At three-quarters past the Hour of the Unidentified on the third day, the sun over the Capital City was pressed down beneath dark clouds, resembling an ash-stained bronze nail.
On Vermilion Bird Avenue, an old man selling sugar paintings was drawing a phoenix tail with hot syrup when his bronze pot suddenly shook violently, splashing the syrup onto the bluestone pavement and causing him to pull back his hand in a scald.
Further away, inside the Imperial Ancestral Temple, the Nine Cauldrons simultaneously emitted a humming sound, the shockwaves powerful enough to rattle the ridge beasts on the flying eaves.
Chapter 169