Sludge suction system

Tan Ge knelt on one knee on the blue bricks of Qian Wanguan's study, with Tian Xue'er huddled behind him, her lotus hairpin still adorned with unmelted snowflakes. Qian Wanguan's jade thumb ring tapped incessantly on the rosewood tabletop, the candlelight casting the dark circles under his eyes into a deep pool. Behind him, the blood jade Guanyin statue on the antique shelf had fine cracks at the corners of its mouth, resembling the distorted shape of his lips.

"What did you say?" The jade ring suddenly crushed a chess piece. "That girl Sang Yu ran away with the tortoise shell?"

“Please calm down, my lord,” Tange said, lowering his eyes to avoid the flying jade fragments. “When the secret passage mechanism of the Sang Mansion was activated, I personally saw the tortoise shell glow in her arms, and the spacetime rift in the direction of the mineral vein also fluctuated.”

Qian Wanguan abruptly stood up, the gilded sword at his waist striking the corner of the table with an ominous clang. Yuan Xiangya's medical record glowed dark red in the candlelight, the annotation "Jade poison has attacked the heart, and medicine is ineffective" stinging his eyes. Three months ago, he had used the blood jade of eighteen concubines as a "living sacrifice" to prolong his wife's life, but last night he heard her coughing up blood mixed with jade-like fragments.

“Three months,” his voice was like sandpaper, his thumb ring pressed tightly against Tang Ge’s throat, “If you can’t get the Blood Jade back, you and Tian Xue’er will be buried with Xiang Ya.”

Tian Xue'er suddenly knelt down, the lotus pendant on her hair ornament hitting the brick surface: "My lord! I know Sang Yu's weakness! Her mother's old house is in the mass grave in the west of the city, I will definitely go and retrieve it..."

"What do you want?" Qian Wanguan lifted her chin with the tip of his knife, but his pupils contracted sharply when he saw the cinnabar mole on her collarbone—the location of that red dot was the same as the blood jade fragment embedded in Yuan Xiangya's heart.

Tan Ge suddenly pressed Tian Xue'er's shoulder, swallowing the rest of her sentence for her: "There is an old ancestral hall of the Sang family in the west of the city. I suspect that the 'resonance point' of the tortoise shell is there." The "Xuan" character tattoo that slipped off his sleeve flashed by. It was the mark that Sang Xuan used when he was adopted as a son. At this moment, it looked strangely bluish-gray under the light of Qian Wanguan's musket.

Qian Wanguan stared at the tattoo on Tan Ge's wrist and suddenly remembered the "Jade Man Cultivation Manual" in Sang Xuan's secret room—all adopted sons who had blood jade fragments implanted were potential "blood banks." "It's best not to try anything funny," he said, tossing down a bag of gold ingots mixed with a few blood jade fragments, "Take the 'Soul-Chasing Incense' with you; that thing can find Sang Yu by following the blood jade markings."

Tian Xue'er's hand trembled as she gripped the gold ingot; the lotus birthmark on her palm burned from the blood jade fragments. As Tan Ge helped her to her feet, he heard her whisper in a voice only the two of them could hear: "Age, that incense... it was ground from the ashes of the jade maiden..."

The sound of the night watchman's clapper came from outside the study; the third watch had passed. Tan Ge stared at the back of Qian Wanguan's neck, which was exposed as he turned around—there was a jade-like spot the size of a copper coin, exactly like Yuan Xiangya's ailment. He suddenly remembered the secret letter Sang Xuan had sent before he went to prison: "Qian Wanguan and his wife are already living dead. What they really need the blood jade is... the 'thing' inside their bodies."

The snow fell heavier and heavier, and Tian Xue'er's hair ornament broke in two in the wind and snow, revealing a note hidden inside—it was given to her by Sang Yu before he fled: "The blood jade of the Kunlun mine is not an antidote, but a poison. The way to save Yuan Xiangya is in the third stone pillar of the Wusheng Temple underground palace."

Tan Ge gripped the feathered serpent dagger at his waist, the lotus pattern on its blade resonating subtly with the tortoise shell pattern on Sang Yu's skin. He knew that Qian Wanguan's "three-month agreement" was nothing but a desperate struggle, and the real key to breaking the deadlock had already gone deep into the Kunlun Mountains with Sang Yu—where perhaps the secret of the Blood Jade was hidden, but the source of the curse on the entire Luodu Kingdom.

“Let’s go,” he said, pulling his cloak up for Tian Xue’er. “To the mass grave in the west of the city. There are some truths that Qian Wanguan should see.”

In the wind and snow, the lanterns of the Qian residence cast long shadows of the two men. Suddenly, the "Xuan" tattoo on Tan Ge's wrist ignited, subtly resonating with the direction of the distant Kunlun Mountains—not a signal of pursuit, but some ancient power summoning a true game-changer.

The night in the Kunlun Mountains was too cold, so Sang Yu found a secluded cave, started a fire to keep warm, and then fell into a deep sleep.

In the dream, the Buddhist hall of the Sang family mansion reeked of a sweet, metallic scent. Sang Xuan's silver hairpin traced a chilling arc in the candlelight. Xia Menglian's wrist had been slashed three times, and dark red drops of blood dripped into a lotus-shaped blood pool, activating the blood jade fragments at the bottom of the pool one by one. Sixteen-year-old Sang Yu hid behind a curtain, her nails digging deeply into her palms—the spirit deer-patterned handkerchief on her mother's wrist was soaked with blood; it was the birthday gift she had given her that morning.

“Menglian, you should be glad that Yu’er has the appearance of a ‘jade beauty’,” Sang Xuan’s sleeve slipped down, revealing the old blood jade scar with his daughter, “Her blood can revive the dragon turtle’s spirit bone, while you… you’re just paving the way for her twenty years ahead of time.”

Xia Menglian's voice was as soft as a whisper, yet it carried a chilling coldness: "Sang Xuan, do you think imprisoning the dragon turtle will grant you immortality? The souls of those jade maidens you buried alive have long since woven a web within the blood jade..."

The blood pool suddenly boiled, and the blood jade fragments at the bottom of the pool floated to the surface, projecting countless faces into Sang Yu's pupils—all of them were young ladies from the manor who had "died of illness" over the years, each with a blood jade fragment identical to hers embedded behind their ears. Sang Xuan's silver hairpin suddenly broke, and blood jade fragments splattered on his face, burning spiderweb-like cracks.

"Mother!" Sang Yu burst through the curtain, but was held down by the shadow guards. Xia Menglian used her last strength to tear off the handkerchief on her wrist. Half of the spirit deer pattern spun and pierced Sang Xuan's shoulder, while the other half floated towards Sang Yu. The golden thread on the edge of the fragment taut in the bloody light, brushing past the old scar behind her ear.

“Yu’er…go to Kunlun Mountain…” Her mother’s blood dripped into her palm, resonating with the fragments of the spirit deer pattern. Sang Yu suddenly saw countless images flashing in the blood droplet: the ice wall of the broken jade mine in Kunlun Mountain, the dragon turtle altar in the underground palace of Wusheng Temple, and the “jade man” skeletons piled up in the secret chamber of Sang Xuan.

Sang Xuan staggered, steadying himself against the pool of blood. The fragment of the spirit deer pattern on his shoulder was corroding his jade-like skin, revealing the dark red flesh beneath. "Stop her!" he roared, his voice laced with blood and foam. "Don't let that girl get her hands on the tortoise shell!"

Sang Yu grabbed the half-handkerchief her mother had left behind, turned, and rushed into the snowy night. The candlelight in the Buddhist temple went out behind her, but a ghostly blue light rose from the blood pool—the faint glow of countless beautiful souls, their hands traversing time and space to pave a fluorescent path for Sang Yu on the snow.

A rumbling, thunderous vibration came from the direction of Kunlun Mountain. Sang Yu knew that it was the Dragon Turtle Spirit Bone responding to the Blood Jade fragment within her body. She touched behind her ear; the old scar was emitting a faint light, merging with the spirit deer pattern fragment on the handkerchief, outlining tortoise shell patterns beneath her skin.

"Mother, wait for me." She whispered to the swirling snow, the fragments of the spirit deer pattern burning in her palm. "I will make Sang Xuan's blood sacrifice a thing of the past."

Inside the Buddhist hall, Sang Xuan gazed in the direction where Sang Yu had disappeared, new blood jade crystals growing from the wound on his shoulder. Trembling, he picked up the broken silver hairpin. The blood jade at the tip of the hairpin shattered in two, revealing the character "怜" (pity) engraved inside—a secret he had kept for twenty years, now gradually blurring into a blood-red color under the corrosive effects of the blood jade's toxicity.

Xia Menglian's body sank into the blood pool, and the fragment of the spirit deer pattern on her palm finally resonated with the dragon turtle spirit bone at the bottom of the pool. Beneath the lotus-patterned floor tiles of the Buddhist hall, the sound of gears turning came—that was the entrance to the Wusheng Temple's underground palace, slowly opening for the true game-changer.

"Mother, I will avenge you!" Tears streamed down Sang Yu's cheeks, her expression one of anguish, as if she were dreading a nightmare from which she could not wake.