Chapter Four: A Sky Unseen – The Blood Petition List

The rain in the capital still hadn't stopped. If anything, it grew more urgent, hammering the roof tiles in dense, muffled crashes.

Shen Zhui weaved through the labyrinthine alleys. He didn't head for the main gate of the Dali Temple. Instead, he circled to the back of an abandoned city god temple on the west side. There, hidden behind, lay a dry well, its mouth sealed by a bluestone slab weighing several hundred catties. Carved into the slab was a ferocious, fanged beast — the Bi'an, the guardian beast of the Dali Temple.

He coughed up a mouthful of clotted blood. His right hand trembling, he pulled a pitch-black iron token from his waist and pressed it into the groove on the slab.

RUMBLE—

The slab slid aside slowly, revealing a stone staircase descending straight into the earth. This was the Dali Temple's secret holding ground for the most dangerous criminals. The common folk called it No Sunlight. Anyone brought here would never see daylight while alive, nor enter their ancestral graves after death. Even their souls would be locked behind layers of black iron bars.

Shen Zhui descended the steps. Permanent oil lamps lined the walls on both sides, their flames flickering, casting his mud-soaked, bloodstained figure in a shifting, ghostly light. The deeper he went, the colder and more foul the air became — a dry, putrid stench of rust and rotting flesh.

At the end of the corridor sat an old man as withered as a dead tree. Both his eyes were tightly bound with black cloth; the sleeves of his robe hung empty to his knees — his hands had been severed at the shoulders.

"Shen Zhui, the stench of the dead on you is so strong it nearly snuffs out the fire in this dungeon." The old man didn't lift his head, but his nostrils twitched slightly.

"Uncle Six, I brought back what the Corpse-Press Coin burned." Shen Zhui halted, breathing heavily.

This man, addressed as "Uncle Six," had once been the Dali Temple's most powerful "Corpse Interrogator." Twenty years ago, after glimpsing a secret of the imperial court, he had gouged out his own eyes and cut off his hands to save his life. Ever since, he had guarded this last gate inside No Sunlight.

Shen Zhui took out the list from his robe. Inside that cold, haunted inn, the paper had felt thick and solid. But now, under the oil lamps, it appeared stark white — completely blank, without a single character.

"This paper… is 'skin paper'." Uncle Six tilted his head, as if "listening" to the sheet. "Not tree bark — the thinnest layer peeled from a living person's back. Water and fire cannot harm it. Only when it meets blood of the same source will the words appear."

Shen Zhui's eyes darkened. He understood what Uncle Six meant.

He walked to the torture rack in the corner of the dungeon and took out a slender, needle-like bone spike — carved from the spine of a man-eating fish, used exclusively to extract heart's blood. Without hesitation, he unbuttoned his uniform, aimed the spike at his own chest, and stabbed.

Mmph…

A single drop of heart's blood — condensed from his vital essence, carrying a burning aura — fell onto the skin paper.

Zzz—

The paper let out a faint sizzle. The drop of blood moved like a living thing, swiftly spreading across the white surface, tracing out dark red, crooked characters.

Shen Zhui fixed his eyes on those names. The first name at the top struck him like a thunderbolt.

"Director-General of the Canal Transport, Lu Zhenying."

"Impossible…" Shen Zhui muttered to himself. Lu Zhenying was known in court as an incorruptible official — he was also Old Sixth's great benefactor back in the day.

"Look further down, child. The real poison fester deep in the bones." Uncle Six's voice was as low as wind seeping from a crack in the earth.

Shen Zhui's trembling hand moved down the list, until he reached the last name — circled in cinnabar red.

"Shen Zhui, Magistrate of the Death Row."

Shen Zhui's pupils contracted sharply. He felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar. His own name was on this "living stake" list — and as the final "sacrifice."

"This list isn't meant to kill these people," Uncle Six spoke suddenly, his voice carrying a bone-piercing chill. "This is the 'ingredient order' for the Longevity Pill. Lu Zhenying is the first donor. And you, Shen Zhui… you are the last ingredient. Someone calculated your fate three years ago. They raised you inside the Dali Temple like a cauldron, waiting for the fire to be just right before lifting the lid and collecting the pill."

Shen Zhui recalled the great fire three years ago, the death of Old Sixth, and every promotion and assignment he had received since. He had thought he was investigating cases. He never realized that each truth he uncovered was just another nail hammering into his own coffin.

"Then… that figure of Old Sixth in the inn…" Shen Zhui's voice was hoarse, almost frightening.

"A hook. To confirm whether you, the 'ingredient,' were still pure enough." Uncle Six sighed. "Shen Zhui, you're not handling a case now. You're fighting against Heaven itself. The sewers of this capital run far deeper than you imagine. The moment the names appeared, the things with the keenest noses are already heading toward No Sunlight."

At that moment, faint, rhythmic footsteps came from the top of the stone staircase.

Not the sound of constables' boots. It was a light, airy sound — like cotton falling on stone.

*Thud. Thud. Thud. *

Accompanying the footsteps was the jingle of strange copper bells — a rhythm completely opposite to the Soul-Calming Bell in Shen Zhui's hand. These were Soul-Summoning Bells, used to guide the mindless living-stake puppets.

"They came faster than I expected." Shen Zhui sneered. He planted his long blade Baipi upside down beside him, a nearly insane, murderous light burning in his eyes.

"Uncle Six, besides me, can anyone else open the final gate of No Sunlight?"

"Not unless I die." Uncle Six straightened his hunched back.

"Good." Shen Zhui tore off a corner of the skin paper — the piece bearing Lu Zhenying's name — and stuffed it into the gap of his Soul-Calming Bell. "Since the roots of this capital are rotten, I'll cut my way up from the bottom. Let's see if their Longevity Pill is stronger, or if my blade, stained with prison blood, is sharper."

He turned his back to Uncle Six and faced the only exit.

In the darkness above, countless eyes glowing with ghostly green light appeared at the top of the stairs. They weren't ghosts — they were living-corpse constables, dressed in Dali Temple uniforms, yellow talismans pasted on their faces.

"The Dali Temple Death Row investigates — the living step aside—"

With a mad laugh, Shen Zhui's body lunged into that sea of green eyes like an awakened Bi'an beast.

His long blade swung. Blood aura and killing intent exploded inside the narrow stone corridor. This time, Shen Zhui was no longer investigating a case. He was fighting for his life — to carve out a living path out of this "Longevity Plan" that had been three years in the making.

And in the deepest depths of No Sunlight, on that wet, blood-soaked skin paper, a faint, blurred totem began to emerge — a bizarre flower of the other shore, blooming upon a pile of white bones.