Section One · Terror at the Old Residence

  After the snowfall, Chang’an lay in biting cold. Su Lixin carried the piece of deep-blue jade that Xie Wuchen had personally split open, walking alone toward the old Su residence. The jade felt faintly warm in her palm, as though a living pulse beat within.

  She could not help but recall Xie Wuchen’s final gaze—the eyes that could pierce through all jade in the world had faltered for a fleeting instant when they turned upon her. What had he seen? She dared not dwell on it.

  Weeds grew knee-high before the gates of the Su residence. Three years ago, a sudden calamity had brought this once-flourishing jade household to ruin in a single night. Her father was wrongfully imprisoned and died in despair behind bars; their property was confiscated, the servants scattered. She alone remained, keeping vigil over the empty estate and an unsolved mystery.

  Pushing open the creaking wooden door, she found the courtyard still blanketed in snow. She went straight to the study in the western wing, where her father had spent most of his days. Since his death, she had come to clean it every seven days, as though such rituals might preserve something of the past.

  But today was different.

  Upon the desk lay an object that had not been there before.

  Su Lixin halted, her breath catching. It was a palm-sized lacquered wooden box, its lid carved with entwined lotus patterns—ancient in style, and certainly not a relic of the Su household. There was no lock, no inscription.

  She approached slowly and touched the lid. A chill crept along her fingertips.

  Drawing a breath, she opened the box.

  Within, upon dark crimson velvet, rested a jade pendant. Its texture was smooth as congealed fat, its hue pale as moonlight. The carving was exceedingly intricate: cloud-wreathed dragons on the front, and on the back, a line of characters fine as gnat’s legs:

  “Glazed jade shatters easily; true hearts are hard to find.

  The jade soul communes with spirits—blood debts shall be repaid in blood.”

  The characters were crimson as blood, seeping deep into the jade itself—a pattern of blood infusion.

  Su Lixin’s hand trembled; the pendant nearly slipped from her grasp. Forcing herself to remain calm, she turned it over to examine the marks. The blood infusion was unnatural, as though forced into the jade by some secret art. Stranger still, when she focused her gaze upon it, the pendant seemed to warm faintly, as if responding to her attention.

  This was no ordinary piece of jade.

  She remembered her father’s final words, spoken in a thread of breath as he clutched her hand: “Lixin… the calamity of the Su family… stems from a jade that should not exist… If someone seeks you with that jade… flee… flee at once…”

  At the time, she had thought it delirious muttering. Yet now, this pendant that had appeared from nowhere echoed his warning with chilling clarity.

  “A jade that should not exist…”

  She lifted the pendant closer to her eyes, trying to discern more. At that moment, faint footsteps sounded outside the study window—the soft crunch of boots upon snow.

  Someone was there.

  Su Lixin swiftly closed the box and hid it within her sleeve, then turned toward the door. Her heart hammered, yet she forced her breath to steady as she pretended to arrange the books upon the desk.

  The footsteps stopped outside.

  After a brief silence, there came a knock—three light taps and one heavy, following a certain rhythm.

  “Miss Su, are you within?” a man’s voice called, warm and even. “Xie Wuchen here, calling unannounced.”

  Xie Wuchen?

  Her pupils constricted. How had he found this place—and for what purpose?

  Steeling herself, she drew the bolt and opened the door. Xie Wuchen stood outside in his azure robes, fresh snow upon his shoulders, his features clear and refined in the morning light. In his hand he carried a woven bamboo food basket, steam curling from its seams with the faint fragrance of congee.

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  “Master Xie?” Su Lixin allowed a trace of polite surprise to color her voice. “How did you learn of my residence?”

  “The jade market is a tangle of paths, but inquiring after a young lady surnamed Su is not so difficult,” Xie Wuchen replied, offering her the basket. “The wind and snow were fierce last night. You walked home alone, and I found myself uneasy. Passing a porridge shop this morning, I brought some warm congee. I hope you will forgive the intrusion.”

  His words were courteous, his reasoning sound. Yet Su Lixin knew there was more beneath the surface.

  She accepted the basket and stepped aside. “Please come in. My humble abode is in poor order; I ask your forbearance.”

  Xie Wuchen entered the study, his gaze sweeping the room with casual composure. When his eyes passed over the desk, his steps paused almost imperceptibly—the dust upon its surface had been freshly disturbed, and by the edge of the inkstone lingered a faint dark-red smear that was not ink.

  The scent of blood-infused jade.

  From childhood, he had lived among jade, his senses keenly attuned to its many auras. Jade steeped in blood carried a faint trace of iron and lingering obsession. Subtle though it was, it could not escape his perception.

  Su Lixin set the basket upon the table and turned to brew tea. As she faced away from him, the lacquered box hidden in her sleeve pressed against her wrist, faintly warm.

  “Master Xie did not come merely to deliver congee, I presume?” she said calmly, sliding a cup of tea before him.

  Xie Wuchen lifted the cup but did not drink. His strange pupils glimmered amber in the morning light.

  “Miss Su is perceptive.” He set the cup down and drew forth an item from his sleeve, placing it upon the desk. “I have come to return this.”

  It was a white jade token, smooth and unadorned on the front, with a deep裂痕 that ran to the marrow of the stone on the back—the very wordless jade token she had entrusted to him at the jade market the day before.

  “The hidden script upon this token has been deciphered,” Xie Wuchen said, his voice lowering. “It concerns two cases from three years past—the theft at the Xie family’s Jade Pavilion, and the accusation of forged jade materials laid upon the Su household.”

  Su Lixin’s breath caught.

  “The script states that the two cases are in truth one and the same,” he continued, his gaze fixed upon her. “Three years ago, a batch of ancient jades was stolen from the Xie family. Among them was a piece known as the ‘Liuli Blood Jade Soul,’ said to commune with spirits, discern truth from falsehood, and even… sway the hearts of men. To cover the theft, the culprit mixed part of the stolen jade into the materials purchased by the Su household, fabricating evidence of forgery and bringing false charges upon your family.”

  “And the thief…” Xie Wuchen paused, a flicker of complexity passing through his eyes. “The final words of the script are two characters: ‘An insider.’”

  The study fell into deathly silence.

  Snowlight spilled through the window, stretching their shadows across the mottled walls, twisting them into strange shapes.

  Su Lixin sank slowly into her chair, her fingertips cold. The riddles of three years past, her father’s dying whispers, the blood-infused pendant that had appeared this morning—all the fragments were falling into place, pointing toward a truth she dared not confront.

  “Why tell me all this?” Her voice seemed distant to her own ears. “The Su family has fallen. I am but a solitary woman. What good is this knowledge to me?”

  Xie Wuchen was silent for a moment. Then he reached out, his fingertip touching the spot on the desk where the faint red smear lay.

  “Because this jade token was delivered to you with intent,” he said, lifting his gaze, sharp as a blade. “And because, upon your person at this very moment, you carry another jade tied to this affair—a pendant bearing fresh blood infusion.”

  Her hand clenched within her sleeve. The edge of the lacquered box bit into her palm.

  He knew. Of course he did not come merely to deliver congee.

  “I do not know what Master Xie speaks of,” she lowered her lashes, hiding the tumult in her eyes.

  Xie Wuchen rose and stepped toward her, stopping only a foot away. Morning light streamed from behind him, gilding his silhouette, yet his strange pupils were deep as ancient wells, swallowing the light itself.

  “Su Lixin,” he spoke her full name for the first time, his voice low and clear. “I can see through all jade under heaven, and sense the obsessions and memories left within stone. The object in your sleeve bears blood infusion not yet settled—its obsession is fresh. It cannot have appeared more than twelve hours ago.”

  He extended his hand, palm up. “Let me see that jade. Perhaps… I can glimpse the face of the one who sent it.”

  Su Lixin looked up at him. In his eyes, beyond inquiry and sharp resolve, she glimpsed a trace of concern—so faint he himself might not have noticed it.

  He was worried for her.

  The realization stirred her heart. For three years she had stood alone, long accustomed to burying every feeling deep within. Yet before this man, whom she had met but twice, an absurd impulse rose within her—to lay bare everything, to share the weight of this secret.

  But she could not.

  Her father’s dying words echoed in her ears: “If someone seeks you with that jade… flee… flee at once…”

  She rose slowly and stepped back, widening the distance between them.

  “I appreciate Master Xie’s concern,” her voice regained its calm, tinged now with a hint of distance. “But this is the affair of the Su household. I would not trouble you further. I accept the congee; please take your leave.”

  The dismissal was unmistakable.

  Xie Wuchen looked at her. Those glass-like eyes now raised an invisible wall, sealing away all emotion. He recalled the shock of beholding her heart-image in the jade market the day before—a heart of glazed jade, cracked yet unbroken.

  Such a heart might seem fragile, yet was in truth unyielding. Once it chose to close itself, it would not be easily opened again.

  He withdrew his hand and stepped back, bowing his head slightly. “I was overbold.”

  Turning toward the door, he paused upon the threshold and spoke without looking back:

  “If, at night, Miss Su hears voices from within that blood-infused jade, do not answer. Blood-infused jade communes with spirits—those who respond are easily ensnared by lingering obsessions.”

  The door opened; wind and snow rushed in.

  Xie Wuchen’s figure vanished into the swirling white.

  Section Two · Whispers of the Jade

  Su Lixin stood where she was for a long while, until numbness crept into her feet. At last she returned to her chair, drew out the lacquered box, and gazed upon the blood-infused pendant.

  “Glazed jade shatters easily; true hearts are hard to find.

  The jade soul communes with spirits—blood debts shall be repaid in blood.”

  The sixteen characters were carved into the jade like a curse, and into her heart as well.

  Outside the window, the sky darkened; dusk snow began to fall once more.

  She raised the pendant to her ear and closed her eyes.

  At first, there was only the howl of wind and snow. Gradually, within that sound mingled whispers so faint they seemed to come from a great distance—like sobbing, like murmurs, like cold laughter.

  One voice stood out, clear with a hatred that cut to the bone:

  “The Su family… blood debts… must be repaid in blood…”

  Su Lixin’s eyes flew open. She flung the pendant onto the desk, her face drained of color.

  Xie Wuchen had been right.

  This jade was alive. And the one who sent it sought more than to reveal the truth.

  What he sought was blood for blood.

  Night fell completely, plunging the old residence into darkness. Only the blood-infused pendant upon the desk glimmered with an eerie crimson glow, like an unblinking eye watching over the estate that bore so many secrets.

  At the other end of Chang’an, atop the highest viewing terrace of the Xie family’s Jade Pavilion, Xie Wuchen stood with hands upon the railing, gazing toward the direction of the Su residence, his brows knit in concern.

  In his hand he held the jade token whose hidden script he had deciphered, its surface cold to the touch.

  The blood-infused aura he had sensed in Su Lixin’s study matched exactly the aura of the most sinister piece among the ancient jades stolen from the Xie family three years ago—the “Liuli Blood Jade Soul.”

  That jade was said to have been refined by the last state preceptor of the former dynasty with the lives of a hundred souls. It could commune with spirits, command hearts, and even… claim lives.

  If this were true, then what Su Lixin now carried was not merely a pendant.

  It was a summons of death.

  The snow fell ever heavier, burying all tracks and traces in Chang’an.

  Yet it could not bury the past that was awakening—

  nor the blood that was soon to be spilled.