Cerqin eased the half-ajar door, and it sighed like a reed in wind; inside, a dozen young, ink-scented researchers sat straight as pines in seats.

The solemn air lay flat like a lake after a pebble vanished, as if the sounds from this room had never rippled out.

On the table, familiar interrogation implements she herself had refit with Arcanotechnology gleamed with beaded water, like dew clinging to steel leaves after a brief rain.

They stood in the doorway and stared, statues in a hush where even dust drifted like slow snow.

These handsome men and women were the meeting’s guests, lanterns of learning in the capital and across the Empire’s wide night.

They looked young, but the weakest carried Fifth Rank weight like sheathed blades, and several had been advanced practitioners for years, rings in the trunk hidden under smooth bark.

“Uh… honored seniors—” Cerqin had folded a dozen opening lines like paper cranes, yet a gust at the door scattered them to the floor.

“You must be Miss Cerqin, the maker of these devices; appearances deceive, Miss Cerqin—so young, such achievement.” The young scholar with a righteous air rose like a straight pillar, his voice ringing like a bronze bell.

The others stood too, respect bright on their faces like dawn on tiles, and Cerqin’s eyelid twitched like a plucked string while her mouth fought a tremor.

“‘Honored’…?” Being showered with honorifics by people steeped in arcane lore felt absurd, like ceremonial hats stacked high on her head.

“So what exactly were you doing just now?” Spring Tide popped the bubble with a pin, her deadpan cutting through the sticky silence like a knife through rice cake.

She had seen a few of these researchers before, and that first speaker—young-faced—was a Seventh Rank practitioner, his roots intertwined with the Sanctuary beneath the soil.

“Holy Maiden, it’s been a while.” The mask of composure cracked like thin ice; he scratched his head, straw rasping, and forced the words out stiffly.

“Miss Cerqin, the interrogation implements you enhanced with Arcanotechnology are truly impressive—”

“So you tried them yourselves in the conference room?” Her words arced like lightning, and the room flinched like a field of cranes.

“Uh…”

“Forget it, let’s talk business.” Cerqin exhaled like a kettle easing off the boil, tugged the stormcloud-faced Spring Tide, and, hand in hand, they sat; the cloud thinned by silent agreement.

“His Majesty has circulated the basic texts on Arcanotechnology; you’ve all read them. In theory, many paths meet like rivers, but the rules are a different script, and habits and research aims haven’t yet found a clean confluence.”

“I think magical theory and arcanotech theory can complement each other like yin and yang, especially for large apparatus and devices, since both hinge on how we wield mana.”

“For long-distance communication, we’ve begun trials on the furthest stable range, like kites testing how far the string can stretch across the sky.”

Once the meeting truly began, the room settled like a brazier that’s finally stoked, and Cerqin warmed with it, sparks flying as she probed theories and inscription work that piqued her curiosity.

As hours flowed like a slow tide, she saw the bedrock—these scholars had real substance, gold panned from the river, not mica in sunlight.

Each held deep insight in their own field, and perhaps because of the earlier embarrassment—and admitting those modified implements cut clean—they opened doors like latches undone after a storm.

Whenever Cerqin stumbled, lanterns lit in a row as they answered one by one, laying stones across the stream for her to step on.

Spring Tide sat aside, bored as a cat in sun; her strengths were enhancement and time arts, clock hands far from the meeting’s ticking core.

When Cerqin rolled out schematics for a long-range communicator, the boil peaked and the banner of discussion snapped full in a gust.

They talked for most of the day, the sun sliding like honey along the eaves; they set a date to reconvene, and after hashing details like grain on a millstone, Cerqin left the palace content.

Before she went, she handed out a few fresh-made implements from her storage gear, winter plums wrapped in silk, one to each researcher.

“Didn’t think they’d be such perverts,” Spring Tide muttered outside the palace, wind playing the banners, while Cerqin let her own frost of embarrassment melt into an easy smile.

“It means my stuff’s actually loved, oh~ I’ll send a letter to the An Sisters, have them speed up production, and I’ll tuck the new blueprints in, like swallows carrying spring notes.”

She spoke and tugged the thread to a new topic, like a river slipping into another channel.

“I’m getting curious about the Azuremist Empire, the cradle of Arcanotechnology, that blue ridge beyond the map’s mist.”

For common folk, arcanotech’s convenience is a lamp with a switch, far kinder than costly magical artifacts, those jade lamps that burn rare oil.

Everyone can learn household spells like lighting a candle, but farther steps need strong hands—few can call lightning out of a clear sky.

“We’ll go have a look when the wind allows.”

“Eh?” Cerqin had expected Spring Tide to say training was the tightest bowstring right now.

“Don’t make that face. You’re right. The Four Pole Stars touch the world’s fate, so we should ride the current instead of fighting the river.”

Spring Tide rolled her eyes, then pinched Cerqin’s rear like a mischievous cat; once they boarded the carriage, that curtained boat, she stopped pretending and slid her hand into the Nun’s habit like a fish into reeds.

“Of course, we can’t slack on cultivation,” she murmured, the word like a whip crack softened by velvet.

“Got it~” Cerqin parted her legs like drawing a curtain; it wasn’t far, but even by carriage it was ten-plus minutes to the Sanctuary, sand trickling in the hourglass.

A little warmth in this enclosed cave of wood had become their small, steady hearth.

“By the way, how’s the Ming Duo matter?” Cerqin tugged a thread from the loom of thoughts.

“We’ve found some spider-silk clues. Uncle-Master Ninexiao’s power combs a region like wind over wheat; we should catch her tail soon.”

“But even now, Ming Duo’s still in the Imperial City…” A fox lingering by the hunter’s campfire, smoke curling under the roof instead of vanishing into the hills.

“By the way, why do you care so much about that senior sister?” The question was moonlight probing a closed door.

Spring Tide glanced at Cerqin’s puzzled face, a crescent of amusement on her lips. “Jealous?” The vinegar jar tilted, and the air went pleasantly sour.

Cerqin pouted like a sulking cat. “What do you think~”

“You’re the last person with the right to be jealous.” She kneaded the thigh in her hand, spreading the sprung springwater over soft earth.

“As for why I care about Ming Duo—besides my master, she used to be closest to me, and why she defected from the Sanctuary is a bridge lost in fog.”

Her expression sank into memories like leaves into a pond, then rose with a thought like a lantern relit. “Honestly, the reason I kept from going numb until I met you was that girl’s senseless defection—I clung to that rope in the rain.”

“Did Archbishop Ming Xi ever say why she defected?” Cerqin asked, dropping a pebble into the quiet.

“I’ve asked Master several times, and every time the bamboo latch goes down on the door.” Perhaps only Ming Xi knew, but for many reasons he kept the path veiled in mist.

Over the years, Ming Duo attacked Sanctuary people and slipped the Law Enforcement Hall’s nets, and once she rose to Seventh Rank, she moved like a shadow fox between pines, her tracks washed clean by rain.

Give her a few more years and another step up the mountain, and the Sanctuary’s bowstring may never reach the bird’s arc again.