Chapter 419: Extra 14.

"I am considering the practical difficulties."

Yan Cijin kissed her to stop her from continuing. Bai Li accepted this solution with no objection at all.

The reports remained unread for another quarter of an hour. When Bai Li finally reached for them again, Yan Cijin allowed her to finish two pages before leaning in to kiss the corner of her mouth. Bai Li pretended to be deeply annoyed. Yan Cijin pretended to believe her. They managed to review half the documents before Lu Wenshu arrived for the evening council.

The first elder stopped at the doorway. He took in the untouched fruit, the reports stacked in neat piles but not yet marked, and the fact that Bai Li had one arm comfortably around Yan Cijin’s shoulders. The Matriarchs looked far too peaceful for people who had just been handed a full day’s work.

Lu Wenshu cleared his throat. "Matriarchs, I apologize for interrupting. There is something you should see."

Bai Li sat up. Yan Cijin adjusted her sleeve and turned toward him. Their expressions changed, not because they were embarrassed to be found affectionate, but because they knew Lu Wenshu well enough to recognize the tone in his voice. He would not have come himself unless the matter was unusual.

"What happened?" Bai Li asked.

Lu Wenshu held up a short report. "The ancestral bell at the restricted sanctuary has rung."

Yan Cijin’s brow lifted. "The old bronze bell?"

"Yes, Matriarch."

Bai Li looked at the report. "How many times?"

Lu Wenshu hesitated just long enough to make the answer feel heavier. "Nine times."

The ancestral sanctuary stood on a narrow ridge above the main compound, separated from the busy training grounds by a steep path and a line of old stone lanterns. The sanctuary was older than the current buildings of Mount Hua. Its foundations had been set into the mountain itself, and its roof curved upward at the corners, dark tiles fitted so tightly that even years of wind and snow had not shifted them. Pine trees grew along the ridge, their roots twisting between the stones. On clear days, the place offered a wide view of the lower valleys. On misty days, the sanctuary seemed to float above the clouds, cut off from the rest of the world.

At its center hung the bronze bell.

It was larger than a person, suspended from a thick wooden frame carved with old patterns that had become difficult to identify. The bell’s surface was dark with age, but fine lines ran across the metal in places, forming symbols that did not match the ordinary script used in Mount Hua’s records. No one knew exactly when it had been cast. The earliest surviving account said that one of Mount Hua’s first patriarchs had ordered it made after returning from a journey into the western mountains. Other records claimed the bell had been brought to the sect by an unknown traveler who had appeared during a storm and departed before dawn. The details were inconsistent, and the older texts were incomplete.

Everyone agreed on one thing. The bell had not rung for centuries.

Bai Li and Yan Cijin arrived with Lu Wenshu and four senior elders. The report had been brief, but there was a difference between reading that something unusual had happened and standing in the room where it had occurred. As soon as Bai Li crossed the threshold, she felt a faint pressure in the air, like the lingering vibration after a sword had struck a shield. It was not strong enough to trouble her breathing. It was simply there, waiting at the edge of awareness.

Yan Cijin noticed it too. Her gaze moved slowly around the sanctuary before settling on the bell. The elders followed behind them, speaking in low voices. One had suggested that the bell’s support might have shifted. Another thought a bird or a branch might somehow have struck it during the night. Lu Wenshu had inspected the building before summoning the Matriarchs and found no sign of damage. The bell hung exactly as it always had, and the wooden frame showed no mark that could explain the sound.

"No one touched it?" Bai Li asked.

"No one, Matriarch," Lu Wenshu replied. "The sanctuary is checked each evening and again at dawn. The elder responsible for the night watch heard the first ring from the lower path. He arrived before the second and saw no one inside. By then, the bell was already moving."

"Did it stop on its own?"

"After the ninth ring. The movement faded gradually. No one attempted to interfere."

Bai Li approached the bronze bell. She did not touch it at first. She studied the frame, the chain, the stone floor beneath it, and the faint traces of spiritual energy that drifted around the metal. Her cultivation had given her a remarkable sensitivity to changes in energy, but the residue here did not behave like the remnants of a martial technique. It was not moving outward from a point of impact. Instead, it formed thin currents that crossed and separated in patterns too orderly to be random.

Yan Cijin came to stand beside her. "It feels like a formation, but not one that is trying to contain anything."

"What do you think it is doing?" Lu Wenshu asked.

"I do not know yet," Yan Cijin said. "It may be responding to something rather than producing an effect of its own."

One of the elders frowned. "Responding to what?"

Neither Matriarch answered immediately.

Bai Li lifted her hand and held it a few inches from the bell’s surface. The pressure in the sanctuary changed. The currents of energy became clearer, running along the symbols carved into the bronze and gathering near the center. She could feel something like a distant pulse, steady but far away, as if the bell were connected to a source hidden deep beneath the mountain.

Yan Cijin reached for Bai Li’s hand.

Their fingers met, and their energies

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TO BE CONTINUED.