The sundial’s shadow had just crossed the third quarter of the Hour of the Goat when Shen Xitang’s silver needle suddenly trembled violently against the Magnetic Pith Compass.
Xiao Heng’s Dark Iron Sword sheath was drawn magnetically toward the Imperial City—the eyes of the bronze Xiezhi statue before the Xuande Gate were glowing with an eerie indigo light, a reaction specific to magnetic ore exposed to extreme heat.
"Han Tuozhou actually hid his final trump card inside the belly of the Xiezhi!" Shen Xitang’s deerskin boots crunched over the Sulfur Crystals seeping through the cracks in the floor tiles; the flow patterns revealed beneath her Glazed Mirror lens led directly to the underground palace of the Imperial Ancestral Temple.
Chapter 81