Chu Lingxiao didn’t even draw the full length of her sword.
She tapped the iron pommel with her thumb. A two-inch sliver of bright silver blade cleared the scabbard, humming with absolute sharpness.
CLIK-CLIK-CLIK.
The three heavy soul-locks shattered like dry pine needles. The crimson paper talismans plastered across the spirit-iron door dissolved into gray ash.
Chu Lingxiao pushed the door with the toe of her boot. The iron slab swung open with a screech of rusted hinges.
A wave of bitter, sour air billowed out from the cramped utility attic.
The room was barely ten feet wide. Dusty crates and discarded broom handles were stacked against damp brick walls. In the far corner, huddled on a bed of moldy straw, sat an elderly man wrapped in heavy black-iron chains.
His gray hair was matted with dried blood. His cotton tunic was torn to shreds, revealing purple veins bulging across his collarbone where meridian-melting poison had blackened his skin. Around him knelt twenty young men and women in threadbare apprentice tunics, their eyes hollow with exhaustion as they tried to warm the old man’s icy hands.
