"Does my brother know the true intention behind Father’s modification of the jacquard looms?" She spun to evade the flash of the blade, a jade bead from her sleeve snapping into the dye vat.
The indigo dye suddenly boiled, sending up a flame of green light over ten feet high. "It wasn't for weaving brocade—it was to refit crossbows for the border army!"
Shen Yanzhou’s Wodao Saber slipped from his grip; the purple-gold of the blade began to melt upon contact with the green flames. He lunged toward the vat like a madman, reaching with his bare hands to fish out the sinking fragments of the mechanism. "Impossible... Father clearly said this was to be presented to..."
The explosion followed a half-beat after the flash. As Shen Xitang was thrown back by the blast, she saw Xiao Heng’s Steel Whip wrap around Shen Yanzhou’s ankle.
As the roof of the Jia Armory collapsed, dozens of jacquard looms activated simultaneously. They did not weave silk brocade, but a vast, deadly web of caltrops.
The sound of the third-watch night watchman’s clapper was drowned out by the roar of debris. Shen Xitang crawled from the ruins, clutching a piece of deformed purple-gold. In the moonlight, the metal revealed new markings—it was a simplified blueprint for a Frankish Cannon, with Japanese kana annotated in the corners.
"Lady Shen is quite the strategist." Xiao Heng shook the embers from his cloak, revealing the fish-scale armor of a Ministry of Punishments investigator. "Even Shen Yanzhou didn't know that what was hidden in the Jia Armory was the missing property of the Ministry of War..."
He stopped abruptly, for Shen Xitang pressed the purple-gold against the gap in his bracer. The Ryukyu purple-gold fit the entangled-branch pattern perfectly. The bracer unfolded, revealing an inscription on the inner side: "Twenty-third year of Zhenguan, Minister of the Directorate for Palace Manufactures, Xiao."
"So, your ancestors were master weapon-smiths in the Directorate for Palace Manufactures." Shen Xitang coughed blood and laughed. "No wonder you recognized the Xuanji pattern on the modified crossbows."
She pointed to an intact jacquard loom in the ruins. The Ice Silkworm Silk threaded through its heddles was shimmering with a metallic hue—this was the "Tian Gong Silk" her mother had forged with meteorite iron.
As the Ministry of Punishments cavalry surrounded them with torches, Shen Xitang suddenly tore open her collar. Seven cinnabar moles below her collarbone formed the shape of the Big Dipper, echoing the Xuanji star map.
She threw the purple-gold into the fire. Amidst the exploding green smoke, a holographic star map appeared—a projection created by the nanotechnology implant she had brought from her previous life when exposed to high heat.
"This is the Celestial Xuanji Instrument from overseas, capable of measuring military disasters across the four seas," she said, deliberately raising her voice. "The Shen Family wishes to present this map to the Imperial Court in exchange for the status of Imperial Merchant!"
Xiao Heng’s Steel Whip suddenly wrapped around her wrist, the golden-dragon tip biting into her Big Dipper mole. "Does the lady know that the crime of deceiving the Emperor is punishable by slow slicing?" His eyes reflected the swirling star map, yet his fingertip wrote the character for "Transport" on her palm.
When the rooster crowed at the fifth watch, Shen Xitang stood before the charred jacquard loom. Qingxing brought the brocade samples for the Imperial Merchant candidacy; the Ice Silkworm Silk shimmered with a cold blue in the morning light.
She melted the Ryukyu purple-gold into fine threads and wove them into the warp to create hidden patterns—when exposed to fire, they revealed the structural diagrams of heavy cannons.
"Are you really going to present this treasure, Miss?" Qingxing’s voice trembled. "Those Japanese..."
Shen Xitang brushed over the cannon patterns on the brocade, recalling the *Wubei Zhi* (Treatise on Armament Technology) she had flipped through in a library before her arrival in this world.
She pricked her fingertip with a silver hairpin. A drop of blood rolled across the warp and weft, instantly absorbed by the Ice Silkworm Silk. "One must let the right people see where this 'Tian Gong' truly belongs."
A bell tolled from the direction of the ancestral hall. Watching the rising sun, Shen Xitang saw the overlapping shadows of herself and Xiao Heng reflected in the dye vat.
The remnant copy of the *Tian Gong Textile Annals* in his hand was turning its pages without a breeze. A piece of mulberry paper tucked between the leaves revealed new characters: "Dragons fight in the wild, their blood is dark and yellow."
As the setting sun painted Suzaku Street in gilded gold, Shen Xitang’s brocade slowly unfurled in front of the Ministry of Punishments office.
The Ice Silkworm Silk chimed softly in the wind, startling the pigeons under the eaves. Their wings swept across the surface of the brocade, creating ripples that revealed a line of small seal script: "Xuanji illuminates the mountains and rivers, Tian Gong opens an era of peace."
Xiao Heng’s scabbard pressed against the edge of the brocade, and the hidden patterns emitted faint blue electric arcs upon touching the iron. He tapped the loom’s crossbeam with his fingers, and a chime-like resonance echoed from the wood: "The Imperial Merchant selection is in three days. Does the lady intend to present this electrified silk before the Emperor?"
"Has the official ever seen Fire-Washed Cloth?" Shen Xitang covered the brocade with a brazier. The Ice Silkworm Silk did not burn; instead, it precipitated fine gold leaf.
"The Fire-Washed Cloth offered as tribute from the Western Regions is woven with volcanic ash, but my 'Tian Gong Brocade' is quenched in sulfur." The gold leaf shifted in the flames to assemble a map of coastal defenses, with each island of the Japanese nation clearly marked.
The hand of the Ministry of Punishments official holding the brocade suddenly broke out in red rashes. Shen Xitang caught a glimpse of indigo powder in his fingernails and the corners of her lips curled slightly.
The warp and weft of this brocade had been soaked in saltpeter water; it corroded upon contact with sweat. It was specifically designed to test who in the court was colluding with the Japanese.
As the water clock dripped, Xiao Heng suddenly dismissed his subordinates. He loosened his bracer to reveal his forearm, where a jagged, old arrow scar ran beneath the entangled-branch pattern. A piece of Ryukyu purple-gold was embedded in the scar: "Twenty-third year of Zhenguan, the Directorate for Palace Manufactures received an imperial order to improve the Shenji Crossbow. My Xiao ancestors used Xuanji techniques to cast three thousand crossbows, only for them to be looted by sea pirates during transport..."
Shen Xitang’s silver hairpin suddenly pierced the purple-gold. Amidst the sparking flames, an image emerged—it was the same coastal defense map from her father’s study, only with several more artillery batteries marked along the coastline.
She suddenly realized that the crossbows lost by Xiao Heng’s ancestors and the weapons secretly forged by the Shen family were one and the same lineage.
When the fifth-watch clapper sounded, a disturbance occurred in the underground palace of the Shen ancestral hall. Shen Xitang snuck in with a glazed lamp and saw the twelve jade Guanyins rotating on their own, their spindles all pointing toward the direction of Japan.
She embedded the Xuanji Jade Pearl Lock into the floor tiles. With the roar of shifting mechanisms, the entire underground palace slowly sank, revealing a secret passage leading directly to the Yangtze River.
The stone walls of the passage were covered in annotations about coastal defense. One spot was marked in cinnabar: "Seventh day of the seventh lunar month, Year of Guiyou, the tide brings doom." Shen Xitang brushed over the raised carvings, suddenly remembering the Japanese lacquer box that had drifted down the river on the day her father died suddenly—it contained a tortoise shell engraved with the exact same words.
As the sound of water drew near, Qingxing suddenly grabbed her sleeve. A black-sailed ship was moored to the reef ahead. Half a "Cloud-Weaving" flag hung from the mast, its scorched edges forming the character "Xiao."
Shen Xitang gripped the Pear Blossom Rain Needle in her sleeve, hearing a familiar mechanical sound from the cabin—identical to the one inside Xiao Heng’s bracer.
"I trust you have been well, sister?"
Shen Yanzhou walked out of the cabin, his python-patterned robe replaced by a Japanese *jinbaori*, the Big Dipper pattern on his chest seeping with indigo-poisoned blood. In his palm, he held a gilded box; inside, the Ryukyu purple-gold was arranged in the shape of a cannon. "Does my third sister know that those who looted the crossbows back then were the ancestors of the Xiao official you so respect?"
Thunder cracked, and rain poured down. Shen Xitang’s glazed lamp illuminated the scene inside the cabin—twenty refined iron crossbows shimmered with cold light, each with a Xuanji Jade Pearl Lock embedded in the trigger.
She suddenly understood the "Regret" character her father had written in blood before he died; it was for this two-decade-long grievance.
"Did my brother think I didn't know?" She suddenly pried open the floorboards of the ship, revealing crates of sulfur gold underneath. "The ones who looted the ship back then were Japanese spies disguised as pirates. The Xiao ancestors sacrificed their entire clan to protect the crossbows, leaving only one line behind to investigate in secret..." The Pear Blossom Rain Needle burst forth, nailing into the chrysanthemum-patterned armor of the Japanese man behind Shen Yanzhou.
The river suddenly boiled, and several government ships broke through the waves. Xiao Heng stood at the bow, his Steel Whip entwining a burning command flag. "The Ministry of War decrees: those who privately forge armaments shall be executed without mercy!" The Shenji Crossbows held by the soldiers behind him were identical to the blueprints in the secret passage.
In the chaos, Shen Xitang fell into the river, the Ryukyu purple-gold burning hot against her chest. In her daze, someone pulled her onto a sampan, pressing the Big Dipper mole on her wrist against cold iron—it was the other half of the Tiger Tally from Xiao Heng’s bracer.
"Is Lady Shen willing to act as bait?" He slashed open his poisoned arm, black blood splattering onto the Tiger Tally to reveal a map. "The Japanese spies have been lurking for twenty years, waiting for the day the Imperial Merchant transports these weapons..."
Three days later, the Imperial Merchant selection took place. The "Tian Gong Brocade" Shen Xitang presented unfurled before the Fengtian Hall, the Ice Silkworm Silk shimmering with iridescent halos under the sun. As she kowtowed, the Ryukyu purple-gold fell from her sleeve, and the imperial guards’ blades instantly pressed against her neck.
"What the commoner wishes to present is not this brocade," she said, suddenly tearing open the interlayer of the silk, sending saltpeter powder flying into the air, "but the three thousand Shenji Crossbows lost by the Ministry of War twenty years ago!" The saltpeter ignited upon contact with fire, forming a massive nautical map in the air, marking the islands where the Japanese had hidden the crossbows.