sword, which was embedded in the ground, its blade humming, a last act of resistance from his body. "The path you chose is your own," Yue Tingzhou said. His voice was hoarse, but each word was clear, like reading a sentence of judgment in a courtroom. "According to the evidence, you cannot kill me." Huo Qingya didn't move. His gaze passed over Yue Tingzhou and focused on the depths of the secret passage—the resonating hum was weakening, replaced by a sharper, more concentrated fluctuation of spiritual energy, coming from all directions, like countless needles piercing the arteries of the city. The false mother scroll had been activated, and not just one, but in a carefully calculated chain reaction. "Frost Hawk Guards, obey my orders," Huo Qingya said, his voice low but resonating like the first crack in ice. "Seal all spiritual mirror nodes and trace the source of the fluctuation. Prioritize intercepting Zhu Hanli." Uniform responses echoed from outside, the sound of footsteps quickly receding. Only the two of them remained in the vault. The cold still permeated the air, but it no longer intensified. Huo Qingya's fingertip, where the ice crystal had been, slowly dissipated. He withdrew his hand, smoothing the cuff of his sleeve—a gesture so natural, like brushing away a speck of dust. "You have won the first step," Huo Qingya said. He knelt down, looking Yue Tingzhou in the eye, his frost-colored eyes devoid of anger, only a cold, almost scrutinizing calmness. "The false mother scroll has been successfully deployed, and Xie Zong will preemptively use his authority. But you know the price." Yue Tingzhou's breathing condensed into white mist in the crystals. "Shen Litchuan." "Shen Tielü is already in the Reflection Hall," Huo Qingya said, his tone even, as if reporting the weather. "He has been suspended and is under investigation for condoning the illicit activities of his subordinates, for communicating with traitors, and for leaking classified information. According to the law, if proven, he will be stripped of his rank and exiled." Each word was like an ice shard, piercing Yue Tingzhou's eardrums. The pain in his left shoulder suddenly vanished, replaced by a deeper, more pervasive cold that spread from his chest. He remembered the old wolf-hair brush Shen Litchuan had used when writing his confession, the memory of his mentor's slightly limping gait when his old injury flared up in the rain, and the phrase that was rarely spoken but always offered at crucial moments: "Follow the rules." His fingernails dug into his palm, drawing blood that seeped out onto the frost-covered ground, forming a small dark red stain. "You could have chosen a different path," Huo Qingya said, standing up and looking down at him. "The Life-Saving Token of the Legal Affairs Department can be used to ensure your safety. Shen Tielü taught you that the first law of intelligence work is that the mission is more important than personal feelings." Yue Tingzhou remained silent. He tried to move his left fingers, but only felt a tearing, twitching sensation. The cold had spread to his elbow, and his entire arm felt detached, numb and throbbing. "Why didn't you use it?" Huo Qingya asked again. This time, there was a trace of something almost like confusion in his voice. "For the engagement? For that镖局 (diao ju -鏢局,鏢局) heiress?" "For a promise," Yue Tingzhou said. He raised his eyes, looking past Huo Qingya, into the darkness of the secret passage. "Alliances are binding. The laws of the Jianghu (江湖 - Jianghu, underworld) also have their own laws." Huo Qingya was silent for three breaths. Then he turned and walked towards the vault entrance. His frost-colored back appeared cold and rigid against the fragmented light of the copper mirrors, like a moving iceberg. "Xie Zong will personally handle you," he said, pausing at the entrance without turning around. "The public hearing has been moved up to three days from now. He will attend with the true mother scroll and publicly declare you and Zhu Hanli as 'public enemies of The Xuan Tie token vibrated violently. A streak of golden runes emerged from the surface of the token, instantly expanding into a circle with a diameter of about ten feet, enveloping Yue Tingzhou and Lu Jianwei. The edge of the circle collided with the streak of icy light shot by Huo Qingya, producing a harsh metallic friction sound, with sparks flying. The space began to warp. Yue Tingzhou felt as if a huge force was pulling his body, and the scenes in his vision – the library, the shards of the bronze mirror, Huo Qingya's cold face – all blurred and deformed like ink paintings immersed in water. This was a sign that the Boundary Breaking Rune was taking effect – in three breaths, they would be teleported to a random location three miles away. But Huo Qingya didn't stop. He took a step forward. With that single step, the temperature in the library plummeted. The breath exhaled instantly turned into ice crystals, fluttering down. Yue Tingzhou saw Huo Qingya raise his right hand, his five fingers forming a virtual grip, and the suspended ice dew suddenly shattered, transforming into seven points of ethereal blue starlight, arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper. "The rules of the Frost Falcon Guard," Huo Qingya's voice pierced through the buzzing of the warping space, "the living must be seen, and the dead must be displayed." The seven points of starlight shot out simultaneously. Lu Jianwei screamed and three golden needles shot out from her fingertips, intercepting three of the stars. The tips of the needles collided with the ice stars, exploding into three clouds of mist, and the golden needles were instantly covered in frost, clattering to the ground. But there were still four points – Yue Tingzhou gritted his teeth. The Zhigao sword he held in his right hand finally moved. The blade didn't rise, but just swept across the ground. It wasn't a sword technique, but a sword intent – a warm, sinking force surged from his dantian, flowing along the blade and extending three feet, carving a shallow groove in the ground. Where the shallow groove passed, the frost melted, revealing the dark, greenish-black stone slabs underneath. The four ice stars struck this "sword mark." There was no loud noise, only a faint "hissing" sound, like a red-hot iron block being immersed in cold water. The light of the ice stars dimmed and finally extinguished. But Yue Tingzhou's face turned even paler, and a trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth – he was forcibly mobilizing true qi that had been eroded by the cold poison, and his meridians felt like being pierced by needles. "Go!" Lu Jianwei grabbed his arm. The light circle of the Boundary Breaking Rune contracted to its extreme, and then – It exploded. There was no sound, only a blinding white light that engulfed everything. Yue Tingzhou felt his body lose its weight, as if thrown into a turbulent river, with the whistling wind and a kind of spatial tearing sound in his ears. He held tightly onto the Zhigao sword and the cracked Heng Lü token, his left hand hanging limply at his side, completely losing sensation. Three breaths. When the white light dissipated, he fell to the ground. It was cold. Bone-chillingly cold. Yue Tingzhou coughed up a mouthful of blood mixed with ice shards, struggling to sit up. He was in a narrow alley, with towering brick walls on both sides, and snow piled up on the rooftops. Moonlight streamed down through the gaps in the eaves, illuminating the moss on the stone slabs. Lu Jianwei was lying not far away, struggling to get up. Her left shoulder was torn open, revealing a purple and bluish-purple frostbite – one of the four ice stars had grazed her. "This is... where?" she gasped. Yue Tingzhou didn't answer. He looked up at the end of the alley. There, he could vaguely see the outline of a tall building, with upturned eaves and flying rafters, resembling a crouching giant beast in the night. There were lights on the roof, and a flag fluttering in the wind – The Star Observation Pavilion. West of the city, the Star Observation Pavilion. The designated rendezvous point of Sha Ma A Shi. But it was too close. The teleportation distance of the Boundary Breaking Rune should be three miles, but here, it was only half a mile from the Star Observation Pavilion. Either the rune was interfered with by Huo Qingya's coldness, or... Yue Tingzhou looked down at the Heng Lü token in his hand. The central groove of the token had completely cracked, and the "Boundary Breaking Stone" inside had shattered into powder. The Xuan Tie material was covered with fine cracks – not from the collision just now, but from a long time ago. This token had been tampered with. "We were tricked," he said in a hoarse It wasn't the sensation of actual temperature, but the burning feeling that the runes sensed when his true energy was channeled into it. Yue Tingzhou closed his eyes, and images of the rainy night when he received the order from Shen Lichi flashed through his mind. In the study, the candlelight flickered dimly, and the old man stood facing away from him by the window, rainwater trickling down the window frame. "Tingzhou," Shen Lichi's voice was like rusted metal scraping, "what is the first rule of the Henglu Division's undercover agents?" "Duty comes before personal feelings." "The second rule?" "Evidence is superior to speculation." "The third rule?" He had been silent for three breaths. Shen Lichi turned around, his eagle-like eyes staring at him in the shadows, each word carefully pronounced: "Survive, so you can bring back the evidence." But now— "Crack!" A harsh cracking sound erupted. A copper mirror shattered completely, and ice shards rained down. Huo Qingya stepped out from the midst of the shards, his boots crushing the frost crystals on the ground, making a grating sound. The short blade formed from true energy in his hand emitted a pale blue-white chill, and the air around the blade's tip condensed into fine ice patterns. "The mirror array is broken," Huo Qingya said, his voice calm, like a death sentence, "the next thing to break will be your dantian." Lu Jianwei suddenly stood up, blocking Yue Tingzhou. Seven golden needles were held between her fingers, the tips aimed at Huo Qingya's vital point in his throat, the needle tails trembling slightly due to the channeled true energy: "Take one more step—" "Doctor Lu," Huo Qingya interrupted, taking a step forward, "your skills in saving lives are passable, but your skills in killing are far inferior." A sudden surge of cold. The temperature in the vault dropped another degree, and the white mist exhaled by Lu Jianwei condensed into ice crystals that fluttered down. Her fingers, holding the needles, began to tremble uncontrollably, and the humming sound of the needles became erratic – it was the mournful cry of the spirit needles when suppressed by a high-level true energy field. Yue Tingzhou looked at her back. This itinerant doctor, who always put "trouble" on her lips, had a straight back, like a thin wall that could collapse at any moment. Beside her was the vault mechanism;只要 she stepped on that tile, she could slide into the secret passage and escape. But she didn't move. "Lu Jianwei," Yue Tingzhou said, his voice hoarse, like sandpaper scraping against his throat, "go." "Shut up," she said without turning her head, her voice rapid, "I'm calculating his true energy circulation period. The Xuan霜 blade has a recovery interval every three breaths, and there's... one and a half breaths left." "What are you calculating that for?" "To do what you should do," she suddenly turned her head, glanced at him quickly, and her eyes were red, "have you decided? Use the order, or not?" Huo Qingya took another step closer. The ice blade was raised, and the tip was only three inches from Lu Jianwei's brow. The cold had touched her skin, and strands of hair on her forehead instantly froze, and ice crystals spread along the strands. Yue Tingzhou clenched his right hand tightly. The edge of the token pierced his palm, and the warm blood seeped into the Xuan iron runes. The moment the true energy was channeled in, the runes lit up with a faint dark red glow – if he were to channel even a fraction more, the Henglu Division's highest-level distress signal would be sent. The price was complete exposure. Shen Lichi would know. The entire Henglu Division would know. Yue Tingzhou had chosen personal feelings over duty. Images flashed through his mind: the "correct but incomplete" confession spread out in the interrogation room, Shen Lichi standing in the shadows, saying, "The law seeks the truth, not the truth you want to give," and the resolute look in Zhu Hanli's eyes when she burned the ledger in the alley. The last image was of the trial archery field at the Wanjing镖局's back mountain. He deliberately revealed his flaws to lure the assassin. He was covered in blood, but he turned to him and said those words. "Yue Tingzhou," she said softly, but it was like a nail hammered into his heart, "if you dare to die in front of me, I will carve your name on the Wanjing镖局's list of disreputable people, so that everyone in the Jianghu will know “Perhaps.” Yue Tingzhou raised his right hand, the tip of his sword pointed at Huo Qingya. His arm trembled from blood loss, but the blade remained steady. “But Zhu Hanli promised me that she wouldn't let me die in vain.” Huo Qingya’s ice blade paused in mid-air. For the first time, surprise flickered in his frosty pupils: “You’re not using a protective talisman from your sect?” “No.” “Why not?” Yue Tingzhou forced a blood-stained smile: “Because I made a deal – I want to live long enough to see her throw the fake ‘mother scroll’ in Xie Wuchen’s face.” The moment the words left his lips, he moved. It wasn’t a thrust forward, but a rightward step, and his left foot slammed into the tile floor next to Lu Jianwei. The mechanism triggered, the floor collapsed, and Lu Jianwei cried out as he fell into the darkness. Almost simultaneously, Huo Qingya’s ice blade struck. Yue Tingzhou blocked with his sword. “Clang!” The sound echoed deafeningly. The 'Stopping the Sword' technique exerted immense pressure, and his left shoulder wound completely tore open. He could hear the faint snapping of muscle fibers. A wave of cold spread along the blade, and a thick layer of white frost formed, icy patterns like spiderwebs creeping along the blade's spine. But he didn't retreat. His feet were planted firmly on the ground, his shoes grinding against the ice, leaving deep gouges. Huo Qingya’s ice blade pressed down on the blade, inch by inch. The tip of the blade was only three inches from his throat. Two inches. One inch. Yue Tingzhou saw his own pale face, his bitten lips, and those astonishingly bright eyes reflected in the ice blade. Like a wolf on the brink of death, he was suddenly completely clear-headed. He suddenly remembered what Shen Litchuan had said when teaching him sword techniques. “Tingzhou, the ‘Stopping the Sword’ technique emphasizes defense, but true ‘defense’ isn’t just blocking.” The old man held his hand and pushed the sword forward, “It’s about making your opponent believe that your death is inevitable – and then taking another step forward.” Yue Tingzhou took a step forward. A searing pain exploded in his left shoulder, turning it into a blinding white light. He didn’t care. He gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, and all the remaining true energy in his meridians surged into the 'Stopping the Sword'. The white frost on the blade shattered with a "crack," and a dark red light burst from the spine of the sword – it was his heart's blood mixed with his innate true energy burning. Huo Qingya’s pupils contracted. He hadn’t expected Yue Tingzhou to have the strength to counterattack, let alone dare to use a technique that would destroy his meridians and risk his life. The ice blade instinctively retreated half an inch. That half-inch gap – Yue Tingzhou’s sword lunged forward. It wasn’t aimed at Huo Qingya, but at the large copper mirror hanging from the top beam of the secret vault. The moment the sword light entered the mirror's surface, time seemed to stop. Then, the copper mirror exploded. Not shattered, but completely reduced to dust. Countless mirror fragments rained down, each reflecting the burning sword light, and the entire secret vault was engulfed in blinding white light. Huo Qingya was forced to close his eyes, his ice blade dancing in a curtain of light to deflect the fragments. Yue Tingzhou stumbled backward, his back hitting the wall. He gasped for breath, his left shoulder bleeding profusely, and his fingertips were already turning purple from the cold. His vision was blurred, and his ears were ringing. But he heard it. A faint "hum" came from deep within the secret passage, from the ground below. It was like the vibration of a guqin string, and like the resonance of a mirror surface. The sound grew louder and more intense, eventually coalescing into a torrent that penetrated the soil and bricks, echoing throughout the secret vault. Huo Qingya suddenly looked up. The calm on his face finally shattered, and shock exploded in his frosty pupils, followed by furious rage: “She activated… three nodes… at the same time?!” Yue Tingzhou leaned against the wall and slowly slid to the ground. He smiled. Although blood was still trickling from the corner of his mouth, and although his left shoulder was so painful that he was about to lose consciousness, he was truly laughing. “It seems,” he gasped, “she kept her promise.” In the night sky outside the 霍青崖's pupils constricted sharply. 混乱开始了。 Just that half-inch gap— 岳停舟's sword lunged forward. It wasn't aimed at 霍青崖, but at the largest copper mirror hanging from the top beam of the secret vault. The moment the sword light entered the mirror's surface, time seemed to stop. “他会杀了你们。” It didn't shatter; it completely turned into dust. Countless mirror fragments rained down like a storm, each reflecting the burning sword light, and the entire secret vault was engulfed in blinding white light. 霍青崖没有说话。 岳停舟 stumbled backward, his back hitting the wall. He gasped for breath, his left shoulder bleeding profusely, and the tips of his fingers were already turning purple from the cold. His vision was blurred, and his ears were ringing. “你很勇敢。”他说，“也很蠢。” 冰刺刺出。 岳停舟没有躲避。他已经无力躲避了。 但冰刺在离他眉心一寸的地方停住了。 岳停舟 leaned against the wall and slowly slid to the ground. 岳停舟睁开眼睛。 "It seems," he gasped, speaking slowly and deliberately, "she didn't break her word." 此刻，令牌正发出刺眼的白光。 光芒中浮现出一道虚影。 All the spirit mirrors in the city trembled simultaneously. 那是谢无尘的虚影。 They coalesced into lines of blinding golden script: 霍青ęła单膝跪地：“总使，他们——” "Deployer: Wan Jing鏢局, 祝寒梨." “那属下该怎么做？” 虚影沉默片刻。 The light net persisted for three breaths, then abruptly extinguished. But it was enough. 岳停舟没有说话。 Chaos began. “交出真母卷，我保祝寒梨不死。” “或者——” 虚影顿了顿，光晕微微波动。 "He will kill you all." 密库里一片死寂。 霍青崖 didn't speak. He gripped the ice blade tightly and walked towards 岳停舟, step by step. The coldness condensed at the tip of the blade, forming a slender icicle aimed directly at 岳停舟's forehead. 虚影没有反应。 但霍青崖猛地抬头，眼神里闪过一丝惊疑。 岳停舟 didn't dodge. He couldn't dodge. 谢无尘的虚影沉默。 It wasn't that 霍青崖 stopped; it was that something inside 岳停舟's embrace suddenly became hot—so hot that he gasped and instinctively clutched his chest. The ice spear "cracked" and shattered, turning into icy mist that dissipated. 就这一下，就足够了。 He saw 霍青崖 take a token from his embrace. It wasn't a Xuan Tie order from the Heng律司, but a jade token, with the characters "天命" carved on the front, and dense runes on the back. 说完，他闭上眼睛。 A phantom appeared in the light. “如你所愿。”