Chapter 420: Extra 15.

responded to one another with a sudden clarity that neither expected. The faint currents gathered into a single point. For an instant, the sanctuary seemed to vanish around them.

They saw a peak that neither recognized. It stood beneath a dark sky scattered with unfamiliar stars, its summit rising above a sea of clouds. A magnificent gate hung in the air beyond it, built from pale stone and glowing lines that reminded Bai Li of the pathways of sword intent. Yan Cijin saw the same gate, but she also saw a long stairway running toward it, the steps disappearing into light. The scene was so clear that she could almost feel the cold air against her face.

Then the vision vanished.

Bai Li lowered her hand. Yan Cijin’s fingers remained linked with hers. The elders had seen the energy around the bell brighten, but none had seen the image. They watched the Matriarchs with open concern, waiting for an explanation neither woman could yet give.

"What did you see?" Lu Wenshu asked.

Bai Li and Yan Cijin exchanged a glance. It was brief, but it carried the understanding that they had witnessed the same thing. Bai Li described the distant peak and the gate. Yan Cijin added the stairway and the strange stars. The elders listened in silence, then began asking questions. Was the gate inside the mountain? Was it a spiritual projection? Had either Matriarch recognized the stars? Could the image have come from an old formation that had been disturbed by recent changes in the weather?

Bai Li raised one hand, and the questions stopped.

"We do not know enough to answer those questions," she said. "We should not turn one vision into ten guesses and then treat the guesses as facts."

Yan Cijin nodded. "Let us look at the inscriptions first. We may find something useful in the records."

She moved closer to the bell and examined its surface. In the soft light coming through the sanctuary’s windows, the bronze appeared almost black. The symbols had been worn smooth in some places, but others remained sharp enough to catch the eye. Yan Cijin had always been interested in old scripts. During her years of training, she had studied inscriptions from abandoned temples and forgotten battlefields, partly because some contained lost martial principles and partly because she disliked leaving a mystery unexplored when a little patience might solve it.

She traced the pattern with her eyes rather than her fingers. Most of the symbols described the early development of Mount Hua’s sword tradition. A few were arranged in a circle around the lower rim of the bell. Those seemed older, and the lines had been partly covered by later engravings. The surface had not been damaged by accident. Someone had deliberately cut newer symbols across the original text, perhaps in an attempt to hide it or perhaps because the later craftsmen had not understood what it meant.

"There is something beneath these marks," Yan Cijin said. "The newer inscriptions are not following the original pattern. They cross it."

One of the elders leaned forward. "Can you read it?"

"Not all of it. I need time."

Bai Li followed the pattern and found a section where the later engravings had grown shallow. She recognized only a few characters. One referred to the summit. Another was used in older texts to describe the breath or inner force of a sovereign practitioner. A third could mean origin, beginning, or the point from which something returned. Taken together, the words suggested a phrase rather than a simple label, but the meaning remained uncertain.

Lu Wenshu sent for the oldest records kept in the sanctuary. Two attendants brought a wooden chest from a side room. Inside lay narrow scrolls wrapped in faded cloth, several cracked jade tablets, and a book whose edges had darkened with age. The elders handled each item carefully, laying them on a table beneath the window. The room gradually filled with the smell of old paper and dry wood.

Yan Cijin compared the bell’s symbols with the records. Bai Li searched the fragments for references to the unknown gate. The work took time. Some pages contained only dates and names. Others described early training methods, disputes between the founding disciples, and the construction of the first outer wall. The oldest patriarchs had written about spiritual cultivation in language that seemed plain at first but became less clear when read closely. Some words appeared to have changed meaning over time. Others were used in ways that no longer matched modern martial terminology.

At last, Yan Cijin found a passage hidden beneath a later note about the repair of the sanctuary roof. The original ink had faded, but several lines remained legible. She read slowly, using the older pronunciation of the characters where necessary.

"When mortal blades reach the summit and the two sovereign breaths return to their origin, the road beyond the heavens shall reveal itself."

No one spoke for several seconds.

The phrase sounded like a prophecy, but it might also have been a description of some advanced training method. The founding patriarchs had often used poetic language to explain the relationship between martial intent and spiritual energy. The road beyond the heavens could refer to an inner state of understanding rather than a literal passage into another realm. The two sovereign breaths might describe the interaction between two practitioners who had reached the highest level of cultivation.

The elders began offering possibilities. One suggested that the phrase referred to a pair of lost sword techniques. Another thought it might describe the completion of a formation that required two masters to stand in exact balance. A third warned that the reference to the heavens should not be read as a promise of immortality. History was full of people who had destroyed themselves chasing a metaphor they mistook for a real destination.

Bai Li listened until they had finished.

"The warning is reasonable," she said. "We should not assume the passage means what we want it to mean. But we

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TO BE CONTINUED.