Pi Yanlin's back pressed against the cyan-green jade bricks at the edge of the Fate Diagram, and the taste of blood rose in the back of his throat.
He stared at the flickering ever-bright lamp overhead. Its wick crackled in the wind, sounding hauntingly like the rain leaking through the roof of the Xuan'an Bureau's utility room, splashing against a broken pottery basin.
"Finally... done." His voice was hoarse, his fingertips instinctively scratching at the mortar between the bricks—a nervous habit since childhood. Whenever he used to crouch in teahouses listening to legal disputes, his fingernails would always end up caked in powdered brick.
Chapter 183